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The begena is a large ten-stringed lyre which is part of the traditional Amharic heritage of Ethiopia. The Amharas, who have long formed the politically and culturally dominant people of Ethiopia, mainly inhabit the central and northern part of the country. In the majority, they follow the monophysite Orthodox Tewahido Church established in the early fourth century AD.

Music plays a very important part in the life of the church. Most of the liturgy is sung and, contrary to secular music, it is accompanied by percussion instruments only. The begena occupies a special place because it is the one melodic instrument exclusively dedicated to the spiritual repertory. Because of its mythical origin, it is highly respected. Tradition holds that the begena was given to king David by God, and brought to Ethiopia by Menelik I, together with the Ark of the Covenant. It has always been the instrument of kings and nobles. Played by pious men and women of letters, it never became widespread. But it never disappeared either, not even under the Derg regime (1974-1991) which had banned the instrument.

Among Amhara string instruments, the begena is the most carefully crafted, especially with regard to the ornately sculpted crossbar. Its ten gut strings are cleaned and twisted several times. The characteristic buzzing timbre equalled by no other Amhara instrument is due to the enzirotch, that is, small bits of leather placed between each string and the bridge. This plays an important part in the sound production by creating a brief contact between the string and the upper rim of the bridge, thus modifying the vibrating properties of the string. In this manner, the spectrum of the sound is considerably enhanced (up to over 10 kHz).

The begena is a very powerful instrument, it keeps the devil thirty steps away, and its presence in the home wards off malicious spirits. Priests and preachers recommend its presence, especially during Lent (Fassika Tsom) when the Orthodox Amharas ponder their sins and repent. Because of its spiritual import, the begena generates intense emotion. According to some musicians, playing the begena brings them into direct contact with God or the Virgin Mary. The religious role of the begena is underscored by the shape of the instrument, each part symbolises an important element of the faith. The crossbar for instance, which reaches across the entire width of the instrument, represents God who is above all things. The belly which "gives birth" to the sound represents the Virgin Mary, and the ten strings recall the Ten Commandments.

Recorded by Stéphanie Weisser in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 2002-December 2005.

Mastered by Renaud Millet-Lacombe.

Issued under license from VDE-Gallo, Switzerland.

We are excited to announce the release of a new album by Solidwood, Life Of Relative Bliss, available starting June 20, 2025. The album will be released exclusively on vinyl and will be ready for distribution to independent record stores next month.

Life Of Relative Bliss is the second chapter of Solidwood’s musical journey.

This album delves into the ephemeral nature of human happiness: a relative bliss, never absolute, that constantly drives us to seek new personal gratifications. The tracks reflect on how each joyful moment is often followed by a sense of longing, fueling a continuous cycle of desires and expectations.

As most of us now live in a world saturated with information, this album feels like a reflection of how the modern world might sound if it were to process its own chaos through a unified scream. Hailing from the highlands of Bandung, West Java, a city where tradition and modernization intertwine in the rhythm of daily life, Xin Lie unpretentiously translates this cultural fusion into a sonically rich and rhythmically bold debut LP.

The artist’s roots in the hardcore and punk scenes reverberate throughout the album, though they’ve been reshaped and refined for the club. There’s an undeniable pleasure in experiencing the chaos Xin Lie channels—irregular beats, dynamic frequencies, and disjointed grooves collide and expand, each track laced with a sense of unpredictable energy. Yet even in its most chaotic moments, the music feels deliberate, its edges softened by a sense of compositional care.

The album reveals a strange duality: tracks that seem to beckon you to the dance floor but never quite let you settle there. Frequencies flicker and fluctuate in patterns that feel just slightly off-grid, as though resisting traditional structures. Yet, amidst the digital textures, Xin Lie weaves in organic sounds—snippets of native conversations or environmental noise—creating layers that feel both intimate and expansive.It’s fair to say this album extends far beyond the boundaries of today’s club music.

Picture this: you’re moving through your daily routines—mundane, repetitive—and suddenly, the music shifts your perspective. It reframes the ordinary as something surreal, as though it’s deconstructing itself in real-time, breaking into fragments or conjuring entirely new forms. Perhaps it’s best imagined as the soundtrack to a multi-sensory art installation or a performance staged not in a gallery but in an unassuming house down your street. Who’s to say where it might take you?

Julius Smack collaborated with a fictional AI assistant to create the new album which explores his origins. It is set in a near-future Earth where artists and AI share a symbiotic bond and aims to reflect a world where beauty and violence intertwine. Artists are the last human survivors in this place and they mine their memories and dreams with AI in order to generate art which sustains them but also produces toxins that must be expelled with each new creation. Starlight then is an album which challenges AI's role in creativity and labour, and blurs the lines between art and reality, all while giving rise to a thoughtful and immersive album of innovative ambient.

