quête:mari

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I
couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

A unique new album of poetry and music featuring Marianne Faithfull set to the music of Warren Ellis, and featuring Nick Cave, Brian Eno and Vincent Ségal
With She Walks in Beauty, Marianne Faithfull with composer and multi-instrumentalist Warren Ellis releases one of the most distinctive and singular albums of her long, extraordinary life and career. It was recorded just before and during the first Covid-19 lockdown – during which the singer herself became infected and almost died of the disease – with musical friends and family including not only composer Warren Ellis but Nick Cave, Brian Eno, cellist Vincent Ségal and producer-engineer Head. She Walks in Beauty fulfils Faithfull’s long-held ambition to record an album of poetry with music.
It’s a record that draws on her passion for the English Romantic poets, a passion she fostered in her A Level studies with one Mrs Simpson at St Joseph's Convent School in Reading. From there she entered the world of As Tears Go By, of Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones, Top of the Pops and the left-hand path of pop and stage stardom. Sixties iconography and outrage followed, as did her subsequent battles with addiction before her 1979 return to powerful female and artistic autonomy with Broken English, an album which featured her setting to music Heathcote Williams’ poem of eviscerating rage, Why D’Ya Do It?
Drawing deep on the poetry of Shelley, Keats, Byron, Wordsworth, Tennyson and Thomas Hood, Faithfull’s vocal performances set to Ellis’s subtle collages of sound draw out the heart, the quick, the vibrant living matter in all these great poems, making them fresh, renewing them with the complex, lived-in timbres of her voice, and set to a subtle palette of ambient musical settings. It’s both a radical departure and a return to her original inspirations as an artist and performer.
The greatest poetry is best heard, and Faithfull’s accounts of some of the greatest lyric poetry in our language – Keats’ Ode To A Nightingale and Ode To Autumn – are spine-tingling in their deep understanding of the poetry’s powerful currents of meaning and identification. On Nightingale, her voice opens up like an epic landscape, while in Shelley’s miniature masterpiece, To The Moon, she sounds otherworldly, as if calling down from another medium, and the atonal, otherworldly sound textures provided by Eno on Bridge of Sighs and La Belle Dame Sans Merci become a compelling foil for Faithfull’s haunting interpretations of these rich, dark poems.
“They’ve have been with her her whole life,” says Ellis. “She believes in these texts. That world, she inhabits it, embodies it, and that really comes through. There’s just something about the way she can deliver that is incredibly affecting.”
“Eventually I always end up where I was meant to be,” says Faithfull. “I’ve noticed that. It may take a long time, but I get there. I never forget these things. After all these years, I’ve drawn the strands back and they still mean something and they resonate more, actually, because I now have life experience. Life and near-death experience. Many times! Not just once.” She Walks in Beauty is scheduled for release April 30th, with artwork created for the album by British artist and lifelong friend, Colin Self, and with the full texts of the poems, and commentary, included in the liner notes. While Faithfull continues to recover from the after-effects of Covid-19, and the world around us continues to struggle with the impact of the worldwide pandemic, these are poems and performances to steady and lift the spirit.

Outside Ludlow / Desert Disco is the first major solo release from Australian performer-composer Sam Dunscombe, now based in Berlin after residing for the past decade in San Diego and Tokyo. A virtuoso clarinettist who has performed in composed and improvised settings with artists such as Klaus Lang and Taku Sugimoto, their practice also embraces computer music, lo-fi electronics and field recordings, in addition to their long-term commitment to archiving, studying and performing the work of Romanian spectralist composer Horatiu Radulescu.
The two side-long pieces presented on this LP began from a chance encounter in a specific geographic location (documented in the photographs that grace the record’s sleeve). Exploring California’s Mojave desert with a friend, Dunscombe made the unlikely discovery of a tangle of quarter-inch tape snared on a cactus. The digitised version of this tape, variously edited and processed, as well as Dunscombe’s own transcription and embellished performance of some of its material on Hammond organ, makes up one of the main ingredients of the LP’s first side. The other is a field recording of the area outside the ghost town of Ludlow, where the tape was found, where haunted silence is punctuated by freight trains and clusters of explosions from gold mines and the local marine corps. Far from any kind of documentary approach, the resulting composition reaches back to the smeared atmospherics and overdriven tape crunch of Hands To, Small Cruel Party or Joe Colley, before the Hammond organ rises up to cast a spectral shimmer reminiscent of 1960s tape music classics like Arne Nordheim’s ‘Warszawa’.

