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By Geert Sermon - 'The Sound Of Belgium' - A timeless collection of unintentional psychedelic, post-everything, and pre-anything music with his one of a kind, unique, selector air, compiled by Dj Morpheus aka Samy Birnbach, member of post punk/wave band Minimal Compact and responsible for compiling the classic downtempo/ambient late 90's Freezone series on SSR Records (parent label of Crammed).

Music From Memory’s latest release is a reissue of the lost Art record ‘Marea/Tide’ from Italian Wave duo Alessandro Pizzin and Piergiuseppe Ciranna also know as ‘Ruins’.

Made to accompany and as a response to the works of painter ‘Luigi Viola’ the record was released limited to a run of 600 with original artworks by the painter included in the first 200 copies.

A number of special showcases were performed at various galleries by the duo alongside Viola’s work, with records being available solely at those events. Due to poor management and disagreements with the label who produced the record, 300 copies were held for many years in storage and then in fact later even destroyed, the record disappearing almost without a trace.

Finally now available again and with a bonus 7” including four beautiful unreleased tracks, the release is printed in colors true to the original work of Luigi Viola with insert.

Oraculo Records is proud to welcome and present the new side project of our beloved Blind Delon featuring and a special remix of Antoni Maiovvi of Giallo Disco Records. Dark Italo or minimal synthpop could perfectly define what FRUST is; hypnotic glacial synths and mesmerizing cavernous sad voices for darkwave lovers. All tracks have been specially remastered for long cut vinyl by Eric Van Wonterghem at Prodam Berlin.

For the latest release in their ongoing ‘International’ series, Into The Light Records takes us to Sydney and the dreamy, softly spun musical world of talented multi-instrumentalist Max Santilli.

“Surface” is Santilli’s debut album following years spent working alongside Jacob Fugar in Ken Oath Records-signed downtempo duo Angophora. It draws on a personal archive of home recordings made between 2016 and 2018 using a range of guitars, synthesizers and acoustic percussion instruments.

As you’d perhaps expect, it’s an intimate and hugely personal set that wraps drowsy, slowly shifting musical flourishes around gentle, sun-kissed rhythms and suitably spacey chords. Santilli offers subtle nods towards his various inspirations – think the mesmerizing ambient-jazz fusion of Michael Bierylo, Steve Hillage’s timeless early ambient works and the intricate acoustic guitar playing of Steve Tibbetts and Miguel Herrero – while forging his own distinctly lo-fi and otherworldly path. As a result, “Surface” is an album of impressive depth and diversity, held together by Santilli’s reflective, emotion-rich vision.

We welcome to the mighty Moustache records family: Kendal a french producer based in Toulouse. His 4 tracker hits Manifesto Ep bring us a dystopian italo vibe from the past, present and the Nofuture where the flesh merging with the machine. The A1 track called: Ultimo It's a tale about a world where jesus turns the water into proseco and the preacher jams on his 707 to bring new believers into italo disco church. A2: Profondo rosso: Humanity as gone. One spaceship drifts into space seeking the new promised land. Maybe this big red planet with its lush jungle. B1 Giallo Inferno: She put on her favourite blue velvet dress and her red lipstick. She's alone in the mansion. Black leather gloves is hidding in the dark B2 Corpo Meccanico: When Deckard chasing some fuckin renegade replicant over Los Angeles 2019 that what it turn up loud on his radio. Perfect OST for cyborg's killing spree. This in a great full colour sleeve and an even greater 12inch Artwork. Watch out for this cult italo disco dance classic. Gone is Gone!

When acclaimed South African musician Guy Buttery first sought out Dr. Kanada Narahari in late 2016, it was as his patient.

“It was a dark time.” Buttery recalls, “I had been bedridden for months and had been suffering from debilitating bouts of fatigue which no diagnosis or medication could help me get to the bottom of. When I first met Kanada, I was at the stage where even picking up my guitar to make music had become a joyless and taxing exercise.”

As Buttery’s searched for a cure, a family member recommended he see Kanada an Ayurvedic doctor who had relocated to South Africa from India and set up a practice in Durban. It was during this consultation, that the musician first experienced how Narahari infused the healing properties of Indian Classical music into his practice. Rather than treating him with a smorgasbord of pharmaceuticals, Narahari played his sitar and set Buttery on a strict daily diet of Raga’s to fast track his recovery.

Buttery was not only struck by his doctor’s musical talents but by the powerful healing properties inherent in his sitar compositions. When he left Narahari’s doctors room that afternoon, he asserts he was feeling decidedly clearer, lighter and stronger.

“Diving into Kanada’s music was definitely one of the reasons I'm still here today.” he admits. “The consistent tonal centre at the heart of Indian Classical Music, literally became my support pillar over this period. A central core of sorts in which to fall back on, strengthen and discover.”

Narahari as it turned out, was not only a prominent music therapist (and one of the only Ayurvedic doctors practicing in South Africa) but like Buttery, a highly accomplished musician with a devoted following back in his homeland.

Born in a small village along the Western Ghats in Karnataka, India, Narahari, at the age of nine, had enrolled to study Carnatic classical vocal and developed an interest in Hindustani Classical music with a particular passion for the sitar. While Buttery had secured his reputation as one of South Africa’s musical treasures, a multi-instrumentalist who commands sold-out performances both locally and internationally and more recently had been awarded the prestigious 2018 Standard Bank Young Artist for Music.
From this consultation, a friendship developed between the two musicians with Buttery soon inviting Narahari to join him in his studio. But it wasn’t all plain sailing in the beginning. While Buttery and Narahari’s sensibilities were very much aligned, there were a range of cultural and musical influences, nuances and inflections that first needed to be navigated and understood.
“I suppose we had to find a common ground.” Buttery says, before adding, “Which in the end turned out to be pretty "uncommon ground" for the both of us.”
It was after a few intensive sessions together that something exhilarating began to emerge. What began as a few idle improvisations soon evolved into feverish and lengthier jams. Whenever time permitted, the musicians would meet, descending deeper into the emerging sounds, while reimagining the realms that existed between their African and Indian heritages.
Over the next few months, the duo would rack up over fifteen hours of recordings in studio, and it was up to Buttery to shape the material into an album which they collectively titled Nāḍī, which Narahari translates from the Sanskrit as "The Channel" or "An Internal River".