Limbo Tapes boss Titus XII returns with a sample-rich album of feral beats, degraded meditations, and graphic dubwise. Blurring hip-hop and dub techniques with a taste for the melancholy, this is cinematic armchair listening with its own corner of moody nostalgia, macabre humour, and the menace of sound system culture.

The International Archives of Popular Music (AIMP), affiliated with the Ethnographic Museum of Geneva (MEG), is a label and collection dedicated to the preservation of world music. Founded in 1944 by musicologist Constantin Brăiloiu, it gathers over 18,000 recordings, from wax cylinders to digital formats. AIMP releases albums and collaborates with artists such as Midori Takada, exploring the connections between sound archives and contemporary creation. Through these projects, the label preserves and reinterprets musical traditions on a global scale.

ML performs the most romantic, hypnotic guitar loop - live from under the sink! On the B-side, a coffee machine imitates a cyborg’s cleaning organ.

“Babyyyyyy, where r uuuuuu?”

Comes with special handmade design and two speed options! Very low business risk.

Mastered by Maximilian Schweizer at SMS™.

James Bernard's 1994 ambient masterpiece Atmospherics is now 30 years old. To mark its anniversary the landmark record has been meticulously remastered and paired with a brand-new, track-by-track reinterpretation by Bernard's longtime friend and collaborator, bvdub. Together, these works span four slabs of wax and offer a profound exploration of ambient soundscapes that honour the original while also presenting some fresh, emotive perspectives. A must-have work for your ambient section.

"Goodbye 20th Century", a double album originally released in 1999, features versions of pieces by avant-garde composers such as John Cage, Yoko Ono, Steve Reich and Christian Wolff played by Sonic Youth and various collaborators such as Christian Marclay, William Winant, Wharton Tiers and Takehisa Kosugi.

ntroducing World of Rubber 4, a bold compilation featuring five cutting-edge tracks from trailblazing artists who push the boundaries of sound and embrace the label's signature non-conformity. This collection showcases a wide sonic spectrum, from experimental vocal pieces to club ready floor killers. With work of Indonesia's Senyawa, where vocalist Rully Shabara's electrifying range blends with Wukir Suryadi's processing of (handmade) instruments. Hailing From the UK, MAP 71 offers hypnotic poetry layered over pulsating electronics, driven by Lisa Jayne's surreal lyricism and Andy Pyne's ritualistic rhythms. Swedish experimental techno producer Peder Mannerfelt brings his raw energy and genre-defying sound. Dutch techno pioneer Unit Moebius Anonymous takes a second stab at Juzer, a project by Beau Wanzer and Dan Jugel, delivering heavy hitting industrial-tinged rhythms. Lastly, The Modern Institute brings their avant-garde, deconstructed take on techno, blending industrial noise and playful experimentation to create a truly unpredictable sonic experience. Cut by Simon - The Exchange, pressed on opaque white vinyl, Limited to 200 copies.

Following up on the 2024 released remix album You Are Dreaming! Random Numbers continues its presentation of La Serpiente’s immersive output with Elaphe Dione: The first full-length album of the multifaceted producer and a matured imprint of his distinct sound. The record includes five tracks and a digital bonus exhibiting a sonorous marriage between post-industrial esotericism and club-ready psychedelia; A labyrinth of elaborate sound design coiling around sharp rhythms, adorned by fractured voices spawned in obscure worlds. With sensibility towards granular detailing amidst a powerful cascading flow, La Serpiente’s versatile sonic arrangements coalesce into music that always breathes – A drifting current of enchantment materializing as a release that is both ornamental and symbolic in its vision.

Music from Pierre Chindemi archives. Ivrea born and based, founder and member of Drink To Me band.
Under several aliases (One Eye, Vülvá, Low Waves, Sui, Hawaii8, Bitch Volley) he produced more than one hundred tracks between 1999 and 2021.
Some were released on Stupro brucio Records, others online.
Many of them remained unreleased.
Cassettes, multitrack tapes, lost hard disks.

It was time to open this archive.

Definitely a trip into a darker dimension

Introducing the new Prison Brain imprint for downtempo and ambient lovers. Solidwood's first solo release “The Surprising Secret" offers a wider exploration into the the world of the Italian producer. All six tracks were composed in southern Italy during the pandemic's rolling stay at home. Music is his language and his communication tool

Australian minimalist-jazz trio The Necks' 20th studio album, Bleed, explores a sublime language of stillness. With a single, 42-minute composition, The Necks masterfully express the unspeakable beauty of decay and space in yet another totally distinct entry in a vast and stunning body of work.