On ‘Desert Disco’ (its title perhaps a clue to the content of the mysterious tape), Dunscombe zeroes in on a single fragment of the tape, accompanying it with analogue synthesis to craft an immersive work based on a single chord. Throughout the course of this work, the monolithic opening sonority gradually splits apart, revealing an infinity of rhythmically phasing lines that swarm like a cloud of insects and patter like falling rain, placing Dunscombe’s piece in a lineage of patient electronic exploration that includes landmarks like Costin Miereanu’s Derives and the contemporary work of Jim O’Rourke.

Limited edition vinyl with images by Sam Dunscombe and design by Lasse Marhaug. Mastered by Joe Talia at Good Mixture, Berlin.

For fans of AMON DÜÜL, CAN, FAUST, NEUBAUTEN, BRIAN ENO, CLUSTER, CULT OF LUNA, NINE INCH NAILS, MASSIVE ATTACK OR - Norwegian for "dizzy, confusing" - is the third album from Italian avant-rock trio OSLO TAPES, and the album keeps what the word promises: a dizzying ride through a feverish dreamscape of imaginary Norwegian highlands painted in cubistic shapes. Hypnotic basslines, repetitive drum patterns, new wave synths and psychedelic guitar textures covering the full width of the stereo room, all seamlessly woven into a gloomy Kraut - tapestry which sounds refreshingly_ modern, while paying tribute to the aged genre. Marco Campitelli, born and raised in Lanciano on the Southern Adriatic coast of Italy, founded OSLO TAPES in the early 2010s after a trip to the Norwegian Capital left him deeply impressed. Under the influence of this infatuation, he composed and produced OSLO TAPES' first record "OT (un cuore in pasto a pesci con teste di cane)" within a week in 2013. Supervised and supported by friend Amaury Cambuzat (faUSt / Ulan Bator), Campitelli's first attempt to capture the mystical vibe of Norway was released on DeAmbula Records (Ulan Bator, The Marigold, 7C). In 2015 he was joined by Mauro Spada and Federico Sergente (Zippo) and together they recorded OSLO TAPES' sophomore album "Tango Kalashnikov", also released on DeAmbula Records. "OR" is a much more collaborative effort for OSLO TAPES than the first two records. Next to Campitelli, the album was co-produced by Amaury Cambuzat (Ulan Bator) and James Aparicio (house engineer for Mute Records and mixing and mastering engineer for Depeche Mode, Mogwai, Nick Cave). During production, Campitelli became friends with Emil Nikolaisen of Serena Maneesh w h o guided him "through the Norwegian imagination". As a result, the record's title is also courtesy of Nikolaisen. During this journey spanning over eight songs, OSLO TAPES, completed by Mauro Spada (bass) and Davide Di Virgilio (drums and percussions) construct a dense and ever so dark atmosphere that is captivating, brooding and imaginative. After a spiraling takeoff with "Space is the place", we find ourselves floating weightlessly above the nocturnal Norwegian highlands through "Zenith" and "Kosmik Feels", an airy circulation of jazzy drums, pulsating bass lines and shimmering guitar clouds. We saddle up, gallop across the sky on "Bodo Dakar" and drift back into the night on "Cosmonaut". The trifecta of "Norwegian Dream", "Exotic Dreams" and "Obession Is The Mother of All" conclude this agitated fever dream journey. There is a sense of solitude in OSLO TAPES' compositions which makes it easy to imagine them as interstellar jam sessions between cosmonauts, each in their own isolated space capsule. Every spin of "OR" brings new discoveries: sometimes it is a noise that we did not notice before, sometimes a slight change in the drum groove, sometimes just a piece of the lyrics, meandering through our mental space. "OR" is a vertiginious journey to be remembered - and repeated. "The focus of Oslo Tapes is to harmonize the noise" says Marco Campitelli.

