House News

Always fun house craftsman Ali Renault secured another big tune with his 'Piano For The People' which is a chuggy groover that locks you in with its rich atmospheres. Now it gets offered up with remixes from, firstly, Aikhi, who flip it with laidback downtempo drums and some classic and well known chords. Calm then brings his Mellow Acid Dub to sink you in even further and last of all Double Geography bring some more crunchy drum textures and psyched-out synth sounds with echoing vocals and dark, late night sense of mischief.

The Institute is happy to present a newcomer in its ranks: Lasha Chkhaidze, one of the 13 members of collective "If Strangers." Georgia is home to melancholia and many exciting musicians, something we have shown in many of our previous releases. Lasha’s first album is part of this theme.

These six tracks gently pull you into a subtle and immersive journey. Listen and soon you find yourself pulled into the beauty of sadness - surrounded by these carefully crafted soundscapes which offer a perfect opportunity for a moment of introspection. The young Georgian delivers ambient and piano at its finest on this first LP.

As the legend says, Agartha is a lost kingdom, located in the earth’s core.
Only the bravest found courage to go to the journey to find it.
As you go deeper, the road gets darker, scarier… The journey to Agartha symbolizes the journey to the untraveled parts of human consciousness, which often frightens us, but as we observe and heal our dark parts we no longer need to compress and hide them. Facing our main fears will make our road mor adventurous, and one day the whole journey will become a tale. Tale of a man who found the lost kingdom of Agartha.

The meaning of Vārua, soul or spirit in Tahitian, is also the root of the word Vārua'ino, designating both evil spirits and celestial phenomena (thunder, rain, meteorites and rainbows), and helps shed a new light on the true essence of this new EP. Its changing nature naturally encourages the connection between the tracks and the variety of genres they conjure. The whole project articulates itself around a DNA formed by traditional percussive instruments, Ori deck, a bravado carried by the young Tahitian underground scene, and ancestral ōrero (Polynesian oratory art).

Often swaying between stellar coherence and astral wandering, the seven tracks of the EP see QuinzeQuinze highlighting personal feelings and paradoxes which make for the backbone of human experience through an archipelago of fables with mystical allegories.

ElectronicaA Mountain Of One are set to return to the musical landscape with their brand new track “Custard’s Last Stand”, released 6th August through their new label AMORE via Above Board distribution. It is the first new piece of music the band have released in over a decade.

”Custard’s Last Stand” shows the band, made up of musical soulmates Mo Morris and Zeben Jameson, have lost nothing in the past decade. Recorded over Skype during the coronavirus pandemic, with Mo now in Bali and Zeben in west London, it is a shimmering, modern classic, experimental but accessible, melodic and adventurous. As ever, it is utterly unique, made in a musical universe all of their own.

“Custard’s Last Stand” EP is out 27th August, and will come with an incredible Dub Versions from dub pioneer Dennis Bovell MBE, as well as another new track “Stars, Planets, Dust, Me”. He has also provided a rare vocal performance.

The forthcoming album will be released this autumn. The whole project has been mastered then remixed for a forthcoming album by the legendary Ricardo Villalobos.

When A Mountain Of One AMO1first started performing, they quickly became one of the most-acclaimed bands out there, with the likes of i-D, Sunday Times Culture, Pitchfork, NME and more raving about them and their inspired and original approach, led by Mo and Zeben’s almost telepathic understanding.

Sold-out shows and awesome reviews followed with “Collected Works” and “Institute of Joy”, two phenomenal records that have stood the test of time, criss-crossing Balearic, folk, jazz, dance, rock and psychedelia.

A Mountain Of One have collaborated to create a coming together of music and virtual reality. With NYX VX, the band have developed a virtual world, one that will help provide inspired opportunities for artists looking to identify, connect and engage with audiences on multiple levels. This is the first stage of a new world that people will be building out and inhabiting, as venue for performances, home for musical and visual archives, space for play and exploration. Welcome to 'Stars, Planets, Dust, Me'.

