Techno Vinyl New Releases - News

Few albums have treated human voice and drone as a whole entity like ABoneCroneDrone, the third in a trilogy for Real World Records that this record closed back in 1996. In Sheila Chandra’s own words “it was about the gateways between vocal techniques from different cultures and how it was possible to cross between them within a single word or phrase.”

Indipop Recordings founder Steve Coe, probably best known for helping to popularise the term World Music in the early eighties, produced and worked with extreme accuracy along with Chandra on all drones and set a new industry standard of what was possible in the treatment of voice. With the help of bagpipes, didgeridoos and guitars, ABoneCroneDrone puts drones under the microscope and encourages listeners to retrain their ears to hear the nuances that musicians have always heard in them. Emitting low, chantlike waves, Chandra sings deep spaced atonal words while haunting chord sounds flow and drones slowly interact with listener.

This is the first vinyl pressing. It includes a fold-out insert with a new Sheila Chandra interview, original sleeve notes edited by Chandra herself and unseen pictures taken from the 1996 sessions. Limited to 500 copies, no digital release this time.

“The artistry of ABoneCroneDrone is in the attention to detail. The album is beautifully performed, mixed and compiled with intelligence and strong sense of structure. It makes good use of a listener’s valuable time while issuing a challenge to hear in a fresh way.” John L. Walters, The Wire issue 150.

While being best known for creating deeply immersive live psychoacoustic experiences, the London based Pataphysical have allowed us to use 'Periphera', the fruits of their debut studio work, as the label's eighth musical oblation. It would have been an exercise in futility to try and replicate the immediacy of their live performances on this record, but we feel that across these 8 disparate tracks inner worlds have been rendered real. Through the careful positioning of field recordings and the creation of soundscapes somewhat reminiscent of heyday Mille Plateau the group have held fast to a desire to craft involved and captivating synthesis.

Marshstepper are the most radical incarnation of Ascetic House, the collective and publishing house based in the desert city of Tempe, Arizona.
Marshstepper's dark electronic ritualism is performative, violent, unusual, shocking, unpredictable and raw.
During their Berlin Atonal show in 2016, they were joined by Drew McDowall, Jonas Ro¨hnberg and Juan Mendez.

Indy Nyles BLK SYSTM EP delivers four tracks of contemporary sounding techno. “BLK HRT” is a fluid amalgam of rolling, glassy synth tones, “BLK MND” is an exercise in similar territory but some of the rough corners are shaved off to allow room for a snaking acid line that begins to emerge a mere 30 seconds in, “BLK SOL”, is a shuffling, rolling, acid track, which lacks a conventional four to the floor kick but is still a fantastic beat tool for the creative DJ. The EP closes with “BLK SYSTM,” which features a gorgeous, lush, beatless intro, like the stunning opening segments that used to grace Detroit tracks of yore. Sirena Negra’s second release is another reason to get excited about this fledgling label and makes it an imprint to watch in the future.

Terence Fixmer reached worldwide recognition with the release of his debut album Muscle Machine on DJ Hell's seminal International Deejay Gigolos imprint in 1999. The album opened a whole new genre by combining Electro, Industrial, EBM and Techno into a more dance floor-focused EBM style, simply called 'Techno Body Music'. The French producer and live act has consistently explored and redefined the boundaries of modern Techno -and he is not slowing down. Dance Of The Comets is the second release on the newly relaunched NovaMutelabel. NovaMuteis the seminal techno label that has been home to Plastikman, Speedy J, Juan Atkins, Luke Slater, Joey Beltramand more. NovaMute, born again, recently released Cognitive Resonance by Nicolas Bougaïeffand will release the forthcoming EP by Charlotte De Witte. Terence Fixmer'ssound deftly avoids repetition by developing soundscapes which maintain musical depth and integrity. He above all preserves an original style, an increasingly experimental, simultaneously ruthless and instantly recognizable aesthetic.

Mika Vainio left behind a lots of unfinished projects and unreleased music.

This archive series is presenting some pieces which can be considered as completed works.

The first volume comprise of two selections from the 48:22 long untitled recording Mika Vainio did as Ø for the radio project Ambient City at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki 1994.

Third EP by Dutch avantgarde techno artist Stefan Vincent, including a Artefakt remix.

Man Band delivers its first Various release with a stunning downtempo opener by the enigmatic DJ Sacom and an ever mind-bending trip by Forest Drive West, with his second hypnotic remix of Elise. More newcomers on the flip include Bristol based Patrick Flint with a celestial workout of swirling percussions, and a massive, dub inspired cut by Paris local figure HANAH.