New imprint Distant Waters, from Nantes, France is an ode to high seas, far away oceanic lands and unknown marine wildlife. Co-founder of the label, Sans Sucre, who released previously on Antam records and Planet Tapes offer this first EP from Distant Waters.

The A1 of this four-track EP, Tetrodoxin, is the starting point of the aquatic story, with whales samples and aquatic groove, it fit perfectly to warm up a wet dancefloor.

A2, Aqualung is inspired by asian groove, with some tastes of Yellow Magic Orchestra matching with 303 elements.

The B-side follows up with Sequential Hermaphrodism, A downbeat track with an heavy hip hop inspired bassline. Then it finish with Ampullae Of Lorenzini, the most dancefloor oriented track of the EP, with a mysterious sweet voice.

May 28 will see prolific Japanese vibraphonist, multi-percussionist and composer Masayoshi Fujita mark a new sonic direction with his forthcoming album Bird Ambience on Erased Tapes.

Bird Ambience brings several fresh changes for the artist. Until now, Fujita would separate his acoustic solo recordings from the electronic dub under his El Fog alias and experimental improvisations with contemporaries such as Jan Jelinek, Bird Ambience sees him unite all of these different sides to his work for the first time, into one singular vision. He also makes a lateral leap from his signature instrument the vibraphone, on which he created his acclaimed triptych Stories (2012), Apologues (2015) and Book of Life (2018), to the marimba, which takes centre stage on his new album alongside drums, percussion, synths, effectors and tape recorder.

“The way of playing the marimba is similar to the vibraphone, so it was kind of a natural development for me and easier to start with, yet it sounds very different”, explains Masayoshi. “The marimba bars are made with wood and it has a wider range than the vibraphone, which gives me a bigger sound palette with more possibilities. I play the instrument with bows and mallets, and sometimes manipulate it with effects.”

Bird Ambience also marks his liberation from fastidious preparation for past solo releases to new endeavours in improvisation. “I prioritised trying to capture the wonder which happens during those occasional magic improv moments. Sometimes the mic-ing and placement of instruments was pretty rough; things weren’t perfect and everything was done quickly, but it turned out as the final recording. Overall when I
couldn’t decide between two takes, I told myself to go with the first”, Masayoshi recalls.

Arranged with a perfect Kanso-like balance, the unhurried pace of Bird Ambience allows each sound and phrase enough time to be mindfully absorbed and savoured. This subtle but affective work carries ethereal remnants of Midori Takada’s minimalism, the static atmospheres of Mika Vainio, To Rococo Rot’s organics and the bucolic electronics of Minotaur Shock. Fujita vaporises contemporary and classical, ambient and dismantled dub, controlled noise and fragments of jazz into an atmospheric, static mist, which he skilfully coerces into new forms.

After 13 years in Berlin, Masayoshi recently relocated to a new home and studio in the rural Japanese mountain village of Kami-cho, Hyogo, following his life-long dream of creating music in nature. Even though the album was entirely recorded in Germany before he left, it has this palpable sense of reverie found in the natural world. From there we can only imagine the kind of impact his new life in rural West Japan will have on future works.

Cousins Gilberto and Karin Rodriguez have been steadily synthesizing a unique type of musical and cultural fusion together as Almas Fronterizas. Blending their lived experiences in Mexico City, Los Angeles and the San Francisco Bay Area with a musical lineage paying homage to their Indigenous roots, they've created a representative musical offering, a modern day psychedelic sonic painting of analog blues, rock, and brown-eyed soul.

The group's first several releases, via their own imprint Discos Pistolas y Saguaros, solidified their space in a wide encompassing and constant changing West Coast music scene, yet stood out with an experimental freedom and independent hustle that found kindred spirits in New York City record label Names You Can Trust.