During this period, Narahari bestowed upon Buttery, the moniker Guruji while Guy would refer to him, in affectionate return, as Panditji. Each time the musicians would meet, the studio space would be cleared by an impromptu ritual, with Guruji burning African Imphepho while Panditji would chant a Sanskrit mantra dusting Indian Agarbatti clouds over their instruments.

Once the room had been made hazy with this aromatic alchemy (with the ancestors welcomed in) the musicians would pick up their instruments and plunge into shimmering tides of sound. Reflecting on these sessions, Narahari recalls the immense creative freedom he felt throughout: “Guy and I tried to wander as much as possible, without any speculative, preoccupied ideologies or limitations. Love remained at the forefront of our journey together.”

“Those evenings we spent together in the studio” adds Buttery, “felt incredibly rich with purpose and a profound sense of freedom. While improvising, anything could happen and mostly did.”

On a first listen, the tracks on Nāḍī emerge as salty, humid invocations to the inscrutable depths and misty myths of the Indian ocean-- that vast body of water that stretches between, and laps the shorelines, of the artists’ respective homelands.

When asked to describe the sound him and Narahari refined, Buttery prefers to relay a series of evocative images.

“For me” he explains, “Nāḍī is a lighthouse, a beacon that resides at the bottom of the ocean.” As Buttery envisions it, “what once offered light to guide ships to safety, has been submerged and re-purposed by marine life as a coral-reef temple. Similarly, this sunken lighthouse exists as a concealed cenotaph, memorializing the ancient sea-routes and passages that once connected the two distant lands.”

On paper this may sound obscure but listening to the songs, it serves as an apt metaphor.

Across each meditative movement, listeners are able to relive the journey, immersing themselves in a series of incantations, replete with high dynamics, delicate African-Indian inflections and virtuoso string playing of an entirely new order. Further complimenting the fusion of musical dialects are a range of guest artists including Shane Cooper on bass, Thandi Ntuli on vocals, Chris Letcher on organ, Ronan Skillen on tabla and percussion and Julian Redpath on guitar, synth and backing vocals.

Now like the submerged lighthouse, the recordings stand as a monument, a marker and snapshot of this fortuitous meeting, a tribute to the healing gifts of Guruji and Panditji in performance. It’s a process that already, both musicians look back on with reverence and nostalgia.

Buttery ruminates in closing, that when he first met Kanada his illness correlated with the biggest drought South Africa had experienced in many years “…for whatever reason, whenever we would connect and make music together, the sky would tend to open. Even if it was just a few drops. This went on for months, until finally the drought dissipated and my health had been restored.”

By the time the heavens did open across the East Coast, a deep friendship had been forged and with it abundant musical offerings poured down. A treasured sample of which we able to share in every time we press play and immerse ourselves in the sacrosanct musical universe that is Nāḍī.

We at Antinote are proud to make our first French-Russian connection. Olga is from Moscow. She came to us after Dominique Dumont's show in Paris, winter 2018. We checked her music and immediately fell in love with the song 'Mojno'. Step by step we built a nice collection of tracks that now make up the 1905 LP! Very active in the electronic music scene, she’s spent the last ten years releasing music, performing, recording & DJing as well as being busy with her tech-project Playtronica (with them she's created 3 controllers that you allow to play scales on people, objects and colors). Across the "1905" LP she utilises some DIY devices such as Yamaha sampler vss-33, voice glitcher from the Russian company “Naked Boards” and organelle synth that creates this synesthetic tone in “ready when you are”. Besides dreamy pads and dancy beats Olga is ironically singing on Russian about her daily routine, in a positive way. There's no sadness and melancholy in the dark snowy days, where even the full moon or retrograde-mercury don’t even bother you ...if you are in harmony with mother nature's 5 elements.

DESCRIPTION
Absolute madness unearthed by Paul Ebhart and Florian Stöffelbauer aka Heap for Wiener Brut's third release
Chicago-meets-Vienna-vibes - music way ahead of it's time produced in the 80s by short-lived formation Aktionskunst Gerasdorf aka Athletico Kunst Gerasdorf, a project that is well known for it's contribution to the legendary Viennese sampler ‚Die Tödliche Dosis'.

808-driven beats programmed by René Radikal (R.I.P.) backing Melanie Delval's tender voice, with multiple guest musicians (e.g. Fritz Grohs) rounding things up and adding their spice to the laidback jams alongside stand-out musical heavy hitters. A composition of sound you never heard before.

Dutch powerhouses Parrish Smith and Interstellar Funk team up for their debut collaboration on L.I.E.S. with a new four track ep. Striking up the perfect balance of both their signature styles, this record hits the sweet spot between metallic synthwave, slow beat industrial, and clanging EBM hybrids. The duo effortlessly weave together a sonic narrative with nods to the past but unmistakable emphasis on their ever expanding foward thinking future sound. Recommended!