Sliding Windows is a creation by Karl Bult diving into the world of ambient and deeper techno embraced with a collaboration between Jana Sleep, Fjader & Korridor. Together we create this space of sounds that will open the window to the second release on Nordanvind.

We remain suspended, fluctuating
In these waters of unknown wellness
Flooded by a silence of emotions.
Emotions that make our loneliness
More deep, clear and awful.
As nails that dig died skins,
As eyes that bleed making skins acid
As hair that strangles the crowd's voices
Thus we,
Remain suspended
in this air rarefied by thoughts
to make us more conscious of the restless lack
of the Hope from us stolen.

We are honored to have one of the best forward thinking artists in the roster back in our catalog, This time on Collective. ASC is back to with 3 original cuts that define hypnotism on another level. The record contains also a very rare gem, Acronym is back on the label, his remix of the title track 'Sentinel' is pure class.

We find ourselves increasingly in a swell of solastalgia. Day to day, a vision of what might come to pass builds; one dystopian impression at a time. Solastalgia is not a new phenomena however, rather it has haunted us over the cen- turies. Change has never been humanities’ strong suit, but it has been our shadow. The perpetual ruptures in what we know and how we live are an inevitability; time takes no prisoners, no matter how tightly we might grasp things from moment to moment.

It’s here, at this fractious nexus of unpredictability and an absence of control that Rafael Anton Irisarri has created his latest work. Building on the echoes of landscape that guided his previous Room40 editions, Solastalgia imagines that which is not yet known. It traces possible terminus points for futures that many of us will not live to see. Utilising a range of unexpected variables, automations and uncontrolled systems in the creation of the recordings, Irisarri has devel- oped a new approach to his work, seamlessly weaving together intense layers of texture and saturated harmony.

Within these works, distant melodies emerge and in their wake the listeners’ focus shifts again and again. A never ending loop of the unconscious feeding into the conscious is formed. Whilst the skeletal form of pieces such as 'Coastal Trapped Disturbance' might remain, the organic matter that is the body of the music is in a process of persis- tent transformation. These subconscious variations morph the pieces from within. This is a record of sublimation, and dwells in states of transition and becoming.
Recorded in two suites (one released on LP and the other on cassette) , each section is a distorted mirror reflection of the other. Solastalgia stands as a landmark undertaking for Irisarri, it encourages us to remain unsettled and attentive in the moment, and prompts us to listen deeper and imagine what lies beyond or in excess of our expectations.

Rafael Anton Irisarri is an American composer, multi-instrumentalist, and record producer living in New York. De- scribed by the press as “one of contemporary ambient music’s most celebrated practitioners,” Irisarri's music often has a mournful, elegiac quality where ostinato phrases tap into minimalist ideals while atmospheric layers of effects suggests a more cinematic approach. In all, his compositions are deeply emotive and epic, like a symphony record- ing that’s been rescued from attic entombment after half a century. Irisarri concerts at museums, churches, syna- gogues, and other non-traditional performance spaces explore the physicality of sound. Combining an array of heavy metal bass amplifiers, multiple loudspeaker configurations, synthesizers, bowed guitars, notebook computers, video images, and lighting, Irisarri decontextualize the audience’s relationship to the venue, creating an immersive, otherworldly environment. Irisarri’s recorded works are widely published internationally.

Format draws from its Latin origin: "formatus", meaning "to be formed". Over two years, Germany's Max Wureden produced a variety of tracks using completely different approaches. It wasn't until they were placed together in unison that the strengths from the variety of productions came together. Max's studio recordings lined up alongside live performances; field recordings of foot-steps and sounds from deep forests amongst broken leaves and custom synthesizers; processed guitar-loops weave amongst soaring ambient pads and energetic driving analog pulses segue classic 90's ambient depicting the very furthest reaches of space. Max's abstract impressions were weaved together and Format was born. The result captures the very best of Max's multi-disciplinary techniques we've come to admire throughout his many productions and collaborations over the years with the likes of Thore Pfeiffer and his releases on Kompakt's Pop Ambient series.

Debut release from London based Hooverian Blur. Obfuscating the rave with breakbeat music for the now. Smudged soundscapes, chopped warehouse breaks, rude warehouse bass, obscured sentiment. Hooverian Blur is a new project from genre hopping DJ Warlock, coming back full circle with his Hardcore legacy and Rag & Bone aesthetic.