Watch the teaser, soundtracked by new single “Custard’s Last Stand” HERE

The band also supplied the music for the stunning short film from acclaimed director Daniel Lindegren, filmed in London over lockdown. Check that out HERE

restock

“Fabula” is the 9th full length album by AUTiSM. The artist is dealing with organic crossover sound mixing influences like IDM, ambient, dubstep, trip-hop, and various in-between music phenomena.

Vocals by Akabedhead and PANE
Guitars by Sergey Popovich
More speech synthesis

Wider stylistic diversity “In modern electronic music, we quite often see some distinct traces coming from the past,” says Vadim Militsin, the core of AUTiSM. “Sometimes, I think that the past we notice in those tracks can easily be our future.”

BACK IN STOCK

Never released before. French computer music recorded by Fabrice Luquet and Stéphane Bodin (aka Fa Fane > Delodio) in 1989 when they met in Poitiers (fr) at art school, using only an Amiga 500 computer and a tape recorder machine.

“We’ve been reflecting on the relationship between our innerworlds and outerworlds,” says Soccer96’s Danalogue. “How our minds shape our experience and our experience shapes our mind. How caring and nurturing our innerworlds can improve our relationship with our outer experiences. We see the creation of music as the bridge between these two worlds.”

Betamax, who makes up the duo along with fellow Comet is Coming member Danalogue, describes their latest album as “spiritual combat music to steady us through the stormy changes of the outer world.”

For this album the pair co-wrote with The Colours That Rise, Tom Herbert, Salami Rose Joe Louis, Simbad and Rozi Plain.

From the exhilarating electronic charge and propulsive rhythm of ‘Crystal Pyramid’ to the almost cosmic drum n bass of ‘Speak More of Love’ feat The Colours That Rise, the album takes in a vast array of sounds and styles, from jazz to electronica, while never really sitting comfortably within easy genre categorisation. “We are searching for particular spontaneous energies that feel fresh and resonant,” Betamax says. “The hope is that when we reach this experience the music can penetrate the mind and affect the deepest mental processes.”

DJ HONESTY & DIEGO KRAUSE REMIXES

We can’t travel too much physically right now, but music will always transport us. Places, planets, parts of the mind no other stimulus can reach. It’s something andhim have made their signature, especially with their recent award winning road movie Miles To Go. The dust still not settled on their air miles, now the duo take us on another tour. South Korea and Japan. Savouring and documenting every moment, ‘Toy Toy’ is their musical translation of the trip.



A six track story of countless chapters, each cut weaving the spirit of the cities and their own influences deep into the mix. The title track takes the lead. A bubbling fantastical piece with strong shades of electro funk and acid house weaved deep in the blend, it sets off – like all tours should – on the happiest note possible.



Deeper into the release we strike downtown neon gold on the sweeping synths and foreboding bassline of ‘In Tokyo’ and the melancholy Blade Runner blues of ‘Japan 82’. Elsewhere ‘Brabazon’ takes a higher flight. Bewilderingly feel-good, sublime waves of thick, woozy synth funk reach euphoric heights in the dreamiest way possible before ‘Acidman’ brings us crashing back to reality with a jolt of cold hard electro sincerity. A crisp trip of a tune, the layers of musicality whip up momentum that ultimately leads us to the poignant, soft-focus finale of ‘Bronte Bye Bye’. The solemn, sober yin to the raging yang the tour once began with, we’re brought home in one piece… Even though we never left the room. Anzen'na ryokō!

Repress!

The story begins in 2006.

That summer I developed somewhat of an obsession with Tonto’s Expanding Head Band after having seen them perform at the Big Chill festival that year. The music blew my mind. Later upon my return to civilisation and the ensuing 'research' which then began in earnest I became as much blown away by the enormous T.O.N.T.O. (The Original New Timbral Orchestra) modular synthesizer that had created the music as I was by the music itself. Built in the early '70s, it's still the largest synthesizer around today. With the live show still resonating in my head I tracked down everything Tonto had ever recorded. One of these tracks was an obscure outtake from the time T.O.N.T.O.’s creators, Malcolm Cecil and Robert Margouleff, were producing and engineering for Stevie Wonder in the ‘70s (https://youtu.be/wuaSzFf7yq0). The track, Bittersweet, only ever appeared on a highly limited self-released CD put together to coincide with their appearance at the Big Chill. Consequently I featured it on a few mixes I did over the years and invariably I’d be asked “what’s that track?” by those with an ear for something unique. And invariably these same people, many of them DJs, would turn away disgruntled when I informed them it was CD only. Although I didn't know it at the time, the seed was definitely sown for this vinyl compilation that you now hold in your hands.