Special edition loud cut of the 6 best tracks from Pantser Fabriek - Du Bist So Jung. Manifesto: Ihr Panzerfaust oder Ihr Mephisto, 'avec la tristesse d'une certaine charactere Wagnerienne', 'amor fati', gleich wie die Liebestod von 'Tristan und Isolde', eine ganz ominose kognitive Dissonanz im ekelhaften schwarzen Wahnfried des Gesamtkunstwerks der Philharmonie, 'l'esprit de corps de la Belle Epoque sans mercee' Ich weiss, mein liebe Prinz, ganz schwarz bist du, aber auch... so jung bist du! Mesdames, messieurs, je vous presente 'Pantser Fabriek - Du bist so jung'! Liebe Reichsgenossen (und liebe Reichsgenossinnen!), Ihr unbeendeter Sturm und Drang nach Westen wird vielleicht diesmals ein bisschen verfleischt! Denn wie schon doch versenkt am heissen Blutmeridian das Rot der alten, tragisch-verzornten Sonnengottheid immer wieder im Boreas' kalten Toten Meer, aber heute gibt's am Ende wurklich etwas neues von der Westfront, am Ende der alten Niederstrheinischen 'Limes' der 'Pax Romana', das Grenzegebiet der Friesen und Kananefaten zwischen die antike Munder von 'Rhenus' und 'Mosa', die meist bloden Hollander Ihrer alten Westergau, im Graflichen Haag, das AbfluSschen Europas, ehemaliges Epizentrum der 'V2' Westwall eines alten Titanenkriegs voll Feiglinge, 'Dietsch Alemannische Feindschaft', das 'Alles ist gut' von heroisch verlorenen Atlantidensohnen oder sadistischen Marquisen, ja, meine lieben Freunde (und lieben Freundinnen!), am Ende kommt, aus dem Westland 'Martyrium' voll Rosen und Dornen, Ihre Neueste Deutsche Welle: 'Pantser Fabriek', mit einer neuen Langspielplatte 'Du bist so jung', von 'Bunker' naturlich, jetzt diesmals leider nicht mit Riesenfarbposter, aber, vielleicht, mit dem Riesenstahl von grossartig fleischgetonten Visionen, die neuesten Leiden des jungen Werthers oder soll sonst auch der Heilige Sebastian einfach ungeheuer herreisen und wieder mit uns leider Lieder singen, wie 'Der Tod in Venedig', 'comme si c'etait la derniere fois', das Bild und Ihre Bildung im schonen Abendlandischen Licht, so unheimisch heimlich Und, ja, Ihr habt das alles schon gewusst! Denn hatte 'Der Alte', Tacitus, schon so lange her nicht gesagt: 'Hic Barbarorum Germania Inferior est' Nachricht von einem fremden Stern, Ihr Lieblingspropagandaministerium, Guy Tavares Guerra Roque

Since forming in 2006 post-punk experimentalists Sebastian Melmoth have been on a thoughtful and adventurous musical journey. In a constant state of aural evolution, the London-based four-piece has a delivered a string of albums and EPs that variously touch on everything from garage-rock, grunge and lo-fi pop, to electro, new wave, dark ambient and music concrete, all the while drawing on a myriad of literary and artistic influences.

The band’s first release for Artificial Dance digs deep into their admirable and eye-opening catalogue and draws together some of the Amsterdam-based label’s favourites from the more electronic end of the band’s output. Entitled “The Dynamics of Vanity” – a comment on Western culture’s obsession with rehashing the past and the band’s own in-built distrust of artistic naval-gazing – the set is not a ‘best of’ retrospective but rather a ‘sort of’ selection of stylistically interconnected cuts that gives a very specific snapshot of the band’s work.

Check for example “Icarus”, a drowsy, hypnotic and sample-laden soundscape that effortlessly joins the dots between post-rock, pitched-down electronica and early morning ambient, or the slowly unfurling throb of thought-provoking opener “The Engineering of Consent”, a swelling, melancholic post-jazz meditation on propaganda and governmental mind control featuring spoken word samples from William S Burroughs in conversation with Brion Gysin, Timothy Leary, Les Levine and Robert Anton Wilson.

The showcased songs are typically hard-to-pin-down, too, with the re-imagined gothic horror break-up cut “Prosopagnosia’ and slow-burn audio addition of “Waiting For Godot” being joined by the wide-eyed morning dream-pop hallucinations of “Seeds (Descent Into Decadence)”. It all adds up to a collection that expertly showcases one engaging thread – of many – running through Sebastian Melmoth’s esoteric body of work.

In 1916, in the middle of the First World War, a small town in Ontario changed its name from Berlin to Kitchener. Many mercurial decades later, in 1988, the town now a mid-sized city, a duo called Vernal Equinox released a record that seemed to trace its roots back to Berlin, but this time the shadowy post-war Berlin of the 70s that produced Tangerine Dream, Klaus Schulze and his Innovative Communications family, and Bowie and Eno’s Berlin Trilogy. These inspirations, viewed through a prism of 80s New Age and the autumnal denim-clad rural Ontario, became New Found World.

New Found World is the inaugural release on Aural Medium, Toronto-based non-musician Linus Booth’s new label focusing on revisionist electronic, industrial and no wave music. Remastered from the reels and pressed on double 45rpm vinyl with an unreleased track from the original sessions.

"I first encountered the members of Vernal Equinox, Steve Brenner and Timothy Rempel, when I would skip high school with my best friend Todd Nickolas (ADSR) who’d play me electronic records after we lurked in the keyboard shop at Sherwood Music in Kitchener, eyeballing synths and drum machines financially out of our reach. Unbeknownst to me, Steve and Timothy both worked in the shop, and leveraged their employee discount to build up an enviable battalion of gear in their aptly named Sync Studios, in Steve’s basement. It was there, after their shifts at the music shop, that they spent a year working out all the material for the album, and when they had every part sequenced, they saved their settings, unplugged hundreds of cables and lugged everything to Airtight Studios across town and recorded the album. The duo self-released the album, and not knowing exactly how to sell it, decided to try and brand it as New Age. Inspired by the genre’s most successful label Windham Hill, they adorned the album with a photo of a sunset that Brenner had shot. They even decided to record some seagulls to fit the mould, and drove 130 km north to Lake Huron with a bag of day old Tim Hortons doughnuts.

Fast forward to a few years ago when Todd sent me a copy of Brenner's cassette works reminding me that we knew Steve from the keyboard shop. Shortly after, I met Brenner at his local Tim Hortons where I bought him a large double-double and we starting planning the reissue. Everything about the album reminds me of my youth, the smell of the woods in autumn, underage drinking and smoking on the tracks, the TD soundtracks to Risky Business and Miracle Mile, and my father’s Windham Hill records. Even the chill-out records I became obsessed with, The KLF, Aphex Twin's Selected Ambient Works and Boards of Canada's melancholic NFB inspired electronica. Of course these came out years after the album was released, but somehow Steve and Tim channeled it all back then, creating something simultaneously so grounded in time and place, but years ahead of its time."

