Beats Vinyl New Releases - News

Nested Structure is the first Great Circles release from artists outside of Philadelphia. THRIVE are Tetsuya Yoshida and Hitoshi Kojima. They both grew up in the North Kanto area of Japan. They first met at the club run by Tetsuya Yoshida called SOUND A BASE NEST, which is known as having the best sound system in the North Kanto area. In 2007, the duo started their DJ / Producing unit THRIVE. Previous releases have included a split 12" with

Keia Yano for Japanese label Struct, and recent solo releases by Hitoshi for Always Human Tapes and for his own label Ambivalent Deviation.

This record almost didn't happen! --- Tetsuya and Hitoshi were picking up Great Circles records in Japan and, having periodically communicated with each other about music, they sent us the Struct 12" to check out. While cleaning out the back of the car a few months later, the presumably empty record mailer was about to land in the recycle bin when we fortunately discovered a demo CD of unreleased THRIVE material inside. We drove around listening to it and week later we agreed to release a 12".

The music on the Nested Structure 12" is dark, foreboding, even outwardly threatening. It's hypnotic, textural and rhythmically complex.

New 2 Track 12" release from Chunky for Swamp 81 sublabel, 81. Mastered at Metropolis

Chunky returns to Swamp 81 sublabel 81 with two fresh tracks of dubbed out weight. Tolk to Meh keeps things purely low-end with a minimal vibe and that signature 81 bass. Track two Who Is That continues in a similar vein but takes things up a level and is primed to destroy any club soundsystem.

Killer punkrockdub album from 1983 finally reissued via the consistent Light In The Attic label. HUGE tip!!
Political post-punk trio This Heat dissolved at a turbulent time in the UK. Margaret The Iron Lady' Thatcher was in power, and her budget-cutting, ultra-conservative influence was felt strongly in-among many other places-the cultural melting pot of Brixton, South London, where This Heat had their origins. Dusting himself off after the collapse of the band in 1982, guitarist/vocalist Charles Bullen united with Julius Samuel to form Lifetones and embraced the sounds of the local West Indian community to fuse reggae flavor to the kind of propulsive, rhythmic, and experimental music made by This Heat.

Deceit, This Heat's 1981 album, had seen them work with David Cunningham, who had already helped mesh dub reggae with new wave pop on The Flying Lizards' 1979 single, Money (That's What I Want Want).' Even so, For A Reason was a great leap, one that created a strange, unsettling mood as Bullen's multi-tracked, chant-like vocals met dub beats and Krautrock-informed repetition. Where Deceit dealt with the nuclear threat, For A Reason was less reactionary, even quoting Bob Marley in its lyrics: you love the life you live, you live the life you love.'

Just six tracks and half an hour long, the album was recorded at Cold Storage studio and released on Bullen's own Tone Of Life Records. It has become a sought-after collector's item that changes hands for hundreds of dollars a time. As a solo artist, Bullen was not prolific-it was 15 years until, in 1998, he released Internal Clock under the name Circadian Rhythms-but like the rest of his band, he has enjoyed a long, enriching career in unending pursuit of new sounds.

Even though This Heat had no commercial success to follow up on, For A Reason was an album created with no intention of hitting the charts. Reissued on Light In The Attic, Lifetones' single album retains a timeless quality and perhaps-on tracks such as Good Side'-a futuristic sound that nobody else ever caught up to.

After the blunted murk of their previous self-titled mini-album on Idle Hands, Amos 'Jabu' Childs and Sam 'Neek' Barrett return to the place where their most fragmented ideas manifest in fleeting glimpses of tracks. Theirs is a teasing approach, where all the facets of a fully formed track are condensed down to one or two minutes of distilled excellence.Things have moved on since that previous eight-track skirmish (and indeed the excellentMemoryz Ov Ucassette on No Corner), as though someone has cracked the blinds in the cutting room where Childs and Barrett sit splicing together their bittersweet vignettes. "Oasis Weir" is an especially hopeful opening gambit with its sunkissed melodic inflections, but of course you can sense the disquiet behind the daydream. "I won't be long", the disembodied voice assures, but once you enter a record such as this time becomes something of an abstract. Even if it only lasts 20 minutes, listening toIDLE038 yields as much depth as any long-form LP.The point here is that the duo have left no room for fat. Every second of sonics counts for something, helping realise compositional perfection in a place free of arrangement, chasing the ultimate loop. From bruising darkness to heartbreaking beauty, the breadth and impact achieved in such a short space of time is testament to the continued development of this most precocious of Bristolian projects. It's another step on for O$MVM$M, and a further achievement for Idle Hands in the quest for ever more interesting sounds from the local area and beyond.

Following on from the acclaimed Talk From Home', Suzanne Kraft returns to Melody As Truth with a second full release, What You Get For Being Young'. Recorded in Amsterdam over the course of May 2016, What You Get For Being Young' offers a full immersion into Kraft's ever-evolving world. A Milky TIP!
.
Lush, digital manipulated synths spread across cold surfaces, metallic drums dance around skeletal song structures. Whilst echoes of Talk From Home' remain, they are but faint echoes, as Kraft's recent exploration into sound-design and digital manipulation confidently posits What You Get For Being Young'
as an entirely new chapter in the artist's growing narrative.