Early support from West Norwood Cassette Library, Ben UFO, Alienata.

I descend in this arduous water,
Filthy by the deeds done
The light runs out at each movement,
The sound becomes gloomier, at each eyelash beat
And I try undaunted to find a handhold
In these putrid ropes that drag me inside
A condemned cave, where water gets lost,
With my orientation
The breath lacks, there is no time,
I fall more in dephts, looking for a sure moment.
I found even darker and stunned by the scare,
I've let that an even gloomier sound
Flooded my body, stained in black

- UTOPIAN SOUL -

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination.

Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first – a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress – recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike.

While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi's latent Romanticism, the sidelong "If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery" reveals the Mills College graduate's affinity for the work of avant-garde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves – suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

Next move from Artefakt and Delsin is a selection of their label back catalog remixed by a few of their personal favourites in modern techno days. Forest Drive West and Evigt Morker both deliver slamming and hypnotic techno workouts. Where Polar Inertia and Valentino Mora take a dive into deeper territories. It resulted in a well balanced pack of exciting drum grooves, hypnotic loops, smoky dub techno and cinematic ambient.

“Le Lisse et le Strié is a new work by french composer François J. Bonnet, released under his project name Kassel Jaeger. Based in Paris, Bonnet is the Director of INA GRM. He is also a writer and theoretician (The Order of Sounds, a sonorous Archipelago and The Infra-World have been published in english by Urbanomic). As a musician, Bonnet has been collaborating with artists such as Stephen O’Malley, Oren Ambarchi or Jim O’Rourke and most of his recent work has been published by Editions Mego.

Le Lisse et le Strié has been conceived as an exploration of the two antagonist concepts of “smooth” and “striated”, applied to the realm of electroacoustic sounds. If the “smooth” is linked to “nomos” as an open space of organic distribution, the “striated”, on the contrary, is associated to “logos”, as an enclosed space defined by a grid.

Elaborating a dialogue between these aspects, Kassel Jaeger draws here an intermediary space where pulsations become textures and layers, and where rhythmic elements are found in the qualities and bodies of sounds instead of being functionnalised, pre-determined sound objects, abstracted and frozen onto a temporal grid. The concept of “striated” is made audible only through the sonic landscape it inhabits, like the stripes of the camouflage fur of wild animals only exist as such in the woods and long grass, disappearing into a potentially uselessness in a desert plain.”

Has there ever been a better time to fuck off to the stars? Is a prison breakout ‘escapism’? Crisis carve some wound-space to let the dreams back in. In nights we turn to fire, in flight we burst into stone, where are the exits in this theatre of the damned? Strict luggage allocations – guitar (D. Knight), saxophone (S. Thrower) – and all the electronics your thoughts can carry. Headspin echoes, round and around, tilt wind-sails at a dark horizon, cut a stutter through the distance barrier. In to be out through the structure of the eye, encrusted with rotor-slime, pushing on through border erosions as everything melts into smoke, burning objects may be closer than they appear. Nebulae dazzle the shadows, tunnel through memories and the pulp-mass of neurons, forwards heading backwards, end of tether snapped, slide into the earth like ancient worms and breathe.

UnicaZürn’s core instrumentation blends analogue synthesiser, mellotron and electric piano with electric guitar and saxophone. Knight is reknowned for his pioneering multi-textured fretwork with Danielle Dax and Shock-Headed Peters, and his ambient guitar settings for Lydia Lunch, while Thrower’s reed playing provided rage and melancholy in Coil and turns to electro-acoustic texture in Cyclobe.

Semantica returns with Blazej Malinowski

"Matthew" is nailed together with driftwood from around the world. The waters of Italy, the pubs of London, birds of Japan, a phone call in Los Angeles.

Sullivan moved from California to London in 2016. Living in London was a pivotal time for Matt, as I see it. This record digests that time. Each sound on Matthew means something very specific to the artist. Locales and memories focus to mind as passages rise and sink. Us listeners cannot know what transpires across the speakers, however. Our own narrative is quietly built. I like records that don't concern the audience, ones that make you invest yourself; this is one of those records.

Fans of Sullivan's music know that he never gives an inch more or an inch less than he needs to. Bold and looming with few extraneous elements. Ekhein, Matt's former cassette label, and his new label, as of yet without name, also carry this motif.