“Requiem” is the name of the new Cold Beats Records release. The reference number 14 of the catalan label is written by L´Avenir, the cold synth side project of veteran electronic musician and sound artist Jason Sloan. Known throughout the space and ambient music scenes for his contemplative electronic soundscape work for close to two decades; Sloan founded L’Avenir in 2012 to explore his long time love of synthnpop and dark minimal wave music created purely from analog and vintage equipment. While still retaining the atmosphere of his solo records, the music of L’Avenir is rooted in the tradition of the minimal, analog, synthesizer music of the late 70′s and 80′s ( Fad Gadget, Depeche, Click Click, Chicago’s Wax Trax Records scene etc…). Growing up through the original scene while it was happening, it’s no suprise that Sloan’s music would eventually move in this direction. While releasing over a dozen solo albums and E.P.’s under his own name, Sloan has played live all over the US, Canada and Europe including the influential Live Constructions radio program at Columbia University, STEIM in Amsterdam and Philadelphia’s The Gatherings concert series, one of the country’s oldest continuing ambient and electronic music series. Sloan is a Professor teaching full-time in the Interactive Arts department along with being the founder and program coordinator for the Sound Art concentration at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland. L’Avenir returns with Requiem, the fourth, full-length album for Barcelona’s Cold Beats Records. Requiem finds L’Avenir visiting themes of postmodernity, alienation and spiritualism while expanding the sonic palette far beyond his minimal synth beginnings. The music of L’Avenir has, at times, been compared to 4AD era Clan of Xymox or mid-period Depeche Mode. But while echoes of the former can be heard, L’Avenir brings a uniquely fresh perspective unheard in other bands of the genre. Requiem features eight new songs and is available on limited edition blood red vinyl. Requiem is L’Avenir’s sixth release was written and recorded between February 2018 and January 2019 in a Minimal Space, (Baltimore). Limited edition of 300 copies lacquered pressed on 140 gr. high quality red vinyl and digital album.

Jatinder Singh Durhailay and David Edren released Tea Notes as a cassette back in April of 2018. London-based Jatinder Singh Durhailay is a painter and student of Indian Classical music. He has trained in both the sitar and the Hindi singing technique, Dhrupad. He also plays two traditional Sikh instruments; the bowed, stringed Dilruba and Taus. Poetic Pastel Press issued his solo debut, The Last Ballad Of Mardana, in 2017. David Edren`s expertise lies with machines and modular synthesis. His Kosmische and New Age-Inspired electronics have featured on numerous cassettes, and compilations, produced for imprints from the current Belgian underground, such as Jj Funhouse, Social Harmony, and Ultra Eczema. These recordings appearing, since the turn of the millennium, either under his own name, or the moniker DSR Lines. Jatinder and David’s collaboration, Tea Notes, is a celebration, a meditation, on both the beverage, and the communal time shared imbibing. The coming together to partake in its ritual. Each of the six tracks represents a different infusion. The opening piece is a tribute to semi-oxidised Oolong, from China`s Wuyi Mountains, with hammered dulcimer-like glissando. Gongs shimmering, gently crashing, as if signaling a change in the weather. A calm of thin, stretched synths and Ai angels introduces Tulsi from India. The Holy Basil of Hinduism, used in the worship of Vishnu, Krishna, and Rama. A traditional herb of Ayurveda and Siddha medicine. Automated arpeggiated sequences raising a vibrating wall of hallucinatory sound. Pairing swooning strings with a racing robot heart. Ceylon is a modern twist on the classical raga. Serving to tell the story of a tea smuggled into Sri Lanka in the 19th century. Plants stolen from South West China, where the brew had been enjoyed since the days of the Shang Dynasty (1766 to 1122 BC). The contraband founding fresh industry in its new home when the indigenous coffee crops failed. Muted organ and sleepy, treated sine wave microtones describe Kava, the Polynesian fireweed root, whose extract serves as both sedative and euphoriant.Shincha are the first young leaves of the season. Picked in Southern Japan and steamed to prevent oxidization, retain their flavour and green / gold colour. Their musical counterpart finds Edren establishing an ecclesiastical drone, while Durhailay`s strings chart an ancient romantic ache. Sonic stars shine. Singing out to the infinite, the universe, before dissolving into knots of Radiophonic Workshop noise.Melodies treated with subtle sustain and delay denote Pu-Ehr, from the Yunnan province. The only truly fermented black tea - made distinctive by the action of bacteria, moulds, and yeasts. Its musical themes hovering in the vapour trails, the atmospheres, they themselves create. Spiraling, soaring, reaching for the heavens, while pretty music box glitches - tiny chimes turned in on themselves. Catching, reflecting, like light at play on fresh running water. (words: Robert Harris)

The Hacker needs no introduction. The 4-track 12-inch 'Nancy' on Electronic Emergencies finds him at his best - oscillating wildly from electro to new wave, his true musical roots. For the title track, he collaborated once more with post-punk hero Michael Zodorozny, vocalist of Crash Course in Science, resulting in a slippery wet dance floor killer. The three instrumental tracks have a gritty feel, breathing over the cold wave atmosphere.

A fruitful collaboration between lyricist Andrew Birtles, composer David Watts, producer Dave Foister, and the beautiful voice of Kym Amps of which only two tracks were released on a 7". Now, almost 40 years after the original release date, the full album finally sees the light of day through Monte Cristo.

Kym Amps' powerful and moving vocal performance is supported by minimal electronic new-wavish arrangements that were produced with, at the time, cutting edge equipment.

Sentiment of Callousness was written over a one-and-a-half year period of total collapse, characterized by disconnection between the world within and the perception of the world outside.

Each of the tracks embodies feelings experienced during this time - from dark to bright, sluggish to energetic, alive to dead, real to unreal, and the self to the other.