Artwork & layout by Michael Willis

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Reverse Tree, the new LP from the acclaimed duo of Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney, two musicians who have established themselves as powerful voices working at a unique intersection of contemporary composition, improvisation, and Asian traditional music forms. Either individually or as a pair, they have worked in contexts ranging from performances of traditional Persian and Javanese music to collaborations with Sunn O))), but their work together as a duo (documented on The face of the earth and Aestuarium, both released on Ideological Organ/Editions Mego) most clearly represents the central concerns of their diverse practices: a music of the inner life of sound, demanding ritualistic focus and promising heightened sensations.
On Reverse Tree, the duo expand their work together into the realm of the chamber ensemble, presenting two side-long works that feature Kenney's voice and Kang's viola alongside a multitude of other instrumentalists. Kang's Thoughts on Being Exiled to the Frontier, for Lord Wei, inspired by a text by the Tang dynasty poet Hsueh T'ao, features an all-star international ensemble: Kang, Kenney, maverick Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov on violin, Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, and guitarists Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley. The piece is primarily composed of irregular patterns of pizzicato notes and guitar harmonics, gently falling in and out of sync and providing a subtly unstable support for Kenney's voice, which sings long, wavering tones, at times reminiscent of Michiko Hirayama's classic performances of Scelsi. Drawing on 20th century instrumental techniques, alternate tuning systems, non-western music and the experience of nature (the irregular rhythms of the piece calling to mind nothing so much as drops of rain), the piece opens a space both serene and subtly uneasy.
Kenney's 'Elm features Kenney and vocalist Nova Ruth (of Filastine & Twin Sista) alongside an ensemble of strings and Seattle's Gamelan Pacifica, performing on Javanese instruments tuned to the slendro scale. An uncanny timbre created by bowing the keys of the Gamelan's instruments, supported by bowed harmonics from the strings, is heard consistently throughout the piece. After a long introductory section in which this harmonic cloud slowly descends from shimmering high notes to rumbling bass, the vocalists enter, singing a slow and stately setting of a 19th century Surakarta poem (attributed to Mangkunegara the IV). The melody is sung as a rich and wavering heterophony, with the ensemble sometimes rising up to support individual notes. The poem deals with the idea of a form of knowledge achieved through deeds, as a practice and state of the heart. This is music in slow motion, in which, in Kenney's words,

Philip Corner (b. 1933) is an American composer, musician and visual artist. His teachers include Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen. While on military duty in Korea in 1960-1961 he studied calligraphy with Ki-sung Kim and many of his works have calligraphic scores. A founder member of Fluxus, Corner has performed with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. From 1967 to 1970 he taught the course in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research, which John Cage initiated in 1956. He was a member of Judson Dance Theater as both dancer and composer and has written scores for dance pieces by James Waring, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs and Elaine Summers among many others. He lives in Reggio nell'Emilia with his wife and performing partner, the dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville. His wide-ranging output includes numerous works for gongs, bells, metal percussion and gamelan orchestra.

Philip Corner writes..., 'Hiah Park - new age shaman, then living in California (where else). My Korea connexion interest led me to a workshop she gave in New York, more sessions continued until the opportunity of really working together at the proposed seminar 'Art and the Invisible Reality' to be held in Bavaria. I revisited my old practice of 'metal meditations' specially reinterpreted to go with performance/dance derived from traditional shamanic practices (of which she a certified practitioner). Then done in Trento in front of the cathedral where we joked about when they burnd witches. After the two performances in Europe our association came to an end.

Sin Cha Hong, a great friend in New York and a fabulous dancer and choreographer. Truly profound and intense body-incorporated physicality serving a spiritual content in no need of official status. Her Korean-American company she called Laughing Stone (with its implicit antipod-olarity so seeming compatible with my own expression thru music), she used my anklung (Javanese bamboo rattles) quartet gamelan Adagio onstage for one of her solos.

For many years now she has been back in the Orient. We did reconnect in 1993, performing together in the festival 'The Seoul of Fluxus'. This recording I made alone in the New York loft with my 'familiar' - the large Paiste tam-tam: while holding her in my mind.

The dancer/shamans are, as their names show, from Korea - the country par excellence for this ancient form of religion incarnate. I have had a long a long continuing and most appreciative relationship to that country's culture, from 1960 when shipped as a trombonesman to the American occupying forces there and and turned on each afternoon listening to 'National (Kuk Ahk) Music Hour' their theme song 'Su Je Chun' - the most ancient piece from the court repertoire which I have never stopped hearing as the most beautiful music ever made. That, and the breakthrough composition 'Sang-Teh/Situations' which written and performed in Seoul in 1961, made this meeting and working with a genuine Korean shaman a spectacular amplification of my rapport.

It was the beginning of the years-long improvisation-meditation practice shared with many other dancers, including most notably Phœbe Neville, soon to become my wife, and still is.' - Philip Corner, Reggio nell'Emilia, 1st September, 2016.

Music For Dreams continue their high profile string of releases with this double album of dark pop brilliance from Danish newcomers Silent Riders. Apart from their names - Lu, Gee and C - little is known about this mysterious trio who wear masks during live performances. Emerging from some unknown murky world, materialising from the shadows in the woods, they have created a mythical sphere accessible only through their music - a vision of electronica that is organic and alive with both warmth and danger. Led by the sultry voice of Lu, we are drawn into the dark imaginings of the Silent Riders with almost cinematic brilliance as Gee and C man the machines that weave the atmospheric dronings of their world - a world that could be easily mistaken for one created by David Lynch or Tim Burton. The rhythms that form the path to this domain remind us along the way of previous travellers such as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire or Tolouse Lowtrax. With the opening track "I See You", Silent Riders offer up a brilliant pop diamond combining all elements of their distinctive sound palette. Lu's soulful voice bounces off almost funky drum machines, all drenched in layers of dark analog ambience. On the lush "Copenhagen Dream", Lu channels a sense of brit-pop nonchalance into a political song about the state of her city. In contrast, "Being Afraid" sees the band in their hardest grittiest mode - with Lu reminiscent of PJ Harvey at her most moody and the slow groove behind her like a factory machine beating and releasing steam.  Other highlights include the chilling "Static" and the ethereal beauty of closing track "Falling" which sees the Riders in their most relaxed and dreamy state, and echoes the works of Portishead and Massive Attack. A stunning debut - limited vinyl release - don't miss.