I first contacted the multi-Grammy award winning Malcolm Cecil in 2015 not long after Invisible, Inc. had launched with a proposal to putting the track out. There was always the question of what else would go on the record alongside Bittersweet? More Tonto tracks? Tracks by other artists? Other reissues? New material like the Invisible Family series? Or should it be just a single sided colour vinyl 12” celebrating the majesty of this wonderful piece of otherworldly yet emotive downtempo synthesizer funk?

As time rolled steadily onwards I realised at the end of 2017 that the 20th Invisible, Inc. release (a fair landmark for a small independent label) would soon be upon us.

I’d always thought of celebrating reaching the 10th, 20th, 30th release with a mix CD using tracks from the back catalogue.....but by the time INVINC 10 came around I'd missed the boat. I decided I wouldn’t let commemorating the 20th release slip me by and a compilation seemed the most fitting way to do this...and why not go the whole hog and spread it across two discs, house it in a gatefold sleeve and turn it into something rather special?

It took three years. From first contacting Malcolm in 2015, until shortly after his 81st birthday in January 2018, that we agreed to reissue the track on vinyl! The timing was perfect.

The hunt then began for other music to compliment Bittersweet. I'd heard some remixes legendary cosmic DJ Daniele Baldelli and Marco Dionigi had done of '80s synth pop/electronic founding father Richard Bone that had appeared digitally that I immediately thought would fit the bill. Likewise I'd heard an astonishing collaboration between psychedelic techno/dub duo log(m) (formerly Legion Of Green Men) and ambient pioneer Laraaji that seemed greater than the sum of its parts (keep an eye out for a double album from this melding of minds in early 2019). K. Leimer was another hero of mine, active since the '70s, who I'd been in touch with for a few years. We'd never managed to get a full album off the ground so I was thoroughly over the moon to get a contribution from him for this compilation. Many emails and Skype calls later and the rest all fell into place. I'm so proud to be able to also feature the music of Baikonour (another long time favourite), Eva Geist with Epsilove, Randweg, Causa, Ulysses, and of course those that have already appeared on Invisible, Inc. previously: the inimitable Secret Circuit, Sordid Sound System, Komodo Kolektif, Higamos Hogamos presents Spacerocks, Bal5000, Natural Sugars and Bronze Savage. I couldn't have done it without these people, many of them on board from the very beginning and who I love and respect all the more for it. Invisible, Inc. wouldn't be what it is now if it weren't for them.

That being said, “Lost Transmissions From The Off-World Territories” is just a tiny fragment of some of the amazing music available to us today. I urge you to further explore the artists represented here. Some of them have a body of work surprisingly different from the piece of music you are listening to right now. I'll let you go down the rabbit hole yourself. This process is fun if you like a good dig....but beyond that is that every so often you'll find something, as I have done, that'll completely take your breath away and move you to marvel at what an incredible world we're living in; where music can express our most abstract thoughts and deepest feelings in a way that words could never do. Enjoy!

Zehn Alben lang hat sich Bibio mutig zwischen Electronica, Ambient, Folk, Pop, Indie, Funk & Soul bewegt. Nach RIBBONS (2019) mit seinem Psych-Folk-Vibe verwendet er für sein zehntes Studioalbum mehr Synthesizer, Drumcomputer und E-Gitarren. Das Ergebnis ist ein Werk voller Grooves aus Hypno-Looping-Gitarren-Licks, lebhaften Funk-Beats, seidiger Disco, strukturierten Soul-Explorationen und dem unverwechselbaren Bibio-Ton, reichhaltig, tief, resonant und warm. Basierend auf Vintage-Gitarren als Grundstruktur fängt BIB10 die Essenz seiner bisheriger Reise ein, während klare klangliche Merkmale und Stile den Meilenstein in vielerlei Hinsicht zu einem Partyalbum voller Spaß und Verspieltheit machen.