Cologne-based producers Ripley and Benway aka Kitbuilders have been producing electro for many years and released their music on labels like Breakin´ Records (DMX Krew-label), Electrecord, World Electric, Television, Vertical, Ersatz Audio and many more. Their new album Reality (on Vertical/Kompakt) twist electro and dark synthpop into exciting new shapes and deals with themes of death, loss, destruction and introspection. The album combines the influence of many sources like Chris & Cosey, Devo, Aux 88, Lydia Lunch, William Butler Yeats („A Drunken Man´s…“), Suicide, Associates, dystopian 60s-songs, Mantronix and many more. The resulting music is an emotional and fresh sound tapestry that spins a vibrating web of analog Synths, 808-drums, harsh, overdriven noise, song structures and the unique vocals and lyrics from singer Ripley creating an atmosphere of tense, sinister moodiness. The album contents two remastered Kitbuilders-classics (Reality, In the Year 2525).

Electric sound-waves that pulse through our sleep …and our dreams”

Quieter Than Spiders release their long-awaited debut album Signs of Life. The Chinese-Anglo band was formed in Shanghai in 2012 and has been quietly rising to prominence among the electronic music community with what the group self-styles as ‘Shanghai Synthpop’. Online music magazine The Electricity Club included Quieter Than Spiders in a list of their favourite new artists and described them as “What OMD would sound like if they formed in the 21st Century”.

Signs of Life was self-produced by the group and combines their contrasting styles of uptempo synthpop and slow reflective melancholy. The album features 10 tracks including familiar songs such as Hibakusha, Shanghai Metro, The Land of Lost Content and No Illusion. There are also 10 remixes by artists such as Kevin Komoda from Rational Youth, Vile Electrodes and The Silicon Scientist. Signs of Life also includes 8 mini interludes which the group describes as ‘brief dream sequences’. Group member Leon Zhang said: “the album includes a slower and more experimental side to our music that people haven’t yet heard from us, especially songs such as The Signs of Life and The Statues which are more personal and introverted.”

The album was recorded in both Shanghai and the UK and was mastered in Germany by Stefan Bornhorst (aka The Silicon Scientist). The group did not use a formal recording space which gave them the opportunity to experiment. “We used minimal equipment which gave us the opportunity to record songs in a variety of places. We even recorded parts in an old deserted Shanghai building earmarked for demolition, and in an overgrown tunnel that we found deep in the English countryside”.

The newest offering on Pinkman Broken Dreams: Rough, noisy and cataclysmic machine music, seasoned with industrial and EBM influences, by Frenchman December. Every single bit as uncompromising and assertive as his previous output on Mannequin or Jealous God. Download code included.

Under the tree - In The Cave - At The Water, there's where you'll find Eleventeen Eston, savouring the shade since his 2014 debut LP 'Delta Horizon' turned the spotlight his way. Taking shelter in the subterranean, the Perth musician has found a sound saturated with entheogenic splendour, growing something gorgeous from the grotesque. Finding a natural home on Hamburg's Growing Bin, Eston emerges into the daylight with a dreamy LP.
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The vision quest begins with 'C in Sympathy', a freefall into the perverse beauty of the Domus Aurea, brought to life with E2-E4 electronics, chorus pedal shimmer and muted bass. Leaving the grasslands we dip a toe in the water with the hypnotic ripples of '2 d'Or (Cab Chassis)', a Carl-Craig-goes-New-Age number which fuses the electronic and acoustic to perfection. Delicate piano, crystalline synth tones and tape-saturated emotion lend their cinematic charm to 'East Perth Stories (Closing Titles)' before the propulsive bass and soft focus groove of 'The Four Fountains' hits you with the heat haze. Eston takes another tapey diversion on the sci-fi synthscape 'I Remember', while the coastal cool of 'Thread & Truth' picks up the wavy white funk baton from Spike.

The B-side brings more beauty as the drifting and dreamy ambience of 'I Float, I Am Free' gives way to the Windham Hill guitar licks, snaking bass and billowing textures of 'A Squall, 1988', offering a welcome echo of the wonder of Wilson Tanner. 'Where There Is Rain' sees Eston tune the Ute radio to 96FM Perth, marrying cascading keys, evocative vocal samples and lush guitar with a solid 80s pop beat, before he slows the pace for 'Sand Man' a skewed and stoned bit of beach funk that's perfect for seduction. We part ways with the panoramic 'Dory On Swan', a serene soundtrack to lapping waves and magic caves. Always in season, Growing Bin do it again.

The second release on 4GN3S (pronounced Agnes) is an angular and shadowy 5-track EP by The Golden FIlter. The 'Dislocation' EP is five pariahic pieces paying equal homage to minimal wave, post-punk, no wave, and electro, but retaining Stephen and Penelope's inventive presence. Before 'Talk Talk Talk' became a 2018 summer festival anthem by accident, it was always meant to be the lead track on this EP. Like Siouxsie vs early Human League, but heavier. Originally available only as an extremely limited edition duplate at Rye Wax, 'All The Way In' is a jittery electro beat workout sounding as if Anne Clark were fronting Drexciya. Beatless and odd, 'Dislocation' first premiered on Fort Romeau's Essential Mix on BBC Radio 1. It's Part art-piece, part word association, and part No Wave experimentalism. A mutating arpeggiated bass and an ominous tone drive 'Cut My Hair' into a incongruously sci-fi dark dance netherworld. 'Temple' is classic Golden Filter, with modular bass blurbs, soft vocals, and an 808 beat doused in analog reverb. Dance music to sit in the corner and think to.

STANDING OVATION was a short lived project from Clacton on Sea, UK, created by the very young Paul Bramhall and Glen Redgen in 1982, while they were still at high school. Armed with a Casio MT40, a Korg Polysix, a Korg M500 and a Boss DR55 drum machine plus a guitar and a bass they booked a local studio on 22nd October 1983 and recorded two songs in one day. The two tracks were released on cassette by the also local Falling A label shortly after. They continued making electronic music for a further two years and seeking collaborators through the papers they managed to include a drummer and a lead guitarist, but the sound changed and was no longer the electronic sound that Paul desired. After a few local gigs they drifted apart with musical differences.