TyphOnian Highlife is the new moniker of Spencer Clark. Clark is the ultimate shape shifter, a trickster continuously mutating from a sci-fi hero, into a mystic guru or into a speculative
visionary. As Typhonian Highlife he assimilates juxtapositions of the natural world and fantastic technology to reanimate the manieristic tradition. His compositions envision possible futures and speculative pasts. They imagine a new vision upon mankind, as a mythical underwater creature who creates meaning through a prosaic mysticism.

His latest record, "The World Of Shells" works as an dream expedition that has overflowed itself into real time. Through continual material-world visualization a technological nature music unfolds as series of movements outlining the existence of Mythological African creature. Travelling through Hollywood, Hanging Rock, Australia, and The Ear of Dionysus in Sicily the creature was placed, and has enacted a music and art form that explores a sci-fi aquatic and wind-blown desert fusion to uncover the life and wanderings of this non-material being.

Wrriten, performed & produced by Spencer Clark
Mastered by Christophe Albertijn
500 copies
Artwork by Spencer Clark

In 2015, Jim Haynes accepted a residency at MoKS in the village of Mooste, Estonia to collaborate and contribute to Simon Whetham's Active Crossover series. For this particular incarnation of Active Crossover, well over a dozen international artists were invited to this region of Estonia to collect field recordings and engage in a cross-pollination of ideas, strategies, and concepts that spawned from those recordings. The refuse from Soviet-era industrial farming complexes, the droned blur of aeolian harps, massive oil tanks, and the torrent of noise from the Arctic wind ripping through an empty water tower -- these were some of the sites that this chapter of Active Crossover archived, with each participant encouraged to trawl through the archives in use of composition, performance, installation, etc.

Throttle and Calibration is the first in a series of albums that find Haynes digging through the Active Crossover archive and grotesquely exaggerating the details into exploded compositions of volatile dynamics, nerve-exposed dissonance, caustic shortwave signal abuse, and a considerable amount of scarred metal. Marked as one of the more discordant works to date in Haynes' career, Throttle and Calibration finds company near the Schimpfluch Gruppe's aktionist stains and the sour collages of 150 Murderous Passions (aka Nurse With Wound & Whitehouse).

Previously released digitally on Crónica, Throttle and Calibration is fleshed out with an additional 20 minutes of material. Haynes is a Bay Area artist, conducting research into the corrosion of sound, photography, and video. Previous recordings have been published by Editions Mego, Ghostly International, Intransitive, Hooker Vision, Elevator Bath, and the Helen Scarsdale Agency amongst others.

A. O Caminho - The Narrow Street
B. Fogos De Artifício - Sounds From The Valley
A portrait of the provinces. Recorded by Lieven Martens, in the hamlet of Teixeiró and the hills around Gestaço, north Portugal during a singeing August 2016. How exactly does the small group communicate ...

When Spacemen 3 - the seminal, drone-indulgent English psych duo comprised of Peter Kember and Jason Pierce - split in 1991, Pierce shuffled off to acclaim in Spiritualized. Meanwhile, Kember charted a less predictable course. As Sonic Boom, he released Spectrum in 1990, then, after taking a liking to that handle, released Soul Kill (Glide Divide) as Spectrum in 1992. Kemper alternated between those monikers and Experimental Audio Research (E.A.R.) throughout the 1990s, building a rich, probing catalog of synth and electronic explorations of which 1997's Forever Alien is an undeniable highpoint.

With theremin, vocoder, and an array of modular analog synthesizers (depicted lovingly in the cover art) Kemper, along with Alf Hardy and Pete Bassman, fused cosmische abstraction and the pulsation of minimalist composition to more traditional psych elements epitomized by early Pink Floyd. Landing between the unfettered experiments of E.A.R. and Spacemen 3's songcraft ( How Does it Feel' is scarily reimagined), Kemper crafts unnerving atmosphere on the title track and an enduring catalog high point on the consummate opener, Feels Like I'm Slipping Away.' Forever Alien leaves no doubts about the reasons for Kemper's sought-after production today (he played a vital role for Animal Collective and sculpted Panda Bear's most recent album) - nor the essential status of his post-Spacemen 3 output.

These are ambiences from Australian landscapes, recorded by Spencer Clark (Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Typhonian Highlife, The Skaters, et al). Forced by undersigned into the genus of the field recordist. Natural sounds are mirrored to a world of fabricated aquarium music. Where lorikeets and ocean waves serve as a counterpoint for beautiful, light background airs. The recorder cunningly observes a building where the tourist forages, and fascinates the sounds of lands that are forever spiritual to the native. Captured on handheld cassette recorder as both being a study, and a recorded keepsake. Resulting in a document that is a particular addition to Clark's catalogue, where the sacred, the mirth and the mundane forever morph.

Recorded by Spencer Clark. Edited by Lieven Martens. Mastered by Christophe Albertijn. Typography by Jeroen Wille. Offset / Full Color artwork.

A real masterpiece! This incredible double album recorded in 1974 truly is an astounding experimental mystical trip to the desert and comes with the original longer uncut tunes from the master tapes. The rarest avant-garde music library by Egisto Macchi (founding member of GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA) and surely one of the most interesting and intriguing experimental albums.

Hypnagogia is a word that describes the experience of transitioning from wakefulness into deep sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness phase' include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.