Now, after a suitable time marinating together with NYCT, a natural continuation of the group's ethos is presented in the form of two new songs on 7-inch vinyl. Featuring a third cousin in Carlos Rodriguez on trumpet, plus percussive powerhouse Ahkeel Mestayer on timbales, conga and maracas, Brian Tuley on flute, Devin Hollister on bass and horn arrangements by La Doña's Cecilia Peña-Govea, the tracks were recorded in Berkeley by Mike Walti and mixed down in Brooklyn for a true coast to coast collaboration. Out in the front, Gilberto's vocals drive drop-top down, wide open and honest in melancholic blue notes, whether he's motoring down the highway over northern soul-with-a-hook A-side, "Cruel Desperation," or cruising on the avenue in the slow-motion B-side ballad burner, "Linda Morenita," it's another showcase of the tremendous range of style and engaging expression that this group can hit.

Heist welcomes rising star of the French House scene Marina Trench to the roster with a stunning release full of classic house cues across 4 warm & deeply grooving house cuts.
With only a handful of releases on DJ Deep’s Deeply Rooted (2019) and Wolf Music (2020), the young Parisian producer is only just getting started. And as far as starts go: This release on Heist will definitely open some eyes & ears across the house scene.
With her elegant and soulful sound both firmly rooted in classic deep house as it is contemporary, Marina showcases a mature sound that’s rarely seen with emerging producers. With a smart choice of samples, beautiful original vocals and smooth pads,
Marina layers her tracks effortlessly into warm compositions that work just as well in your living room as in any sweaty club.
The aptly titled opening track “Sunrise” is a smooth affair with pads oozing in and out and a faintly recognizable and definitely catchy choice of samples. An open electronic bass gives the track a serious tone, but it’s the melancholic chords that make you doze off reminiscing the days of endless festivals in the sun.
“Carry on” is built around classic house stabs with cleverly layered arpeggios and textures giving the track it’s depth. The main attraction here is the trumpet solo by German wunderkind Christian Altehülshorst. As far as chance meetings go, this is a nice one. Christian (who we met through our mutual friend Lorenz Rhode) was our impromptu trumpet player during a show at La Machine back in 2019, where Marina played alongside us. They got talking and before we knew it, we had this track in our inbox. It’s jazzy deephouse at its finest.
On the B-side, we’ve got “Over there”, where Marina layers here own vocals on an infectious house groove and the closing track “Wake up” featuring the emotive vocals of French Algerian artist Sabrina Bellaouel. The latter track evolves around a LFO’d pad and a minimalist groove, giving the vocals all the space to shine in a track that could easily be the one in your set that sets the room on fire.
As far as label debuts go, we could not have hoped for a better one. We’re sure we’ll get to see a lot more of Marina in the near future and hope she serves as a shining example for other emerging producers.
Enjoy the music,
Maarten & Lars

It was already a reference among the diggers’ community, and one day, our friend from
Chouf made us listen to the record before Dizonord. We found Uli, one of the musicians, who still
had a fair number of copies of this 1990 LP, a tricky year for vinyl. This record is a mix between
jazz, funk and ambient but with a very special pop touch to it.

Kscope Re-Issue Of The Classic ‘Radiation’ Featuring 2013 Mixes, 2 x LP 140Gram Vinyl in a Gatefold sleeve. The CD edition will include both the original 1998 version and the 2013 mixes, whilst the LP edition will host the 2013 mixes with an etched D-side
Marillion formed in 1979 and have since sold over 15 million albums worldwide. Rightly regarded as legends of progressive rock, the band have continued to evolve and have been keen to embrace the possibilities of the internet, using innovative ways to interact with listeners resulting in an incredibly loyal legion of fans around the world.
‘Radiation’ was the band’s tenth studio album and debuted in the top 40 in the UK when it was originally released in 1998. The album saw the band abandon the acoustic approach of ‘This Strange Engine’ and instead revisit a heavier sound previously found on ‘Afraid Of Sunlight’. This change in sound as well as the experimentation with different instrument tones and vocal effects and samples led to a more pop sound than that previously heard from the group.
The album was subsequently remixed and remastered by Michael Hunter in 2013. Kscope are now pleased to present a reissue of this highly regarded album on LP.