The WHAT MEANING / TIMES OF FUN cassette didn’t have much repercussion back then and being impossible to find nowadays we decided to give it another try on vinyl. WHAT MEANING is a true minimal synth masterpiece, with its pulsating bassline and overall dark feel. This genre just doesn’t get any better. TIMES OF FUN is a much brighter, poppy tune that puts a smile on your face.

The two songs have been transferred and remastered from the original ¼” reel tape and the also minimalistic but beautiful hand-drawn original artwork has been adapted and enhanced to fit this 7” release.

We are immensely proud to bring it to you as a limited, hand numbered edition of 275 copies, housed in an old-fashioned, matt finish card-sleeve including a download code.

The Australian duo of Jarrod Zlatic and Nisa Venerosa harness expansiveness through a sepia-tone collage of intangible digital textures and adapted vocal chamber music. Formed in the early 2000’s, previous albums for cult-labels like Chapter Music and Siltbreeze waded through dubby psych-rock territories but their latest for ALTER stands alone. Recorded in Melbourne by Sam Karmel (F ingers, CS + Kreme), the album occupies an eerie, pastoral kind of twilight zone. Venerosa’s stark singing style challenging the ambient textures weaving in and out of the stereo field.

Plain Songs slowly unfolds through a mesh of processed drones, flickering static and fragile yet propulsive bedding loops. G.B.H sees the pair utilising layers of spoken word and keyboard motifs atop spiralling background whirs and softly uttered harmonies. The late-night atmosphere pervades with On Temptation and Forever Turned where slow, dissonant passages work in tandem with Venerosa’s spectral vocal shifts. Zlatic’s trumpet howls into the ether on ‘Flowers and Fade’ accompanied by drum rattles, repetitive mantras and oscillating synthesisers to mark one of the LP’s most unique and isolated moments. There are hints of Nico’s Janitor of Lunacy and Meredith Monk’s Book of Days at play, where the icy screeches and distortions give way to the wax and wane poetry of ‘A Short Confession’. The overall power of Plain Songs hinges on the strength of the voice and the way it interacts with the sound world around it, Venerosa demonstrating an ability to flit between moods and assume control. It is ever present and in sync with the cosmos, fighting its way through the dark and igniting the beacon.

Uber rare Italo cut here. Currently going for stupid money on Discogs.

Though the biro-wielding cassette ninjas of the world may disagree, some things are too good to stay on tape forever, and Basso is delighted to bring you the first ever vinyl version of Eleventeen Eston‘s ‚Delta Horizon‘.

Originally released on a Not Not Fun cassette in 2014, EE‘s evocative debut made it into the tape decks of the hundred coolest people on the planet, where it has remained ever since, stretched and slackened by constant play. Now remastered for vinyl by Sergey Luginin, ‚Delta Horizon‘ is ready to take over your turntable, its humid funk and sunkissed guitars the perfect conditions for a living room mirage. Across thirteen tracks, Eston tops crackling drum machines with optimistic keys, nimble jazz bass and chiming guitars, recalling an unremembered 80s of pastel shades, coastal romance and lemon juice highlights. Blurry references to infomercial pop and arcade boogie flirt with vaporwave‘s nostalgic aesthetic, but Eston‘s sound is more heartfelt, even when it wobbles under the heatstroke. If Todd Rundgren suffered an LA ego death in 1974 and woke up on the Perth shoreline in the mid 80s, he‘d have tried to make music like this, but he wouldn‘t have come anywhere close to ‚Delta Horizons‘.

Les Points Pay A Twisted Homage To The Early Foundations Of Electronic Music Where Hard To Get Tapes, Dystopia And The Sound Of The Wretched Worker Where Present In Genres Like Post-punk, Industrial, Minimal Synth, New Beat And Wave.

It's changing, the worker searched for post-leftist solutions and got lost.
Nine circles applauded the proletariat and imagined how a community
could be congregated, while screams of violence would be filtered by boiling blood.
Exploiters of labor either find themselves rotting away in a never ending icy rain or are dragging their selfish accumulations on their chests for eternity - while the worker slowly identifies himself as a counter-commodity. Algorhythms (fraud) always mislead - once the worker gets past them only Dis will be awaiting her/him.

Carlo Onda vinyl debut represents the Neue Deutsche Welle reinterpretation as it must. Truly vanguard and fresh minimal synth and perfect Germanic vocals that transport us to splendor days of Grauzone, DAF, Joachim Witt or Robert Görl. All tracks have been specially remastered for long cut vinyl by Eric Van Wonterghem at Prodam Berlin.

Burning Rose is proud to announce a repress of Buzz Kull’s 2017 LP, Chroma. The seminal album is a mass of jagged synth lines and pounding drum machines, a testament to Marc Dwyer's personal sonic exploration over time. Each song on Chroma transcends the traditional archetype of darkwave by pushing pop sensibilities, focusing on different emotional states and boundaries.

Since Chroma’s release, Dwyer has given the world a sophomore album, tackled multiple tours abroad, and continues to remain an elusive but omnipresent figurehead of darker electronics within his hometown of Sydney.

The second pressing of Chroma will be available on June 1st, to coincide with Buzz Kull’s European tour with Zanias.

Blind Delon was founded in 2016 by Mathis Kolkoz—a French artist who draws his energy from coldwave and synthwave references channeled through the use of ancient synthesizers, icy bass lines and black romanticism, all combined with a raw elegance and melancholy.

Discipline - Blind Delon’s first album features a stunning sound design, laced with dark energy and a daring lyricism. The album, although written and composed by the band, is an all star collaboration with Kris Baha, Lapse Of Reason, Incendie, I Hate Models, and others.

After years of mythology, misinterpretation and procrastination Nurse With Wound’s Steven Stapleton finally chooses Finders Keepers Records as the ideal collaborators to release “the right tracks” from his uber-legendary psych/prog/punk peculiarity shopping list known as The Nurse With Wound List, commencing with a French specific Volume One of this authentically titled Strain Crack Break series. Featuring some Finders Keepers’ regulars amongst galactic Gallic rarities (previously presumed to be imaginary red herrings) this deluxe double vinyl dossier demystifies some of the essential French feee jazz and Parisian prog inclusions from the alphabetical “dedication” inventory as printed the anti-bands 1979 industrial milestone debut.