Shibuya Hypnagogia' is a 61-minute generative-music composition designed to induce the shift from full awareness into a state of deep delta. An alien transmission from the threshold of perception. A tool for introducing shifting gradients of consciousness. Trans-dimensional voices drift in and out over an ocean of gentle sonic-cascades. Sonic lifeforms hover weightlessly in your listening space. Sounds of ghosts in the wires. Nocturnal field recordings from Tokyo (Shibuya / Shinjuku) combine with prototype generative-music composition software to form this otherworldly audio landscape.

Mastering curves optimized for low-level playback. Tokyo recordings captured via Sound Devices 702 + Core Sound High End Binaural Microphones (DPA 4060 capsules). Mixed in real-time to a Tandberg TD20A recorder.

Recorded in 2006 and shelved until today -All Over Thereorbits the outer leftfield regions of known hip-hop galaxies. MC A's double, triple, quadruple tracked vocals are thrown around the mic like a nipponDanny Brownriding Aquadab's "Jan JelinekmeetsTimbaland" productions (his words).

Composed and resampled entirely on MPC 1000 and Kaoss pad - Aquadab claims most tracks were made in sub-2 hour improvised sessions. MC A's vox exist to us only as texture and punctuation -we're assured the lyrics are too abstract to translate(English titles have been provided for iTunes purposes).

The results are as unique as the artists involved are generally unknown. Aquadab has scored a lone remix on Japanese imprintAun Muteand MC A can be found on a few tracks by local hip-hop acts likeDJ Motive. Aquadab lives in Osaka - home to Bokeh alumni DJ Ground and Kabamix. MC A hails from Gifu, widely known as the home of Japan's master cormorant fishermen.

BKV008 is the final release from Bokeh Versions' first year of operations. 6 releases are confirmed for 2017: one cosmic dub reissue LP, one streetwear meets library tracks hookup, one 90s steppas remix 12", one Japanese exotica 7", one future roots dancefloor set and the next genesis of glacial dancehall.

150 copies, strictly limited c45 and digital.

We've spent years now going through the analog tapes from the cv313 project archives and we're excited to have the long sold out, "Dimensional Space" (LP Edition) from cv313 finally available on CD. We had to pay tribute to the brilliant artwork from Lindsay Todd @ Firecracker/House Of Traps and the superbly mastered recordings from Bazza @ Alchemy Mastering, London. This edition features selected content from the LP set and unreleased versions of, "Isis", a killer new cut from the "Beyond The Clouds" sessions titled, "Beyond Dreams", this edition also features 2 unreleased cuts which were scheduled to come out on the LP edition of the album but were omitted due to budgetary concerns, never to be heard - until now. This might be the soundtrack to the other side of the galaxy, a place where space meets bass. Epic in every sense of the word!

The newest record produced by the group of three - Ghedalia Tazartes, Pawel Romanczuk, and Andrzej Zaleski - is the result of only a few meet ups and a shared passion for music that shapes their perspective. The long play was recorded at the Rogalów Analogowy studio in the eastern part of Poland. It's worth noting that the space and surrounding countryside did not influence the sound itself as the record drifts away from the traditions of chamber music.

The musicians, together as well as separately, avoid any mainstream influences. Thus, the acoustic record is peaceful, spiritual and presents a wide variety of notions and emotions. The diversified vocal articulation and tone of Tazartes intertwines well with Zaleski's percussive play and Romanczuk's multi-instrumental skills. The rhythmic pulsation is constantly taking new directions, eventually turning into noise at some point. The voice, somehow dramatic, traps the listeners and sends them on a journey through non-existent quasi-stories. Here we are, facing an elusive romantic magician personified by a carp-headed cat.

French cult artist Ghédalia Tazartès is an uncompromising character who defies categorization. He recorded alone a dozen of albums, calling his way of working Impromuz' for lack of a better term. Before the years 2000s, his public appearances remained exceptional events. Ghédalia Tazartès' music has always been a mystery. It switches from musique concrète to - existing or invented - ethnic music, from poetry to noise, or from loops and collages to sad and extremely beautiful tunes in a second, but it constantly is in flux and coherent.
In 2004, Ghedalia finally decided to do live performances again. He first worked with other musicians (Les Reines d'Angleterre, David Fenech & Jac Berrocal, Norscq & Black Sifichi, Nicolas Lelièvre) and is now a solo performing artist (although his very young son sometimes joins him on stage!).
Since 2009 Tazartes played many shows across Europe. After performing a cinemix to the strange Haxan' film in 2008, he presented in February 2013 a new solo show at CTM in Berlin Festival to a packed HAU2. The new show is based around the music of Tazartes' lattest album 'Coda Lunga.' Says Tazartes: 'I thought I had only played for 5 minutes in Berlin... then I realised I had been going on for more than one hour!'

Pawel Romanczuk - musician, composer. Since 2006, he works within the field of unusual sounds sources. Romanczuk is a founder of the Polish artistic group Male Instrumenty with whom he recorded 10 albums. He composed several film soundtracks and collaborated with significant theatre houses. He's also famous for the various instruments, sound and audio installations he builds on his own.
In 2010, he published the first study on the history of the instrument toy piano.
In 2013, he wrote the book "Domowe eksperymenty z instrumentami muzycznymi" that was published together with his band's album Samorobka'. The publication became a guide to the process of creating hand-made and experimental musical instruments. He collaborated with Pierre Bastien, Margaret Leng Tan, Piotr Kurek, Nao Nishihara, Ksiezyc and Za Siódma Góra, Cezary Duchnowski, Andrzej Bauer.
He conducts workshops, lectures and develops exhibitions on the role of instruments and sound experiments. His music collaboration with Andrzej Zaleski and Ghedalia Tazartes started back in 2014, however, he was familiar with their music for quite a time.