Spindle Ensemble’s highly anticipated sophomore album is scheduled for a release on Thursday 27th May 2021 on vinyl, CD and digital download via Hidden Notes Records. The vinyl version will be accompanied by a special 12 page booklet which also includes liner notes written by celebrated DJ and Broadcaster Nick Luscombe (BBC3’s Late Junction/Musicity/Flomotion Radio).

In conjunction with the announcement a brand new single Caligo - with B side Menilmontant - was released via Bandcamp on Friday 5th February 2021 together with a unique music video that combines super 8 footage and scratched 16mm film visual artist Narna Hue (watch the video below).

A special socially distanced album launch concert is due to take place at St George’s Bristol on Thursday 27th May depending on COVID guidelines and restrictions at that time.

Since their formation in Bristol in 2016 contemporary chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble led by composer and pianist Daniel Inzani (Yola, Alabaster dePlume, Tezeta) which also features tuned percussionist Harriet Riley (Charles Hazelwood’s Paraorchestra, Bristol Symphony Orchestra), cellist Jo Silverston (Mesadorm) and violinist Caelia Lunniss (Edward Penfold) have garnered much praise for their innovative take on contemporary classical music, rooted in spontaneity and improvisation performed with deft musicianship and unique instrumental pairing all resulting in truly captivating sonic soundscapes.

Equally at home performing in concert halls such as the Union Chapel, Southbank Centre, Bristol Beacon, St George’s Bristol and festivals including Shambala and Hidden Notes to churches, art centres, record shops and independent venues across the UK they continue to bring their music to a diverse and ever growing audience.

Listeners may hear influences from composers such as Satie, Pärt, Ravel, Reich, Glass and Moondog in their music but might also find the soundtracks of Morricone and the minimalist aesthetics of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra nestled alongside the more experimental leanings of groups such as Rachel’s, Esmerine, Bell Orchestre and Amiina.

The quartet’s forthcoming album Inkling was recorded at various venues across Bristol, capturing their performances as unique 3D sound images enabling the listener to hear each instruments position mimicking the audible experience as a live audience member. Unlike their debut BEA, some of the compositions on Inkling also features a collection of guest musicians expanding their sound to an orchestral scale, featuring the addition of brass and percussion instruments.

In September 2019 the group released a double A-side single of Chase and Okemah Sundown from the album with accompanying videos by acclaimed Director/Cinematographer Fred Reed and stop-motion animator Marie Lechevallier.

Spindle Ensemble’s highly anticipated sophomore album is scheduled for a release on Thursday 27th May 2021 on vinyl, CD and digital download via Hidden Notes Records. The vinyl version will be accompanied by a special 12 page booklet which also includes liner notes written by celebrated DJ and Broadcaster Nick Luscombe (BBC3’s Late Junction/Musicity/Flomotion Radio).

In conjunction with the announcement a brand new single Caligo - with B side Menilmontant - was released via Bandcamp on Friday 5th February 2021 together with a unique music video that combines super 8 footage and scratched 16mm film visual artist Narna Hue (watch the video below).

A special socially distanced album launch concert is due to take place at St George’s Bristol on Thursday 27th May depending on COVID guidelines and restrictions at that time.

Since their formation in Bristol in 2016 contemporary chamber quartet Spindle Ensemble led by composer and pianist Daniel Inzani (Yola, Alabaster dePlume, Tezeta) which also features tuned percussionist Harriet Riley (Charles Hazelwood’s Paraorchestra, Bristol Symphony Orchestra), cellist Jo Silverston (Mesadorm) and violinist Caelia Lunniss (Edward Penfold) have garnered much praise for their innovative take on contemporary classical music, rooted in spontaneity and improvisation performed with deft musicianship and unique instrumental pairing all resulting in truly captivating sonic soundscapes.