Auf seinem dritten Album Stellar Drifting präsentiert George FitzGerald ein Album voller Staunen und Emotionen, voller glitzernder Melodien und schillernder Elektronik. Das Album ist ein echter Fortschritt in Bezug auf Umfang und Komposition und gilt als eines der größten Werke unserer Zeit im Bereich der atmosphärischen elektronischen Musik, das mit den Füßen auf dem Dancefloor steht, aber mit dem Herzen 1000 Meilen über der Erde selbst.

Stellar Drifting ist FitzGeralds Interpretation des Klangs völliger Freiheit, in der er das Bedürfnis anspricht, sich mit seiner inneren Welt zu konfrontieren und dem Gefühl der Begrenzung zu entkommen. Um dieses Gefühl des grenzenlosen Lebens zu erforschen, hat sich FitzGerald vom Weltraum inspirieren lassen und die Bausteine des Albums aus Weltraumbildern und Audioaufnahmen von Raumsonden zusammengesetzt. Auf dem Album sind auch einige der faszinierendsten Künstler und Songschreiber der Welt vertreten. Die für den Mercury nominierte irische Band SOAK leiht "Rainbows and Dreams" ihre Stimme, Animal Collective-Aushängeschild Panda Bear verleiht "Passed Tense" einen poetischen Schwung und London Grammar revanchiert sich mit "The Last Transmission" für FitzGeralds Arbeit an ihrem britischen #1-Album Californian Soil. George FitzGerald ist seit über einem Jahrzehnt eine herausragende Figur der elektronischen Musik, die mit einem Bein im Underground und mit dem anderen im Mainstream steht. Er war an der Spitze der britischen Szene, als er bei Londons kultigem Black Market Records arbeitete, und verbrachte dann ein Jahrzehnt in Berlin, wo er auf renommierten Labels wie Aus und Hotflush Recordings veröffentlichte, bevor er bei Domino unterschrieb und sich vom Club-Produzenten zum Albumkünstler wandelte. Es folgten zwei von der Kritik gefeierte Alben, Fading Love (2015) und All That Must Be (2018), auf denen er mit Künstlern wie Bonobo und Tracey Thorn zusammenarbeitete und seinen Sound zu einem atmosphärischen und weltweiten Status erhob.

REPRESS

Human Pitch is proud to welcome Seoul-based duo Salamanda to the label for the release of their third LP ashbalkum - a portal into unseen worlds, enchanting stasis, & laughter in the face of our evolving realities. Across an effervescent 39 minute runtime, ashbalkum provides a spellbinding view into how we interact with the world around us - one where one’s own being, language, & nature itself are all rendered infinitely mutable.

Written during the surrealist landscape of summer 2021 somewhere between a sweet dream & a beautiful nightmare, ashbalkum accesses a playful tranquility that mirrors our tumultuous present - distantly intimate, static & constantly changing, moving while standing still, all the while narrowly evading the pressures of our pre-apocalyptic world looming just overhead. Through their collaborative energy steeped in joy, friendship, & experimentation, Salamanda transports us towards even further surreality - taking their sound to wholly new frontiers while aiming to just have fun creating together & living presently.

ashbalkum’s namesake stems from symbolic & phonetic reinterpretation - specifically, a Korean phrase for the realization that what you’ve been experiencing as “reality” is actually a dream. The transmutation of this humorous existentialism into new meaning forms the core of ashbalkum - blissfully maneuvering through life, basking in irreverent states of lucidity, & attuning all frequencies to fellow dreamers within the dream.

Do dreams always reflect what we think? Is what we feel within dreams real?

Ultimately, Salamanda don’t seek to answer these questions, so much as revel in the delightful liminality of it all.

ashbalkum is out via Human Pitch June 10, 2022 on vinyl, digital.