Andrzej Zaleski - musician, filmmaker, curator.
He collaborated with: Ghedalia Tazartes, Aspec(t), Joe Giardullo, Eugene Chadbourne, Charles Hayward, John Hegre, Tatsuya Yoshida, Pavel Fajt, Sylvie Courvoisier, Vinz Vonlanthen, Male Instrumenty, Johannes Bergmark, Ralf Wehovsky, Jerzy Mazzoll, Andrzej Przybielski, Komora A, Jacek Staniszewski, Robert Nizinski (Ksiezyc) among many others.
He also played in bands like: Multicide, Mitch and Mitch, 3 Metry, Za Siódma Góra.
Cofounder of the theater group Komuna Otwock, collaborated with the Gardzienice Theater and Akademia Ruchu Theater.
Filmmaker ( The nature documentary series for Animal Planet and TVP2 ), experimental films.
Since 1993 he works as music curator of the Program Strefa', at the Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.

* New from Danse Noire (co-founded by Aisha Devi), also the home of Vaghe Stelle, El Mahdy Jr. and IVVVO, comes a blistering debut EP from GIL, 'Orchids & Wasps'. Drawing inspiration equally from emerging post-human theories and the surreal collage culture of underground circles, GIL's deft compositions conjure a multitude of somatic convulsions that transcends not just genre but the club environment itself. In keeping with Danse Noire's preceding releases, GIL invites interpretations of 'Onset' by global-minded producers J. G. Biberkopf (Knives) and Imaabs (NAAFI).

* It should come as no surprise that the Berlin-based producer's background includes training in modern dance, entering club circles while studying composition in Bern. 'Orchids & Wasps' begins as a statement of intent, laying down the gauntlet to the dancefloor but concludes as a fine example of chaos and harmony fighting over the same territory. As soon as rhythms settle they fall under their own weight; club music tropes gasp for air amongst the rubble of rapid-fire percussion; sampled melodies are chewed up and spat out in a vortex of tempo changes. The onslaught of body shocks
delivered by GIL becomes so intense that immediacy and timelessness become one, subsuming the listener into an abyss of swarming fevers.

Johann Malfatti is a composer and sound designer based in Berlin. He composes music for film & theatre as well as art projects. Over the years he has contributed to numerous music releases ranging from electronic music, noise to chamber pop on labels such as Deco, Klangkrieg, Fat Cat Records, Planet Mu, WMF Records, Subrosa and Polydor. Most notably, he is part of Ensemble (Fat Cat Records) that has collaborated with Björk, The Twighlight Sad and Cat Power. In his solo work he composes for solo piano, drawing inspiration from computer-based processes like granular synthesis and time stretching algorithms.

Surge (Glacial Movements) marks his first solo release and is an ambient album of sonic landscapes dealing with the perception of time.

Surge was written in the winter of 02016 in the Austrian alps. The music is based on textural developments that evolve very slowly over time. The composition tries to evoke a sensation of experiencing a slower, deeper layer of time. It draws inspiration from concepts like geological time and pace layers, that describe the idea of different scales of time. Most processes in nature are too slow to be perceived by the human senses. We merely experience the ripples on the surface, like the passing of hours, days, of changing weather or trends in fashion. The all underlying stream of geological change, like the flow of glaciers or the drifting of continents, is outside our field of experience. However, some events bring these streams closer to the surface. In a glacial surge, the flow velocity of a glacier suddenly increases up to tens of meters per day, making the otherwise imperceptibly slow movement tangible. As in earthquakes, the geological dimension of the process at hand is transposed into the realm of human experience. In that same sense the composition acts as a window into the vastness beyond it's sonic surface. The music has the viscosity of a slowly moving mass of ice. Like a glacier, that contains thousands of layers of snow, the vertical structures of the sonic layers are infinitely complex and ever changing. From minimal textures of white noise grow massive swells of sound. From floating fields of color rise mirages of melodies. Inspired by the music of Morton Feldman, John Cage, John Luther Adams and Radu Malfatti, Surge is an abstract state of non-time and non-space in which the listener is kept suspended in a sonic haze. The music stays intangible and abstract, yet vidid and full of details. Static, yet transient. It is neither now nor past nor future.

Finally a new record of the London / Berlin based sophisticated lo-fi pop duo whose debut was described by Boomkat as "a killer amalgam of squashed beats, lo-fi pop & narcotic, slo-jams". "Ko Yo" is the last track Antony and Birch have written for the new album "If I Come Along, If I come Alone" which will see the light of day in 2017. The six tracks of "Ko Yo" are dealing with how the female soul travels by means of the voice, Haitian Voodoo, passive vegetarianism, lost chances, lost memories, The Tibetan Book Of The Dead & mantras of lifespan reduction, social dissonance & a sense of home.

"fragmented, distorted pop music, and its melted concoction of influences - from 80s no-wave to contemporary R&B - is transformed into an inebriated haze of synthesizer and vocals" - FACT

Following on from 2015's praised "Foray" LP, berlin-based SUBHEIM releases his new "Trails" EP on Denovali Records. As with any Subheim release, it is important to consider your frame of mind when listening to his music. "Trails" takes the listener on a very personal journey with intent, riding upon an undercurrent of impending necessity. There is simplicity in its design, though the further you delve the more complex it becomes.

"Trails" opens with the sounds of slow-building, wavering and breathy strings. Soon you, the subject to this music, are guided onwards with the support of confident tribal drums, haunting vocals, otherworldly metallic sounds and muted guitars that ring across the plains.

Having arrived at a place of calm, we are next transported in an altogether more sinister direction through the soundscape of Ego. Desert winds and affected vocal samples provide the backdrop for disconcerting harmonies and long sustains, and through the expectant ticking of a regular clock-like beat we are reminded that we have only made it part-way along our journey.