Ever more secure in her chosen path, Nídia radiates gloriously in all moods for the dancefloor in this, her album number 3. Consistent with her fiery nature and mixed roots in Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, »95 MINDJERES« is framed by the decisive role of women freedom fighters in PAIGC's struggle for the independence of Guinea-Bissau from Portuguese colonial domination during the 1960s and 1970s. Among others, the names of Teodora Gomes and Titina Silá shine brightly as leaders of a group of 95 women, providing them with military training and political awareness.

The album starts righteously with a question-themed banger; ambiguous in its sense of curiosity, even mischief, or perhaps it is a passionate commentary on the hard atavic realities of the world. It sets the tone for the wonderfully bouncy »Deep«, pads gently pulling at the legs, longing for action.

All of Nídia’s work has been basically concerned with pushing forward, instant piece by instant piece, a particular, some would say peculiar, view of what culture is, what role it plays in social life. She exercises her experimental inclination within the groove, interweaving percussion sequences and melodies in a very lean way - track durations are generally within range of what many would call "sketches" but the music just says what needs to be said. Beats are never artificially extended for the dancefloor, there's not a hint of that culture in »95 MINDJERES«. Closest would be "cp", an actual drum tool. Ideas are in motion now. And they fly out during the following »Mindjeres«, marked by gentle stabs as if counting the steps skyward. Unexpected turns near the end make final songs "abcd" and "Paradise" accentuate a longing sensation.

Stuff is ready, bodies alert, mind is sharp with warmth and fellowship, detoxed, we can now hear the overall tone of the album, a clear view on self nurture, freedom and responsibility. We believe it is sustained by Nídia’s progressive interpretations and approaches to promote harmony in never-ending family entanglements, reconcile notions of ancestry and uproot, and try out means to resist and fight. In praise of Love.

Initially released exclusively in digital format two years ago, the already cult favourite Whispers Of An Ancient World finally makes its way to vinyl courtesy of Mystic & Quantum but in highly restricted numbers. Featuring artwork by Kilian Eng, this red edition offers a mesmerising auditory journey. Ambient landscapes and evocative ancient ceremonies coalesce with explorations through lush jungles, tranquil acoustic melodies, and edgier dub motifs hinting at a looming dystopian future. Contributions from artists such as Diagonal, Mason Bee, and State Azure enrich its allure as the whole thing adds up to a cinematic tapestry that captivates with atmospheric depth.

Aboutface presents - Pensée Sculpture

Following a period of theta wave and hemi-sync techniques, Le Sculpteur d’Esprit (the Mind Sculptor) arrived in this dimension to transport listeners through 4 portals of altered-consciousness into thought-worlds where interactive sculptures are revealed in their own minds, as the artist themselves.

‘Close your eyes. From the darkness, a transparent triangular pentagonal prism appears in the distance, with its soft outlines refracting all colours from the spectrum. As you gently glide closer, you notice an unfamiliar world through the other side of the prism, this is the portal to your thought sculpture (Pensée Sculpture) number 1’

Fomat: Limited edition of 300 carbon neutral ISCC-certified Bio-Vinyl by Deepgrooves, Amsterdam, NL. Includes an artwork insert with the English translation of the Pensée Sculptures.

Credits:
Field recording, clarinet, flute, guitar electronics and all artworks by Aboutface
Additional Violin by Taro. Cello by Abdelrahman Hariry (Cello).

Pensée Sculptures channelled by Aboutface, translated into French by Noemie Decaen. Bonus content & the digital version of this release is available via the included Bandcamp download code. All artworks and music by Aboutface.

Ambient?

Sí.

But also, a musing on transcendence. So lay down and close your eyes because, on this one, our querida joya @eezzmmeerraallddaa wonders what we all wonder every now and then: good old 'What happens when we die?' We sort of know the drill: the cling, the not wanting to go, the inevitable... the heartbreaking nostalgia of parting ways with this world... and also, the chance to end the pain. Then comes the grief: bye-bye sweetness, chao joy, adiós tenderness... then -¡ayayay! the terror, the slow fade-out, the nothingness. At last, that sparkle in the dark edge of the hiss shows us the way to the ultimate surrender, to then become a garden in the void, and finally return to mamá amor as big beautiful rainbows.

This is Ruido y Flor, the first offering of Ambie—Tón: our brave new venture into the heart of the haze.