Two side-long pieces, expertly woven, constitute this album. I admire Matt's ability to play with proximity and depth of field: fading sirens, ripping waters, and digitized breath. Like an hallucinating Bill Fontana, the two works are sensory travels folding into themselves. Matt is once again living in Los Angeles, and thus the nostalgic mist that forms within Matthew is all the more meaningful.

Sean McCann, February 2019

We discovered the church in Kyjatice three years ago during our irregular wanderings across southern Slovakia. We were completely enchanted by this well hidden medieval building standing over the village, surrounded by sunny fields and dense forests. We asked ourselves how we could bring life again to the church, how we could fill it with sound which would not interrupt the contemplative character of that specific environment.

The result should have been the sound intervention which would awaken and reveal every corner inside of the church. Just for a moment, we wanted to caress all the monumental fresco paintings, creaking wooden benches, pipes of howling organ, hand painted ceiling and carved saints by sound which could release them from the long guarded and abandoned silence.

In the two compositions for vibraphone she wrote for mappa editions, Sarah Hennies analyses the psychoacustic dimensions of space. Sisters is a sonic exploration which opens the space between the rough walls of the church, an infinite pulse penetrating into every crinkle, hole and fold. In the sense of her quote "When you pulse one note on a vibraphone for 20 minutes, why do you need to do anything else?", we witness the fullness of one single tone, disappearing resonances and gentle changes, which reveal various performative, spatial, psychic and listening situations.

Sisters was a challenge for Lenka Novosedlíková, who is slovak composer, performer and organizer. Novosedlíková is well known distinctive figure of the youngest composers generation in Slovakia. She moves across contemporary composition and interpretation (percussion instruments), improv or electronic music projects. She is member of Cluster Ensemble which is renowned Slovak ensemble with many international achievements.

The church in Kyjatice is a sacred place of mappa editions. It blesses all our activities. It's a place of inevitable distance from our everyday life. Here we find distance from our everyday lives.

By buying a vinyl you contribute to better accessibility and maintenance of this significant Roman-gothic monument with valuable fresco decorations.

The sound of sheet metal, ripping slowly, suspended in low gravity. Screaming in slow motion, claustrophobic and encapsulated. This is the result of Nino Pedone's reworking of Mumdance & Logos' dancefloor deep heaters 'Chaos Engine' and 'Cold', taken from the 2015 LP 'Proto', also released on Tectonic.

No beats, pure drama. Each of Shapednoise's versions pull the original tracks deep into a chasm of crushing reverbs and grinding atmospherics, stretching the originals to their limit - and well beyond. Prepare yourself for a journey that will take you deeper into the darkside.

Woe are King Midas Sound on ’Solitude’, their crushingly desolate new album, auspiciously cued for a Valentine’s Day release on Shapednoise’s Cosmo Rhythmatic label. A meditation on loss, narrated by Roger Robisnon and produced by Kevin Martin (The Bug), ’Solitude’ sees KMS gut out their sound following the bittersweet shoegaze-dub blooms of their ‘Edition1’ 2015 collaboration with Fennesz, resulting in a starkly noirish elegy to extinguished romance and love in the endtimes

Combining the grown-up, confessional vulnerability of Robinson’s lyrics and dreader-than-dread delivery with the most stripped back arrangements in Kevin Martin’s entire catalogue, the duo drill deep into emotional sufferation with simultaneously suffocating yet somehow beautiful results. Over the course of 12 songs, they glacially limn a coming-to-terms with a loss that has been enforced or unexpected, and ultimately arrive at the starkest conclusions with cinematic effect.

’Solitude’ pushes King Midas Sound’s pessimism to heart-rinsing degrees. Staging Robinson in a series of vantablack scenes veiled by smoky, minimal synth-lighting, the poet processes irrational and incessant feelings of rejection and loneliness. From the aching desolation of ‘You Disappear’ to the unflinching realisations of ‘X’, the ache imparted by Robinson’s lyrics is only amplified by his quiet stoicism, while Kevin Martin finds power in a sense of deferred gratification and his embrace of negative space.

The effect is nothing less than transfixing in the physicality of Robinson’s descriptions and the detached nature of Martin’s sferic electronics on ‘In The Night’, while pangs of lush optimism lend an exquisite contrast to the desiccated riddim and gloom of ‘Alone’, and the sylvan keys in their sensuous reverie, ’Her Body’.

‘Solitude’ is a more than worthy follow-up to King Midas Sound’s two albums for Hyperdub and their collaboration with Fennesz for Ninja Tune. It’s bound to reset what you know about KMS, and become a go-to album for anyone going thru conscious uncoupling, domestic strife, or meditating on love in the age of info overload.