Forsaken Pt.II is an altogether more minimal territory to inhabit. With the instantly recognisable return of its guitar melody and a lilting, dry kick there is, at first, less sense of urgency as we sift through the murkiness of this familiar territory. And so it makes way for John Lemke's remix of Trails. With a subtle yet noticeable increase in tempo and set to an irregular yet constant techno kick, it wears a furrowed brow, pushing itself forward with confidence and conviction.

UnicaZürn (David Knight and Stephen Thrower). UnicaZürn build their long, ceaselessly evolving musical compositions through a process of improvisation followed by careful editing and processing. Their music, drawn from subconscious associations while recording, is frequently aquatic or oceanic in overall mood and texture. Knight has spent most of his life living on the banks of the Thames while Thrower resides on the East Sussex coast, and their musical flights of imagination tend toward rolling river dynamics and the open seas of synthesised sound. For UnicaZürn, tidal imagery, oceanic forms and the slow rhythms of coastal water are a recurring structural presence, with strong associations of rootlessness, of being far away from home, a stranger in a strange land. The inability of human lungs to breathe water endows rivers and seas with a special poetics: a boundary between two different but inter-related states. On the one hand, solidity, clarity, definition, on the other, fluidity, uncertainty, dissolution. The sense of a threshold between opposites gives rise to an elusive otherness, suggesting a portal through which the everyday world can be escaped. Death under the water, the survivors of a lost kingdom clinging to the rocks of an unfamiliar island, a coastal boat ride into deepest abstraction, a deserted beach expressing a world outside reality. A sexual frisson too: a hovering at the brink, poised at the turbulent edge of pleasure, swept away into oblivion. Do we head toward the sea when we want to escape And at the coastline, do we walk to the edge because we want to jump, or be swept away by an unexpected wave There's a darkness in the sea, even if illuminated by the most dazzling sunshine. Open horizons shows the clutter of our lives to be transient, and as we look to the sea we feel a dizzying sense of the eternal. Aquatic sensibility, oceanic timescales: the action of the salt sea beating on the shore. Each grain of sand a rock smashed to dust. Beaches are cosmic, elemental. They are images of time. UnicaZürn's core instrumentation blends analogue synthesiser, mellotron and electric piano with electric guitar and clarinet. Both Thrower and Knight draw upon their love and wide experience of of electronic music, from the outer shores of Stockhausen to the outer spaceways of Tangerine Dream. In addition, Knight is reknowned for his pioneering multi-textured fretwork with Danielle Dax and his ambient guitar settings for Lydia Lunch, while Thrower's reed playing provided a distinctive melancholy in Coil and emerged as electro-acoustic texture in Cyclobe. The title "Pale Salt Seam" is drawn from the poem "Night-Song of the Andalusian Sailors" by Federico García Lorca. Parts of "Pale Salt Seam" were recorded live at the Ironmongers Row Baths on 2nd March 2013.




[D] B1 | Pale Salt Seam 1 (feat. Stephen Thrower & David Knight)

12" clear marbled 180g vinyl, recycled grey sleeve

"Eigenleben" was written and produced by Holger Flinsch & Martin Müller from March '05 till June '06 in Hochtaunus, Ohmgebirge and Humboldthain. After 10 years it is the first time available as limited clear marbled 180g vinyl.

Creating something selfexistent might be the most difficult part of doing arts - something that isn't just a rigid thing but an entity of itself. Our goal is to bear something upon our technical possibilities without involving any other entity's energy.

Our selfexistent entity should be made up of dead matter and brought to life by technical components which interact with their surrounding and make decisions based on observations which are being analyzed and torn through programs to calculate potential procedures. It should not be limited to its current level of experience. To remain state-of-the-art, apprehension and intelligence are indispensable capabilities our entity should be able to make use of.

The needed technology is basically built on coincidental scientific observations which have been analyzed, processed and at best industrialized. This only works on repetitive or - even better - repeatable processes, because otherwise an industrialization would make no sense. As a result nature is being squeezed into our own pattern of predictability.

But there is a fundamental problem: intelligence cannot be satisfied with predictability. Entities bound to programs are always waiting for known and already categorized input. They cannot handle yet unknown impressions or re-categorize them. Intelligence is beyond predictability - it deals with the unknown and tries to integrate it into the limited and predictable world, of which itself is - and will always be - part.

We have to ask ourself: will it ever be possible And is it worth it all

'After what seems countless collaborative releases, Killawatt & Ipman start work under their new guise, Send. This first release on Ruffcut, albeit just one track, sees them progress their lack of respect for genre boundaries and conventional structures into a wonky, polyrhythmic, head-spinning salute to jungle, dub & grime.
The b-side brings one of the brightest young sparks in the scene, Gantz, on board for the remix. He works the original into a rolling,
dark side steamroller, like something from an 80's horror b-movie. Off centre rhythms, repetitive sequences and psychedelia pin this
track together providing an excellent contrast to Send's original.'

Shipwrec are opening a new style chapter with Coco Bryce. Dub, jungle, skwee and breakbeat come together to form the signature sound of the Myor label boss. From laid back Caribbean rhythms to sweat dripping bedlam, Coco Bryce comes with melting pot bubbling over with influences and styles. Mesak and FFF have been drafted in on remix duties, each adding their own flavour to this heady brew. A 12" brimming with exotic spices and sounds from an artist who dares with his musical ingredients.

Over the last 12 months Lee Bannon's transition into Dedekind Cut has yielded some of the most curious, immersive electronic music from the USA. His transformation now appears to be complete with the strikingly spacious and absorbing ambient sound designs of $uccessor, the NYC-based artist's debut album in this guise.

It feels as though Bannon's previous releases, American Zen for Hospital Productions, and the scything torque of R&D with Rabit, were cleverly planned stepping stones into this brave new world, where he establishes a dream-like topography of diaphanous ambient pads pitted with the shrapnel of grime and trap, ultimately revealing a simulated, otherworldly environment deeply personal to the artist.