DJ Reactions to first single “Overdose”:

dBridge: “Very nice autonomic type vibes” 4/5 stars
Hank Jackson: “really nice tune” - 5/5 stars
Giant Swan: “sounds weird af! great!”
Oceanic: “Wow beautiful”
CCL: “love” - 5/5 stars
rroxymore: “Enchanting track!” - 5/5 stars
Ron Like Hell: “beautiful” - 5/5 stars
Ciel: “stunning!!” - 4/5 stars
Akanbi: “HP don’t play! This is a beauty and I’m excited to hear more from Salamanda”
Titonton Duvante: “What an absolutely gorgeous tune. 100% going to work this one into a set. The subtle vocal texture really is doing it for me” - 4/5 stars
Interstellar Funk: “I love their productions. Amazing stuff!” 5/5 stars
Jason Kendig: “pretty” - 5/5 stars
Frosty (Dublab): “lovely other realms” - 5/5 stars
Thristian bPM (Boiler Room/NTS): “really nice” - 5/5 stars
Tony Poland: “LOVE THIS - huge fan of their Metron LP so happy to see them on Human Pitch. Will play on radio” - 5/5 stars

Future music duo Second Woman's sophomore full-length for Spectrum Spools further hones their distinctive fusion of shapeshifting software sculpture and tessellated footwork. Shivering digital textures oscillate with and against algorithmically mapped percussion samples, smeared synthetic chords levitate in the distance, stabs of digital noise punctuate the mix in twitchy, time-distorting patterns. Their anamorphosis verges on ascetic: stark, splintered waveforms rendered into unique fiber optic hieroglyphs.
Multi-instrumentalists Josh Eustis and Turk Dietrich share a deep history going back to their days in the New Orleans ambient electronic community, as part of Telefon Tel Aviv and Belong, respectively. Even so, S/W pushes beyond their combined discographies to date, flexing impossibilities, building rhythms from arrhythmia, teasing veiled emotion from bold iterations of cold code.

Killer old schooled beats comes with his dreaming rap by CV Smiles after the long intro from SJT Remix.

On other side,Pure analog 139bpm techno session from the guy "PST" with 808.

DJ Black Low burst on the international scene last year with Uwami, a collection of his early, downright avantgarde amapiano work. The young producer and DJ makes electronic music that sounds like nothing else: glitchy and fierce while smooth and soulful, all under the rubric of South Africa's most-exported dance music movement to date. Now comes Uwami II, which features the rest of the tracks from the acclaimed debut plus a new song "Gijima." The Pretoria, South Africa-based artist has more work in the pipeline as we present these inimitable songs for the first time on vinyl. The song "Gijima" is a previously unreleased track Black Low chose to include in this collection as cremates more work at a furious pace. "This is essential listening from a 20 year-old star." - Resident Advisor Best Tracks of 2021 "Uwami keeps an adventurous spirit at its core and pushes far beyond genre conventions in the process." - The Vinyl Factory "A producer with a fully realized voice." - Bandcamp Best Albums of Winter 2021 "The hard hitting beats of the electronic percussions make the songs seem like they're out of this planet." - AfroPop Worldwide

4 years after his last solo record on his Wych imprint “BB-8 / Barbarossa”, K-LONE returns for another 2 track EP of bleepy melodic 140, this time reminiscent of Bristolian Purple dubstep aesthetic. Saw waves, cheesy 80s chords and flute melodies continue the signature sound of Wych with "Squelch / With Luv". Mastered by Beau at Ten Eight Seven. Artwork by Annie Foyster.