Sweden's finest Kontra-Musik and Aniara Recordings join forces for atmospheric investigations into rhythm and sound.

Shxcxchcxsh's Rosten label welcomes fellow Swedish producer Sissel Wincent for a smashing vinyl EP, 'Assorted Lights'. 2018 was indeed a busy year for Sissel, having released her second EP on Peder Mannerfelt's imprint as well as collaborating on his new LP. She also made a remix for Fever Ray and took part of the infamous Shape platform roster. With 'Assorted Lights', she pursues her unique blend of minimalism, gabber and experimental sounds to greatest effect. Machines squeal, squeak and hiss in the most natural way conveying passion and emotions with energy from start to finish. Four dancefloor bangers that showcases Sissel Wincent's talent to create dark, odd, yet cosy atmospheres of her own and some of the freshest dance music around.

Line Explorations present its first release - a compilation consisting of six tracks by six national artists, producing under the names of T'iwu, HTL, PX, emme, AMSH and Mensaje Sanador, serving as a sampler for what's to come in the future on the label and the sounds the label will evoke such as techno, IDM, ambient, noise, drone and experimental vibrations from the further avant-garde,

The first track focuses on growing an organic and everyday sonic scape with the use of chords and melodies filled with light touch - reminiscent of clear skies and sunshine - which creates an ambient feel similar to that of daily vibrations of life as presented and explored by T'iwu.

HTL enhances the depth of the reflections of today's emotions one can feel by delving deeper into everyday surroundings and exploring the noise/drone side of the ambient musical styles by mixing melodic elements with the out of the ordinary effects which shock and ululate while shaping the musical texture into a darker and deeper atmosphere.

The following track, by PX, elevates the atmosphere into a more jovial soundscape full of '80's inspired electronica and sci-fi soundtracks. The beat rolls off and twists in a funky groove helping develop a danceable pace for the release.

On top of that, emme presents the fourth track - in the shape of techno meets breaks - where more classical elements of industrially influenced electronic music can be traced from yesteryears. The sounds engulf in warmly distorted melodic strings while flowing over and under the rhythmic structure.

In contrast, AMSH's ''Subway'' presents a downpour of heavy sounds, such as noise influenced synths and delayed infected percussion, along with field recording of trains help envision the movement of a manmade machine and its flow through the undergrounds of today's world.

The final piece, of the label's initial release, comes in the shape of a Mensaje Sanador or healing message. The track takes on the elements of the three titles that have preceded it and explores further the dynamics between current and classical sounds of the electronic dance music genres by delving deeper into sound synthesis, melodies and rhythm as to help one submerge further into exploring such sounds, their history and the future to come.

Limited retail edition in double transparent yellow vinyl.
Explosions in Slow Motion is the new album from Brock Van Wey's transcendent bvdub project.
Van Wey's previous n5MD album Heart- less found him harnessing the turmoil around him to create something vast, emotive, and brooding, yet somehow comforting, allowing you to cradle in its weight.
Months after Heartless' release Van Wey moved from turbulent times of his native California home to the chilling winter of Warsaw Poland. A divergence. Alone against the icy cold, confined to the indoors in search of protection against the world outside, Van Wey channeled, as he always does, his surroundings as they coalesced with his self-imposed aberration. The outcome of this move, and period of near total isolation, is Explosions in Slow Motion.
Featuring four long-form songs accompanied by four 'ember' vignettes, Explosions in Slow Motion is quite possibly Van Wey's most mournfully isolated work in his massive discography to date.
Filled with swelling arcs of spectres from the past appearing then slowly drift away. Foggy memories of friends, loved ones, and even adversaries seem to achingly sweep across Explosions in Slow Motion's eighty-minute runtime.
There is a forlorn thread of shrouded nostalgia throughout the album which by album's end leads to catharsis, acceptance and the finality of progres- sion.

After the praise for Morning Worship, released back in 2015 on Royal Oak, Portuguese duo Sabre returns to releases with the EP "Fora de Turf", pointing directly towards the dance floor. There is in "Fora de Turf" a certain idea of transient existence as a series of car journeys cruising the night with no clear sense of direction, recalling the gradual disappearance of public space and loss of community. The weight of Kraut references such as Kraftwerk's Autobahn or Stratosfear by Tangerine Dream is somehow clear in its alignment with a 1995 Carl Craig who had just released Landcruising

On the A side, 'Condor Sense' and 'Sem Terra'. The first one is a banger built around broken beats and repetitive synth chords that guide us through the drone landscapes on the background, very clearly marked by the 808's rhythms. The second one is anchored in a broken kick and on a growing acid line, punctuated by warm chords and some sliced pads that reminds us of the pulsating heart of the city of Detroit.