When Steven Stapleton, Heman Pathak and John Fothergill’s anti-band Nurse With Wound decided to include an alphabetical dedication to all their favourite bands on the back of their inaugural LP the notion of creating a future record dealers’ trophy list couldn’t have been further from their minds. By adding a list of untravelled European mythical musicians and noise makers to their own debut release of unchartered industrial art rock they were merely providing a suggestive support system of existing potential likeminded bands, establishing safety in numbers should anyone require sonic subtitles for Nurse With Wound’s own mutant musical language. Luckily for them, the record landed in record shops in the midst of 1979’s memorable summer of abject apathy and its sound became a hit amongst disillusioned agit-pop pickers and artsy post-punks, thus playing a key role in the bourgeoning “Industrial” genre that ensued. On the most part, however, the list , like most instruction manuals, remained unreadable, syntactic and suspiciously sarcastic... As potential “real musicians” Nurse WIth Wound became an Industrial music fan’s household name, but in contrast many of the names on The Nurse With Wound List were considered to be imaginary musicians, made-up bands or booby traps for hacks and smart-arses. It took a while for the rest of the record collecting community to catch on or finally catch u

Since then, many of the rare, obscure and unpronounceable genre-free records on The Nurse With Wound List have slowly found their own feet and stumbled in to the homes of open-minded outernational vinyl junkies, D’s and sample hungry producers, self-propelled and judged on their own merit, mostly without consultation of the enigmatic NWW map. But, to the inspective competitive collector’s chagrin, one resounding fact recurs, NWW got there first! Via vinyl vacations, on cheap flights and Interrail tickets, buying bargain bin LPs on a shoestring while oblivious to the pending pension worthy price tags after their 40 year vintage, Stapleton and Fothergill, even if you’ve never heard of them, were at the bottom of the pit before “digging” became paydirt. And NOW at huge international record fairs that occur in massive exhibition halls (or within the confines of your one-touch palm pilot) amongst jive talk acronyms such as SS, PP, BIN, DNAP and BCWHES the coded letters NWW have begun to appear on stickers in the corner of original copies of the same premium progressive records accompanied by a customary 50% price hike to titillate/coerce the initiated as dealers extort the taught. Like “psych” “PINA” or “Krautrock” did before, “NWW” has become a buzzword and in the passed decades since its first publication The List has been mythologised, misunderstood and misconstrued. It’s also been overlooked, overestimated and under-appreciated in equal measures, but with a growing interest it has also come to represent a maligned genre in itself, something that all members of the original line-up would have deemed sacrilegious. Bolstered by the subtitle “Categories strain, crack and sometimes break, under their burden,” all bands on the inventory (many chosen on the strength of just one track alone) were chosen for their genre-defying qualities... A check-list for the unchart

Forty years after Nurse With Wound’s first record, Finders Keepers Records, in close collaboration with Steve Stapleton remind fans of THIS kind of “lost” music, that there once existed a feint path which was worn away decades before major label pop property developers built over this psychedelic underground. As long-running fans and liberators of some of the same records, arriving at the same axis from different-but-the-same planets, Finders Keepers and Nurse WIth Wound finally sing from the same hymn sheet resulting in a collaborative attempt to officially, authentically and legally compile the best tracks from the list, succeeding where many overzealous nerds have deferred (or simply, got the wrong end of the stick). Naturally our lavish metallic gatefold double vinyl compendium would only scratch the surface of this DIY dossier of elongated punk-prog peculiarities hence out decision to release volume one in a series which, in accordance with Steve’s wishes, focusses exclusively on individual tracks of French origin, the country that unsurprisingly hosted the highest content of bands on the list. Comprising of musique concrète, free jazz, Rock In Opposition, Zeuhl School space rock, macabre ballet music, lo-fi sci-fi, and classic horror literature inspired prog, this first volume of the series entitled Strain Crack And Break throws us in at the deep end, where the Seine meets the in-sane, introducing the space cadets that found Mars in Marseilles.

Like the Swedish flat-pack record shelves that attempt to house the vast amounts of vintage vinyl that goes into a multi-volume compilation like this, its time to prepare your own musical penchants and preconceived ideas about DIY music and hear them slowly strain, crack and b

Mannequin Records presents an outstanding collaboration between Michel Amato (The Hacker) and Alessandro Adriani.

What began as a B2B DJ set between two like-minded, seasoned veterans organically developed into a full force enthralling studio project and live set. Amato & Adriani is the new found project by Michel Amato, more commonly known as influential artist The Hacker, and producer and Mannequin Records label head honcho Alessandro Adriani. The collaboration fuses contemporary ideas with the duo's shared love for electro, EBM, Post-punk, Wave and the natural synergy to be found in the creative moment. Each artists production style and philosophy, when combined, elevates something new in one and other. The result, an innovative hybrid of classic sounds fueled by two creative forces working in pure synchronisation. Their debut EP, 'Présence Du Futur', is set to be released by Mannequin in June 2019 and includes a special collaboration with Cabaret Voltaire singer (and founder) Stephen Mallinder.

Oblique Russian sound strategist Natalia Salmina’s latest forking path portfolio as Atariame, Voiceless, arose in the wake of a dissociative relocation to Moscow, where she found herself adrift amidst a manic metropolis, alone in a skyscraper staring out at trees: “It made me lose faith in my ability to communicate, in my ideas about life.” Days without speaking turned to weeks. Even in private she felt estranged from her voice, and soon ceased singing.

For solace she turned to her Waldorf Blofeld, mining its panoramic frequencies to craft a shivering suite of futurist-noir nocturnes and rhythmic noise vignettes, equal parts exorcism and manifestation, desperation and delirium. Track titles hint at the headspace – “Outside At 5 AM,” “Same Thought All Day,” “Stay Late” – mirroring the music’s mood of hoods up, headphones on, wandering empty urban tunnels under flickering streetlights. Enigmatically, Salmina slips in a sliver of spectral voice on the intro and exit songs (“Breathe Exercise” and “Deconstruction”), framing them as induction into and escape from the cryptic isolationist condition of the rest of the collection. Mastered by P. Nikolsky, Powerhouse Moscow. Design by Britt Brown.