No Tengas Miedo' es un disco que se gestó durante los recientes tiempos de pandemia y que nos hace recordar que no debemos de tener miedo de vivir ni de morir, que tenemos que replantear las formas de vida que teníamos antes de que todo el mundo se detuviera pero que sigue siendo un privilegio seguir vivos. Creemos que esta es
una nueva oportunidad de remediar todos los daños que le hemos hecho a la Madre Tierra, a nuestro cuerpo, a nuestra alma, a nuestros semejantes. Creemos que debemos de tener fe y esperanza en el humano, aún cuando nuestros gobernantes nos dan demasiados motivos para creer lo contrario gracias a sus acciones (y sus inacciones). Todos enfrentamos diferentes obstáculos en nuestras vidas, pero debemos de saber que no estamos solos, que nos tenemos los unos a los otros, todos como hermanos y hermanas, sin banderas ni fronteras. Muchas veces pensé en no realizar este disco por el miedo que la sociedad y gobiernos nos inculcan a siempre esperar los peores escenarios, pero estoy harto de vivir con miedo, de vivir aguantándome las ganas de averiguar lo que puede ser o no ser. Además, desde que yo recuerdo, mis abuelos ya hablaba de crisis, mis padres también, y siempre hemos sabido salir adelante, porque nuestro espirítu es más fuerte que todos sus intentos por derribarnos. He decidido que no voy a parar de luchar por lo que quiero hasta el último día de mi vida. Queremos que todo aquel que compre este disco sienta el mismo espíritu con el que fue hecho y quenos ayude a esparcir la esperanza y fe que tanta falta le hace al mundo. Queremos salir adelante junto con todos ustedes, hombro a hombro, corazón con corazón.

The illustrious memotone debuts on Accidental Meetings, with a sublime & wonderful thirteen-track LP... Huge tip

The next installment for the AM imprint is headed up by the critically acclaimed artist, memotone. Following previous work for entities such as Black Acre, Disktopia & Termina. Not to mention supplying instrumentation for Batu's debut album, and scoring works for Palace Skateboards.

The multi-instrumentalist showcases his entire repertoire within Clever Dog, thirteen emotive and ambitious tracks traversing between back-alley jazz, low-slung experimental & blissful ambient oddities.

memotone's discography is vast, however, this release truly stands out as a masterpiece. Enough words - dive in.

Following a CD-only release in Japan in 2021, legendary downtempo producer Calm finally releases his “Before” album on vinyl and digital courtesy of Hell Yeah. The 10-track record is a slow-burning Balearic beauty.

Calm aka Kiyotaka Fukagawa has never been to the White Isle, but he sure knows how to capture its musical essence. He has done so over a long and storied career that has taken in 17 albums and some 35 EPs on many labels including this one over the last 20-plus years. His unique blend of ambient, jazz and leftfield was last showcased on this label in 2018 with his By Your Side album, and now he does it again with another timeless and escapist offering.

The record was written, arranged, mixed and produced by Calm, but with gorgeous musical embellishments, trumpets, flutes, saxophones, violins, bass and keys played by friends and guests like Shiba, Sinsuke Fujieda, Fumiko Takeshita, Tomokazu Sugimoto, Yuichiro Kato and Toshitaka Shibata. Tracks from it have already had support from Cosmo Coleen Murphy on Worldwide FM, while Phil Mison says it is "100% reminiscent of an old Café Del Mar or José Padilla record." He is not wrong.

As soon as the opening chords of 'Beauty on Earth' wash over you there is no escaping the naturalistic charm and beauty of this record. 'Long Summer Dream' layers mystic wind sounds and gentle percussive patterns into suspensory bliss, 'Blue in Void' is a plaintive moment of sombre sax and pensive piano, then 'Liminal Moment' awakens the soul with its gorgeous flute lines and looping arps.

There is perfect horizontal sunset house on 'I Love You,' 'Feel It' picks up the pace with seductive saxophone motifs and psychedelic synth loops and 'Before Sunrise Blue' is crushing downtempo melancholia. 'Kunpoo' reawakens you with leggy bass and expansive synths that reach for the heavens, while 'Freedom Sunset' is an epic 10-minute journey out to sea. Lastly, 'Let's Make Harmony' is super slow motion jazz-funk that swells the heart. Before is a superb album that is well-deserving of this double vinyl pressing and is sure to become a Balearic classic.

DJ Support:

Phil Mison, Colleen Cosmo Murphy, Chris Coco, Buena Onda Crew