On the B side, "Condor Senses" and "Driving Bruno" got some sort of a gliding character. "Condor Senses" is the only track on the EP to accept the classic four-on-the-floor to guide some dubby chords along a quieter landscape where organic and natural sounds lurk. Is it dawn arriving No. On the last track of the album, "Driving Bruno," Sabre get in the car and step on the throttle, full speed, on a bassline that could resemble some synthwave releases if synthwave had been lucky enough to be born a decade earlier and in the center of the state of Michigan.

All Tracks Written And Produced By Varuna.

Tucked away in a shed in Portland, Best Available Technology continues to cultivate an unmistakable sound grown around a seemingly untiring exploration of the machines that he works with. Across 'Enginetics & Plasmalterations' his densely layered sonic design agglutinates with a healthy appreciation for the unplanned or unexpected, forming a polymorphic collection of tracks for the 6th release from 12th Isle. While more traditional means of classification have become increasingly insufficient, it wouldn't be unfair to suggest that the music on this record bears a mutated resemblance to stuttered Downtempo or the dubbier side of Techno and Bass, connected by way of tonal plasticity through drone-jams and intermittently skewed synth loops.

Despite the frustrating limits of language surrounding music, we're incredibly happy to welcome B.A.T. to the label with this release and would be well enough compacting the overview of it to the near molecular level by borrowing a phrase from the artist himself - Sonics Proper!

Athens, Greece resident and Vanila records owner ANFS lands on Horo for an EP of jagged, industrial tinged Techno. Breakbeats are hacked and repurposed into brutal shards, with 'Kounoupi's amen march adding a slowed down, vicious take on the infamous roll. 'Salepsa' is a propulsive call to the floor, robust and emphatic, with 'Dervisis' and 'Komena' bookending the EP with rattling menace.

'From Here to Eternity' is the first full length album from Canadian composer Kyle Bobby Dunn since his 2014 long play, 'Infinite Sadness'.

The use of processed guitar and his passion for cinematic swells reaches new realms that are markedly more ominous and dense than his previous long play. Kyle Bobby Dunn also recruited prominent ambient composers and a handful of his favorite musicians to arrange their own instrumentation for several works on this release that add multiple layers of mystery and intrigue of the human mind and heart. Artists that contributed to this effort are: Benoît Pioulard, Simon Scott, Loscil, Pan-American, Wayne Robert Thomas, Isaac Helsen, Mark Nelson, Robert Donne, Maryam Sirvan, and Michael Vincent Waller.

Kyle Bobby Dunn wanted this album to be very much about the eternal conflict with all human emotions and life circumstances and to somehow go even further than the concepts left behind on 'Infinite Sadness'. The moods and sounds range from angelic choral elements to motion picture soundtrack epics; permeating the skeletal system of the listener with a sense of boundaries and mortality. There are also moments that capture the dynamics of the artist performing in the live setting perfectly and were engineered meticulously by Matt Rogalsky and Kyle Bobby Dunn himself. Truly a difficult album of unending loss, confusion, pain, identity, disease and even death, but also include the most reflective and warm moments of his career to date.

With productions dating back to 1994, James Bernard has gained a cult following for his combination of atmospheric analog beats and modular synthesizers. His debut album, 'Atmospherics' is often heralded as a classic by the diggers who stumble across it, and James' 'Unreleased Works' are a hidden gem of early 90's electronica (if you're lucky enough to own a copy on CDR of course). James has been busy experimenting and refining his modular setup over the years, to the extent that a full album of beautiful music, created live in one take on a sunny afternoon, comes to life once more here on ASIP. 'Atwater', was performed live during a 2018 'Modular On The Spot' event, held in Los Angeles' North Atwater Park. With his custom analog modular rig, a small set of speakers and a generator, James took the afternoon audience on a glistening tour of the beautiful sounds to emerge from a Moog Mother 32, custom built filters and various Eurorack modular sequencers, modules and effects. After hearing James' set, ASIP proposed presenting the music in permanent form for everyone who missed that special day. James initially took the chance to recreate the set and edit versions ready for a release, but after careful consideration, it was decided to release the raw unedited live version of his set (mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri) forever cementing that special moment and irreplaceable emotion found in North Atwater Park that one afternoon.