Spearheaded by James Dean Brown (also known from Perlon's Narcotic Syntax) and Victor Sol, and featuring other rotating members, Hypnobeat is a true product of the open-ended spirit of DIY music that proliferated in the 1980s. The prescient project championed deft, machine-powered rhythm programming as its modus operandi long before the practice would become a dominant global cultural form. Since Hypnobeat was revived in 2012 with Helena Hauff joining JDB on stage for improvised live performances based on one 707 and three 808s, there have been a string of archival releases shining a light on the early and more recently recorded works of this forward-thinking venture.

This latest collection for Artificial Dance comprises three freshly unearthed iterations. Long-form A-side track 'Polychrome Desert' is a pure percussive exercise, programmed and recorded by JDB in 1986 with a chain of three 808s filling out a stereo panorama. The intention was to create a pure, meditative rhythm drawing on African influences and reinterpreted through what was then the music technology of the future. 'Spies In Malaysia' is a live recording from a concert Hypnobeat performed in 1985. Its lurid melodic passages and crunchy percussive blasts formed the closing track of the set, which was met with rapturous response. Recorded in the same year, 'Sumatra Railway' was the product of an impromptu session between JDB and Victor Sol. The song finds the pair exploring a more shadowy, surf-inspired sound, laden with echo and freewheeling through seven minutes of sun-kissed, subtly tropical subversion.

With each successive release, the plot surrounding Hypnobeat thickens in a tangle of 1/4' jack cables and ancient effect pedals. From its shifting line-up to the diverse sonic repertoire, it remains one of the wondrous plants of German electronic music in the pre-techno era.

Patience began as bedroom synth project for songwriter Roxanne Clifford after the break up of her acclaimed indie pop band Veronica Falls. Born out of a desire to experiment with a new sound and analogue synthesizers, the project has since grown to become an all-encompassing persona and serves as the main vehicle for the full emotional spectrum always latent in Clifford’s songwriting. From her first long-sold-out 7” singles on Night School, her knack for melodic hooks and oblique emotional stances already contained a glistening sheen of promise. ‘Dizzy Spells’ serves as an intimate portrait of Clifford’s creative adventure, almost diaristic, conceived and recorded in her home studio, as well as with collaborators Todd Edwards (Daft Punk/Uk Garage fame), Lewis Cook (Free Love/Happy Meals) and engineer Misha Hering (Virginia Wing). Dizzy Spells delivers a debut album that twists Clifford’s songwriting into new shapes and ecstasies. The album dances around melancholy, thrown to the floor like a bad dream to be circled, emerging bright-eyed into the early morning full of hope. The Girls Are Chewing Gum (produced by Todd Edwards) bursts open Dizzy Spells like fresh fruit: sweet and rich with a synth-bass line beamed down from Chicago House heaven. Exquisitely sung by Clifford, it’s a wonderful, funky, instant-classic hinting at sexuality and memories dredged from our bodies’ secrets. The bouncy production expertly renders the addictive power of our ephemeral pleasures. Living Things Don’t Last chases themes of longing and loss, opening up into a life affirming chorus that sings of transience, the passing of time and railing against inertia. It’s the perfect example of a song formula that Roxanne Clifford has almost patented: simple and cutting straight to the point. There are shades of Strawberry Switchblade or French synth pop pioneer Jacno in the happy/sad dichotomy and it is all the better for it. Dizzy Spells features all three long-sold out singles, embedded in the full depth of Patience’s soundworld they fit like pieces of a puzzle. White Of An Eye, The Church and The Pressure—all recorded in Clifford’s former home of Glasgow—crackle with razor sharp melodies and dancefloor-ready dynamics. There are exciting additions to Patience’s sonic palette, brought into sharp relief on Voices In The Sand. In this song, a plaintive Clifford enunciates a heart-torn plea to the antagonist, a mournful cascade of synths and haunting vocals evocative of AC Marias, a sepia-toned ode to anxiety, “a storm is on the way”. On No Roses, a Vince Clarkesque production belies a sunburnt sadness. Clifford defiantly sings “you would go out tonight, but there’s nowhere you like,” describing a disenchantment with her adopted city of Los Angeles, she longs for home in a singular refrain “No roses… no roses for us.” An ode to English folk singer Shirley Collins, a surprising yet innate influence throughout Clifford’s work. On Moral Damage, former Veronica Falls bandmate Marion Herbain joins Clifford on an anglo-french duet that feels instant and spontaneous, a cutting comment on emotional accountability. More than a vehicle for Roxanne Clifford’s songwriting prowess, Patience is holding our hand through the night, dancing with tears in our eyes, dizzy and spellbound.

The first Yris Den. The first symptom of Yris Den. The first data entry of Yris Den. The first lacquer of Yris Den. The first search for Yris Den. (Paves the way for) the first appearence of Yris Den. Venial elevate your mind, free your auro.

Stefan Fraunberger's Quellgeister#3 Bussd is Recorded entirely on an abandoned church's organ in the village of Bussd, Romania, the album is the third installment of the series by Austrian artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger. His research on the influence of nature on culture touches on time, periphery, memory, and transience as evidenced in his Quellgeister research. The album is an archeological sonic research on the deteriorating Organ discovered in the saxon church in Transylvania.

Hailing from different places in western Europe, Luc Bersier, Low Bat, Leonard Prochazka and Ariel Garcia created this vibrant EP. Their synergy tells a story of creativity, freedom in sound and, above all, playfulness. Serious music while similarly not being to earnest.

Their venture evolved into a very original blend of cosmic music, utilizing instruments that fit into the neofolk Krautrock domain, vocal experiments into French chanson territory, infused in Berlinian cosmopolitanism. Expect an exciting minimal wave synth punk orgy, punk definitely being the defining trait underneath these layers of sound.

This is boundless music with attitude, capable of making us drift off and disrupt us in equal measure.