His amalgamation of layered ambient dimensions with haunting harmonic figures nods to early '90s AI and electronica from FSOL to Coil via the antecedent spheres of modern sci-fi and computer game soundtracks, whilst also existing in a history of North American computer music and noise that connects to the spirits of Prurient and Carl Stone.

We're parachuted in like an avatar in No Mans Sky to the lush levels of Descend From Now, streaking across the iced out sino-eski zones of Instinct to the heart-rending eight minutes of Conversations with Angels and the perpetually elusive rhythms of Fear In Reverse, before he reaches to more optimistic new age planes on the aching chamber figure, 46:50.

It's telling that the album is brought to you via two highly individual labels such as Non and Hospital Productions - this meeting of worlds provides a context for the music itself, making for an album that we'd recommend as much to those of you who have enjoyed recent outings by Chino Amobi, Rabit or Arca, as much as followers of Prurient or, indeed, Dominick Fernow's Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement project. It's easily one of the most absorbing, sometimes disturbing Ambient albums you'll hear in 2016.

Graciously welcoming the second full-length lp from Philadelphia's Jesse Dewlow, recording under the moniker People Skills. The follow-up to 2014's Siltbreeze set Tricephalic Head. Ten sunken songs, derisively adorned with rhythm and rudimentary dub effects. Bedroom elegies for the lost and irretrievable, last-ditch spells for transformation and renewal. Thurston Moore and Byron Coley likened the previous record to South Island NZ pop played inside of an armored car', and that description holds here: underneath the hoods of these wracked and weather-beaten recordings are melodies of disarming beauty and optimism, bordering on the (wilfully) mawkish, bubblegum ground underfoot. Each piece as time-stopping and evocative as an old photograph of someone who used to mean something. Whether speaking through stately keyboard pastorals ('Mint Julep'), rat-arsed rock 'n roll slur ('89¢ Public Render') or sulphurous aggro-electronics (the two-part title track),Gunshots At Crestridge exposes, then seeks to redeem, all our tiny acts of self-sabotage, all our sins against time. When to stay, when to go...you never got it right, not once.

For more than a decade now Ryan Teague has walked an unpredictable musical path, treading and blurring the lines between classical, electronic, acoustic and soundtrack influences. His latest album Site Specific is yet another twist and turn on this intriguing journey. Still present are the minimalist polyrhythms, electro-acoustic instrumentation and cinematic ambience that have come to define his style, but this time - incorporating a full band - the themes are framed through a lens which also takes in improvisation and minimal jazz.

Key collaborators include Gareth Davis (Bass Clarinet) and Dan Nicholls (Rhodes Piano), who weave subtle melodies and textures throughout. The resulting soundscapes echo the timeless feel of In a Silent Way era Miles channelled through a contemporary palette. The music is at once expressive, dynamic and exciting whilst demonstrating sensitive restraint appropriate to its minimalist objectives.

Glitchy ambient opener Wide Angle sets the tone perfectly and makes way for the likes of Second Scene with it's brooding bass, dark drums and minimal melodies. Elsewhere Surface Tension takes a fragmented string loop on an epic cinematic journey, whilst title track Site Specific sets agitated drum rhythms and cutting bass against freeform Rhodes and echoing horns in an intense showdown.

Ryan has demonstrated time and again that he is unafraid to try something new and Site Specific is no exception. But there's a newfound sense of focus and energy here and something genuinely fresh and exciting seems to have emerged.

First full-length album by Sean McCann since 2013's Music for Private Ensemble (R5). Three years in the making, Public Ensemble employs the talents of many Recital allies, a mélange of voices and instruments: violin, viola, cello, contrabass, piano, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, flute, trumpet, pedal steel, electronic keyboards (organ, farfisa, harpsichord), percussion, other sounds, tape, and a lamp. Many of the pieces include recited text, reflections stemming from McCann's book Pacifics (R14). The narrative is meaningless or meaningful.

Players: Ben Baker Billington, Andrew Chalk, Kayla Cohen, Ian William Craig, Maxwell August Croy, Sarah Davachi, Hank Doyle, Matthew Erickson, Scott Foust, Rob Frye, Celia Hollander, Seth Kasselman, Graham Lambkin, Gabi Losoncy, Rob Magill, Sean McCann, Erica McLachlin, Dave McPeters, Nour Mobarak, Allen Mozek, Tom James Scott, Zachary Paul Schwartz, Troy Schafer, Cameron Stallones, Nick Storring, Matthew Sullivan, Lillian Paige Walton

Rose-Paste Chorale: Kayla Cohen, Maxwell August Croy, Morgan Fox, Spencer Grady, Ursula Grady, Benjamin Lovell, Greg Manata, Erica McLachlin, Crystal Myslajek, Matthew Sage, Paula Schanes, Zachary Paul Schwartz, Alex Twomey

Limited Edition of 500 copies includes a 12-page pamphlet with texts, program notes, & artwork.

Two sidelong excursions by Erik K Skodvin aka Svarte Greiner. Side A is a moving piece, it features a disorientating bassline in slow motion, creeping underneath some delicate work of strings. There's a certain flirtation with the sublime here, but then the track enters some strange landscape, "a desolate wasteland filled with electric organisms." Side B is an epic drone piece called 'Garden'. A Garden, which is dark and comforting at the same time. Recommended!

label info:
Erik K Skodvin returns with a focused new album under his Svarte Greiner moniker by releasing two side-long cinematic compositions, continuing where he left off three years ago with the album Black Tie.