Rotterdam based duo ARKVS release ''Oppression EP'' through the PRRUK black series. The result is an exciting package of futuristic techno sounds and searing drums. The duo has managed to find a perfectly executed trip throughout the different sides of ARKVS. While the general tone is darkish throughout, there are some uplifting atmospheres and hints of hope to be found in this package. While the title track is a thumping piece of dancefloor techno, the cinematic voyage ''Our Deepest Fear'' is a stand-out production of adventurous electronics. On the B-side we find ''Chose To Defy'', which is a tough work of dark techno and the somewhat more mellow ''Nonviolence'' on which an intrusive bassline is combined with some beautiful synth sounds.

For those who shine darkly......

During the transitional period in which Coil's primary leadership, Peter 'Sleazy' Christopherson and John Balance, reorganized their creative direction by taking on new membership in the group through their inclusion of Drew McDowall, Coil took a drastic turn towards the metaphysical unknown.Employing the subtle handiwork of Coil's'real life'members, as well as the cleverlyguised aliases and spiritual collaborators, the band chose to filter their identity through a the nome de guerre, Black Light District,setting the precedent of Coil's future exploration of other worldy influence.

Recorded during the Winter of 1995/96, Black Light District reflects more on their formal avant-garde pursuits and academic interests rather than their industrial pedigree resume. Starting off with an obvious nod to John Cage with their introductory 'Unprepared Piano', the tone is prepared in exactly the same way... unpredictable. Conceptually abstract, Black Light District shows Coil's old guard disregarding the pop rhythms found on previous albums, such as Love Secret Domain,and fully embracing their experimental electronic trajectory. Subtle patterns of looping melancholy and malaise are placed delicately underneath ghostly electronic timbre. Approaching their creative method as something from the beyond, another realm in which sounds blur and performers seemingly appear from the ether.

Dais Records announces the official reissue of "Coil presents Black Light District -A Thousand Lights in a Darkened Room". Remastered by engineer Josh Bonati and supervised by Coil's Drew McDowall, the double LP vinyl release is packaged in a beautiful matte 24pt stock gatefold jacket Also available on digipack CD with booklet and digital.

Led By Nigel Ayers And Caroline K, The Band Was One Of The First To Use Tape Cutting, Avant-garde Art, And Underground Video Works To Create A Stage Experience That Was Being Cultivated By Like-minded Artists Like Throbbing Gristle, Spk And Cabaret Voltaire.

Originally Self Released In 1988 On Earthly Delights, Spiritflesh' Is A Masterpiece And A Major Reference For The Early Drone/dark Ambient Minds.

By The Time The Album Came Out, Nocturnal Emissions Had Already Produced Several Albums Of Electronic Music Which Varied From Noisy To Funky. Displaying His Usual Perversity, Nigel Chose To Ditch Electronic Dance Music Immediately Before The Acid House Revolution And Produce A Series Of Utterly Compelling Atmospheric Albums Which Are Often Referred To These Days As Being 'ambient Industrial'.

"spiritflesh" Was The First Offering By The New Shape Of Nocturnal Emissions. The Record 'came Out Of A Long, Hard Thinking, A Personal Examination Of My Own Motives For Working Within Music.' Nigel Ayers Played Church Harmonium, Chime And Music Box On The Record, And Used Samples Of Chimpanzees, Cattle, And African And European Wild Birds. While Generally Ambient, The Music Is Not Like Brian Eno's Work; It Is Atmospheric, But Impossible To Relegate To The Background.

'there's Always A Dangerous Intrusion Of The Real World Into Our Music,' Ayers Said. 'we're Looking Into The Relationship Between People And The Environment, The Kind Of Feedback Which Happens Between People And Locations. Underneath It All, This Planet Has Got Its Own Message.'