Equally at home performing in concert halls such as the Union Chapel, Southbank Centre, Bristol Beacon, St George’s Bristol and festivals including Shambala and Hidden Notes to churches, art centres, record shops and independent venues across the UK they continue to bring their music to a diverse and ever growing audience.

Listeners may hear influences from composers such as Satie, Pärt, Ravel, Reich, Glass and Moondog in their music but might also find the soundtracks of Morricone and the minimalist aesthetics of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra nestled alongside the more experimental leanings of groups such as Rachel’s, Esmerine, Bell Orchestre and Amiina.

The quartet’s forthcoming album Inkling was recorded at various venues across Bristol, capturing their performances as unique 3D sound images enabling the listener to hear each instruments position mimicking the audible experience as a live audience member. Unlike their debut BEA, some of the compositions on Inkling also features a collection of guest musicians expanding their sound to an orchestral scale, featuring the addition of brass and percussion instruments.

In September 2019 the group released a double A-side single of Chase and Okemah Sundown from the album with accompanying videos by acclaimed Director/Cinematographer Fred Reed and stop-motion animator Marie Lechevallier.

Collection of unreleased demos of written for the sixth PJ Harvey studio album Uh Huh Her, including demos of ‘The Letter’ and ‘Shame’. Features brand new artwork with previously unseen photos by Maria Mochnacz. Artwork is overseen by Maria with Rob Crane. Mastering by Jason Mitchell at Loud Mastering, under the guidance of longtime PJ Harvey producer Head.

repress

Compiled by cratediggers Loud E & The Wild, Discophilia Beligica' is a collection of next-door-disco and local spacemusic from Belgium 1975-1987. The tracks on this delightfully obscure collection are from ordinary folk. Most have day jobs. Yet as musicians, they go as far out as possible in to the disco universe and back again.

After severals EPs on labels such as Lumière Noir, Kill the DJs or Bahnsteig 23, here is the first album of french duo Il Est Vilaine, infused with a "Yellow Magic Orchestra-ish" touch, rooted in the french musical landscape.

A road trip in Brittany as a red thread, the two hooligans of Il Est Vilaine revisit Kawaii pop, crazy rock like DEVO and Detroit techno with a surprising coherence. An album long matured and awaited by the band's fans.

Il Est Vilaine aren’t Bretons, but they sure are tricksters. The Francophiles among you might have caught on to the corny pun in their name (beating a certain presidential candidate to the punch all while turning the name of the pastoral Ille-et-Vilaine region into, literally, “he’s a nasty woman,”) but the real takeaway is that these born-and-bred Parisians don’t take themselves too seriously – especially in an era in which there is much too much of that happening.
It was in 2014 (and on Dialect Recordings) that Florent and Simon tossed their debut 12” into the ring, the rightfully named Scandale – a tight little bombshell released that roused the electronic music scene out of its complacent little catnap.
So there we had it, two outcasts refusing to eat at the same table as the tech-house scene queens, serving up three whiplash-on-the-dancefloor cuts drenched in sweaty hedonistic disco and wrapped in a battered motorcycle jacket (with a gooey post-punk-pop core for good measure.) A clear mission statement right out of the gates, watermarked with mystical incantations and throbbing with rock ’n’ roll’s primitive drive. Everything and the kitchen sink, and a bag of chips – an invitation to just let lose that’s even better than the sum of its parts.

Chronos is the new album by Rostock´s composer Johann Pätzold aka Secret of Elements - a heartfelt, richly visual journey through which the German composer channels personal struggles alongside the social upheavals to which he has dedicated himself as a 'music activist'.

Textextext - (add your write up)

Chronos charts an eventful period during which Pätzold learned to deal with mental illness, travelled to the Mediterranean to save lives during the refugee crisis, fell in love and lost love - ten years is a long time. The album tells of people, moments or phases from the musician's life. It opens with the ominous melodies and immersive choral ambience of 'Grace', which reflects on a friend's suicide attempt, before riding the euphoria of Pätzold's wedding and the birth of his children in 'A Last Waltz.'