The Marble patiently sets the tone with a slow moving wall of strings underlaid by a warped bass line. A feeling of weightlessness covers the ground while empty space surrounds you in an embracing yet uneasy way. It's a gloomy territory with an unexpected extent of grace to encounter. Time gradually illuminates several stages of light and dark before revealing a desolate wasteland filled with electric organisms.

Garden strikes heavily with rattling string hits and low bass waves quivering through your skull, transforming the scenery into a fallow that is staring right back at you. This could easily be the soundtrack to a nightmarish sleeplessness if it wasn't for carefully scattered comfort zones to be found in unknown territory: What appears to be violent at first soon reveals sheer reflective beauty. However, it is patience and repeated listening that liberate the aspired altered state of consciousness. Originally composed for Marit Følstad´s installation art, Moss Garden more than ever consolidates Erik Skodvin's individual idea of soundscape. You can interpret his approach as an embodiment of the word Terrific's amelioration: Developing from Terrifying over Intense to its modern understanding in a little more than two centuries. Svarte Greiner reenacts this metamorphosis within a single recording.

Available as 3LP set for the first time, incl. 6 pages poster featuring extensive critical and biographical notes!

This 3rd volume continues to show all the aspects of electronic music from the early beginning until now - including 2 pieces of historical concrete music (of the 70's), several piece of American tape music (Columbia University) with a special focus on all the electronic music from Germany - WDR early works - krautrock - electronic from 90's... Also featuring some recent work of the greatest noise artists + several unsung electronic pioneers ...

Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first vinyl issue of Keiji Haino's Milky Way. Originally released as a limited CD in Japan by the short lived Mom 'n' Dad Productions in 1993, this release documents a blistering live performance recorded in Kyoto in 1973, five years before the formation of the first line-up of Fushitsusha, and eight years before Haino's first solo album. Working with a mysterious set-up including primitive electronics, homemade acoustic instruments, piano and voice, Haino lets loose a single 48-minute psychedelic maelstrom, marrying the immersive echo-fields of kosmische music to the rough and ready hands-on feel of classic 1960s live electronics à la MEV or Ashley's Wolfman. Despite the absence of guitar, this recording clearly lays the groundwork for the epic blowouts which were to make Haino's name in years to come, building up to a point of almost unbearable intensity in its final minutes as Haino's voice wails over a wall of distorted DIY electronics. At times presaging the psychedelic noise of C.C.C.C., Milky Way shows Haino's singular intensity and ritualistic performance style already in full flower at this early date in his long career. Presented in raw and immediate room fidelity (complete with dramatic tape drop-out), this is both an essential historical document and a classic performance in its own right.
key selling points:
- First vinyl issue of Keiji Haino's Milky Way documenting a blistering live performance recorded in Kyoto in 1973,
- Historical document recorded five years before the formation of the first line-up of Fushitsusha, and eight years before Haino's first solo album.
- A single 48-minute psychedelic maelstrom, marrying the immersive echo-fields of kosmische music to the rough and ready hands-on feel of classic 1960s live electronics à la MEV or Ashley's Wolfman..
- Presented in raw and immediate room fidelity this is both an essential historical document and a classic performance in its own right.
- Instrumentation includes piano, tape echo, voice, Electro Harmonix ring modulator, 'Psychedelic Machine', junk oscillator, handmade reed instrument, rhythm box
- Presented in a deluxe heavyweight sleeve with an inner sleeve featuring Haino's poetry in Japanese, with English translation by Alan Cummings Original design by Keiji Haino & Yasunori Arai
LP reissue design via Stephen O'Malley

Peripheral Minimal is proud to announce the forthcoming album, 'Aus Den Anti-Imperialistischen Tagebu¨chern', by In Namen Des Volkes.

INDV is the brainchild of Hamburg resident Matthias Schuster (also of Bal Pare, Das Institut,Geisterfahrer and others), and creates a more heavy-weight style of Minimal Synth in the spirit of D.A.F., or even early Front 242. The tracks were taken directly off cassettes and reworked with added vocals, whilst maintaining the original 80s recording techniques of 4-track and purely analogue instrumentation, strictly no plug-ins or digitalism here!

Matthias has been actively producing complex synthetic sounds since the late 1970s, having released seminal albums and singles on respected labels such as, Plastic Frog, Minimal Wave and Medical Records. His passion for all things analogue seems to be irrepressible, devoting a considerable amount of time to myriad projects each with their own unique qualities and sonics. He musically switches from Neue Deutsche Welle stylings, to Minimal Synth and proto-EBM with great dexterity and a rare continuing dedication.

The album is presented in a luxurious digipak and limited to 300 copies. Recorded between 1980 - 2015. Artwork by Kilgore Trout.

Datashock from Saarlouis, a collective of multi-instrumentalists. Founded in 2003, they've been losing themselves in the wardrobes of their subconcious ever since and have never been frightened to play around with whatever they can find in there, trying out colourful sound-costumes and sending out psychedelic-experimental sounds, with a huge discography counting more than 30 between albums, eps and miscellaneous.
Their latest work "Keine Oase in Sicht" released on Dekorder in May2014 has collected some great feedbacks from the like of The Wire, Pitchfork and more.With "HD Trailer EP" they find in Gang of Ducks a new sympathetic home where going ahead with their unique psychedelic sound.The cosmic caravan takes its journey in 4 different original tracks, exploring the psycho acoustic sound with echoes of far and never existed worlds together with an irreverent vision of our world today, with its new mania and obsessions.Printed in 180gr vinyl, matt laminated cover plus free digital download

Debut solo release from Midnight Circuitry, showing a dark, polished amethyst with aromatic notes of white pepper, tobacco, and black currant; silky with a palate of dark plums, black raspberry, and hints of French vanilla. Closes with subtle tart black cherry and a lengthy, structural finish.