NON Worldwide co-founder Nkisi rolls out an instant modern classic with '7 Directions' for UIQ. A masterful debut album informed by African Cosmology and Congolese rhythms, it's aesthetically comparable with music ranging from Æ's 'Incunabula' to The Connection Machine's 'Painless', Lee
Gamble hyperprisms and William Bennett's Cut Hands, but ultimately it's peerless in the (hyper)modern field...
Specifically referencing the writings of Kongo scholar Dr Kimbwandende Kia Bunseki Fu-Kiau and the African Cosmology of the Bantu-Kongo, '7 Directions' is offered as a gateway to hallucinatory mindstates via aerobic mysticism. Ultimately it is focussed on the idea that rhythm has the capacity to modulate and experiment with conditions of perception, and to disrupt predetermined expectations, and does so in the belief that new movements of energy can determine collective behaviour and generate new possibilities for knowledge production and dissemination - perhaps even supposing rhythm's potential for premonitory pattern recognition.
We fully concur with Nkisi's notions about dance music's potential for transferring and conveying energy, both negative/ecstatic, abstract/intuitive, so it's a rare pleasure to hear her limn those ideas so beautifully, effectively and open-endedly thru '7 Directions'. In each part she inimitably unlocks and retunes the body's rhythmic anticipation with breathless batteries of incredible polyrhythms that arguably make the majority of Western dance styles sound like rote line dance music for folk with little imagination in their bones.
In each direction Nkisi's drums writhe and rattle in a simultaneously ancient/futuristic style - ancient because they explicitly reference percussive traditions way older than Western
civilization, and futuristic because they've never been presented in this way before, alloyed with cosmic synth pads that draw lines from Detroit to the Lowlands and back to source, way out in the
cosmos. But rather than closed systems for study and analysis, Nkisi's trax feel like living, bristling organisms or virulent systems that only become activated with user participation, where those
ideas can begin to take root, grow and mutate via kinesis.
Even if you don't dance in public and save '7 Directions' for your living room/bedroom/holosphere, listeners will get the best out of this album by putting something in themselves, by shutting their
eyes and dancing with it.

Although Itta (Vocals, Harmonium) and Marqido (Analog Synthesizers) have been regular fixtures in Seoul's experimental music community for years, the vinyl release of Spiritual reflects the growing international recognition of their singular sound, described by The Wire as 'meditative synthesized vistas.' Spiritual certainly embodies the meditative element of their music, layering hypnotic modular synth with Indian harmonium drone and Itta's transcendental vocals. This is more than functional music for the metaphysically curious, however. Perhaps more than any of their previous releases, Spiritual offers an open accessibility, owing at least partly to the channeling of krautrock-influenced rhythms. Tracks like 'Luft' and 'Morgen Tempel' wouldn't sound out of place in any DJ set with kraut or psychedelic leanings, while 'Barabonda' and 'Dodeuri' dig deep into a more meditative place, serving as perfect expressions of the album's title and intent. Fans of Neu!, Kraftwerk, Laraaji or Klaus Schulze might find themselves in a comfortable yet unexplored place.

Spiritual was originally released in 2017 as a limited-edition cassette of 250 copies, produced in collaboration with Seendosi, an arts enterprise in Seoul Euljiro district, the city's heart of printing, packaging and electronics manufacturing. The cassette sold out within a year of its production, prompting Extra Noir, who had previously released Tengger's 'Breathe In, Breathe Out' on their Extra Noir Vol. 1 compilation, to propose reissuing Spiritual on vinyl. Working with Seendosi once again, the result is a beautifully produced piece of work. Closely attentive to the band's vision, the gatefold sleeve features rich landscape motifs that evoke Tengger's commitment to earthly travel and the less accessible places beyond. Pressed onto clear vinyl, the design of Spiritual has been carefully constructed to reflect the entirely unique music within: heavy ephemerality, dense transcendence and grounded wanderlust.

36's music is often associated with and influenced by the futuristic, cyberpunk side of ambient music. His ability to transport and portray new worlds evident through his 2016 album for ASIP, 'The Infinity Room', or any of his self-released works. It's of no surprise then to see his return to ASIP take this exploration one-step further. However, instead of the more obvious themes that come with cyberpunk, such as technological fetishism or vapid aesthetics, Dennis has decided to focus on the isolation of individuals, using (and often abusing) technology as a means of escapism - a side of cyberpunk that often goes unnoticed when it comes to the musical depictions that come with it. Fade To Grey reflects on current social paradigms, where social media has become a weak substitute for human interaction. Rather than bringing people together, it often makes us feel lonelier than ever. As evident in the album's artwork, technology is shown to be far from benign. The soft, gentle elegance of watercolor is juxtaposed by the violent splatters of machinery. Every vice has its price. Considering the landscape of our own world right now, where a handful of companies control everything we consume, where convenience is more important than privacy, where personal choice is pre-determined by algorithms analyzing our behavior, and where the internet has become a battleground for influence and propaganda... It's not a stretch of the imagination to believe we're already witnessing our very own dystopia.