Third track 'Memento' narrates the epic journey of a refugee Syrian mother whom Pätzold accompanied from Greece to Germany, its emotive swells and subtle crescendo evoking simultaneously the dawning of a new world and the melancholy of what has been left behind. 'Vinculum', built around an Indian mantra, also dates from the same period and was written as a last tribute to a small child who drowned in the Mediterranean. The piece combines church organ - renown as part of Christian music, and indeed recorded in the Marienkirche in Gnoien on an original 18th century Lütkemüller organ - with a mantra, seeking to unite various religious symbols in an attempt at reconciliation in the face of unimaginable tragedy.

Propelled by mechanical percussion, 'Rage' uses the Shepard scale, a musical phenomenon in which two cyclically rising octaves are played on top of each other in a staggered fashion to create the illusion of an infinitely swelling scale, perfectly mirroring the image of blind spiralling, hysterical anger. When we arrive at 'Aurora, we feel Pätzold musing about the end of the world, but also the end of the self. What remains when humanity is wiped out by a pandemic or something similar? In Johann Pätzold's case, what remains is, among other things, a monumental album, a musical chronicle of his life: Chronos.

With a fundamental emphasis on the encouragement of genre hybridization, Evar Records, the Los Angeles-based imprint co-founded by Trickfinger (John Frusciante) and Aura T-09 (Marcia Pinna), continues its momentum with an expansive 9-track collection from Netherlands-based luminary, Limewax.

After making a strong first impression with its 2020 debut offerings, Evar Records has recruited Limewax to carry forward its mission of blurring boundaries and challenging conventions in electronic music. The Ukranian hard drum and bass hero happily obliged, referring to signing with Evar as a breaking point which allowed him, finally, to take full stock of his background in classical and electronic music simultaneously. Although Maxim Anokhin is widely known for his hard-edged breakbeats, releasing on labels such as Tech Itch Recordings, Position Chrome, Freak Recordings, and PRSPCT, the full scope of his artistry shines through on Untitled.

The opening cut, "Porcelaineworm," is a futuristic electro cut recalling IDM classics like AFX's "XMD5A." Of course, the virtuosic drum programming and hectic D&B sound which Limewax has built his reputation upon is here in spades on tracks like "Stay Lackey. Cuts like "Ushio" and "Whay1" are fascinating studies in contrasts—the former balances bludgeoning techno of the Ansome and Perc variety with a resolve that recalls Fennesz's pastoral glitch abstractions. "Whay1," meanwhile, is sub-rattling drum and bass nuanced by cinematic string themes. "Getupa" is an experimental beat track that truly bangs, its layers of texture and field recordings placing Limewax in the company of bleeding-edge acts like SVBKVLT's breakout star Hyph11E. The very next track, "19NB," is a subtle update to the original minimal technical template established by Detroit icons Robert Hood & Jeff Mills.

While most of the album hurtles forward at hard techno and D&B tempos, "Maleisae" is a sensual 70 BPM track mixing ghostly R&B and acid. That spectacular cut heralds Untitled's intricate denouement. The brief "Wernmqbram" effortlessly reconciles a baroque minor-key piano theme with the renegade snares of classic jungle. "Hasan" is a true "closing credits" master stroke, half-time acid giving way to gorgeous IDM-meets-Blade Runner synth leads.

Far from a genre-jumping hodgepodge, Untitled is a remarkably coherent full-length by a virtuosic artist free to explore the entirety of their creative influences. The Tilburg-based artist cites the poets Marina Tsvetaeva and David Whyte as influential on Untitled and also listened to works by 1771-1862 works by organ builders when crafting the album. The end result reveals Limewax as a masterful, diverse artist, capable of any style he pursues. It's a clear indicator of the boundless promise of Evar's core principle—a staunch refusal to put artists in boxes.