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Musicians Julien Sénélas, Jérôme Vassereau and illustrator and visual artist Soia, present a new version of »In C«, Terry Riley’s seminal work. An electronic and visual reinterpretation of this ever- evolving composition with two modular synthesizers and a graphic transposition of the original score.

Composed by Terry Riley, in 1964, »In C« is considered to be a founding work of the minimalist movement. In this interpretation, instead of employing eleven acoustic instruments like in the 1968 most famous version, Vassereau and Sénélas, utilize eleven oscillators, from two modular synthesizers while Soia displays an alphabet of shapes, representing the 53 musical cells that make up »In C«. An electronic and visual reimagining of a composition considered to be the most accessible and generous in contemporary music.

2023 Repress

it was in february 2015 when japanese producer and sound designer kuniyuki takahashi, sometimes known as koss, releases with the ep 'newwave project '2' a record, that tapped some roots of his musical education: new wave, german electro punk from bands like a daf, ebm from acts like front 242 as well as industrial music.

styles, about kuniyuki claims that they are his 'favourite music'. now, nearly two years after his first newwave project ep, he drops an album that is leaning towards his musical love from the past. compared to his former work, that was rooted in worlds of classic, jazz, house, ambient, and electronic song-writing, his new tunes are full of melodic drifts and rhythmical shifts.

as usual all is loaded with tones and rhythms straight from the heart that filter and modulate human emotions without losing their natural source. to get a sound that is fresh but still leaning to the 1980ees, he used some old synthesisers like a roland jupiter 8, a juno 60, a korg ms 20, an old tape echo machine but also new instruments like the roland aira. furthermore, his modular synthesizers talk too.

instead of having a masterplan, kuniyuki just made sound, drifted on his machines and moved into a territory, that his far away from his former sound. also the use sampled voices and other alienated sound sources of unknown origin inject his new tunes otherworldly atmospheres.

his skills as a fine instrumentalist is evidence as kuniyuki also played the piano, percussions or flute, if he felt their warm sound is needed for his freely grooving tracks. some dance in a house or techno outfits.

other slam like a mix of funk and ebm. tunes like 'puzzle' or 'body signal' are twisted treasures that bemuse deeply. in-between you hear the echoes of cosmic spheres, the darkness of the cold war days and some bewitching tribal jungle vibes. a new, moving, unorthodox and yet catchy side of kuniyuki takahashi.

it is not totally novel to him, as he already released some industrial, ebm and electronic with the project drp in 1990 on the belgium label body records. but for his listeners, that know him for detailed house, jazz and classic or that love him as a man of collaborations who already worked together with artists like innervisions jazz house heavyweight henrik schwarz, the famous japanese pianist fumio itabashi or the british synth-pop protest spoken word icon anne clark, the 'newwave project' sheds a light on a different artistic side of kuniyuki takahashi.

it is diversified, has many rhythmical and atmospheric turns but stays stirring and compelling in all twelve tracks. a true new wave, formed, played in and envisioned with a view on the past that was filtered through the now while feeling the future. the cover art work comes from the swiss artist augustin rebetez - a man who also loves to generate unknown poetic universes in his drawings, sculptures, videos and installations.

Presence Reverts to Absence is the 6th album from dutch ambient-beats duo Tangent.
The album finds Rob- bert Kok and Ralph van Reijendam expanding the Tangent pallet with additions of more poignantly propulsive beatwork and integral modular synth flourishes, which raises their deeply contrasting ethos to new heights.
There has always been something rather unworldly about Tangent's music, and Presence Reverts to Absence might be their most celestial album to date by leaning lightly into sci-fi territory with its sound bed of ghostly beacon transmissions and dusty swelling synth tones.

In the movement itself, music makes us aware of the passing of time, always tracking toward itself like a clock. An album is an experience of sound; it can make us believe something imaginary - as if a flute can play itself. The recording becomes any interpretation of motion we want it to be.

Everyone in Water was written and performed by KV Hopper and Elizabeth LoPiccolo. KV is a musician and product designer living in Portland, OR. Elizabeth is a musician, film photographer, and performer living in Brooklyn, New York.

Everyone in Water began with modular synthesis at Portland’s Synth Library in the Fall of 2019. The Synth Library is a collectively run arts organization that supports the education and experimentation of diverse artist communities. Arranging sequencers, generators and filters resonated and inspired new exploration. Sounds evolved over a year as KV shared synth tapestries with Elizabeth in Brooklyn. Voice and flute melodies started to weave in and lyrical themes centered around the sense of place.

Walking & Working is about a ritual of returning home. Household Gloves is about a desire to share a home with someone you know but doesn’t know you. Moving Plants Again is about your home in favor of all living things.

Paul 'Damage' Bailey, one of the original resident DJs at Birmingham's House Of God club nights along with Surgeon and Sir Real, strikes back on De:tuned with 2 new relentless techno cuts. On offer, a mind-bending modular exploration that takes no prisoners from the Brummie powerhouse accompanied by top drawer remixes. James Ruskin transforms 'Hadal Zone' into a rare darkroom electro orientated piece, while Makaton turns out a deep pulsating 4/4 techno version of 'Decompression'. It's a real burner.

Kevin Foakes (Openmind, DJ Food, Ninja Tune) created all the graphic work. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis and pressed on 180 gr vinyl. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops. Stay tuned!

green marbled vinyl

Paul 'Damage' Bailey, one of the original resident DJs at Birmingham's House Of God club nights along with Surgeon and Sir Real, strikes back on De:tuned with 2 new relentless techno cuts. On offer, a mind-bending modular exploration that takes no prisoners from the Brummie powerhouse accompanied by top drawer remixes. James Ruskin transforms 'Hadal Zone' into a rare darkroom electro orientated piece, while Makaton turns out a deep pulsating 4/4 techno version of 'Decompression'. It's a real burner.

Kevin Foakes (Openmind, DJ Food, Ninja Tune) created all the graphic work. Mastered by Matt Colton at Metropolis and pressed on 180 gr vinyl. A separate digital release will also be available at the usual digital shops. Stay tuned!

Eco Coloured Edition

Elena Tonra ist zwar keine passionierte Schwimmerin, aber der Sound auf dem neuen Daughter Album "Stereo Mind Game" klingt wie ein Ozean, in den man eintauchen möchte. Das dritte Album der britischen Band, gleichzeitig das erste Studioalbum seit sieben Jahren, setzt sich damit auseinander, was es bedeutet, von geliebten Menschen und auch von sich selbst getrennt zu sein - ein komplexes Thema. Daughter, das Trio bestehend aus Elena Tonra, Igor Haefeli und Remi Aguilella - wurde 2010 gegründet. Nach der Veröffentlichung von zwei Studioalben, "If You Leave" (2013) und "Not to Disappear" (2016), und dem Videospiel-Soundtrack Music "From Before the Storm" (2017), beschlossen sie, eine Auszeit voneinander zu nehmen. Kurz zuvor jammten sie allerdings noch gemeinsam in Los Angeles, zwischen einer Support-Tour für The National und ihren ersten Headline-Shows in Südamerika. Hier begann die Arbeit am neuen Album. Danach herrschte erst einmal Stille - als Band und untereinander. In den nächsten Jahren, in denen die Mitglieder an ihren eigenen Projekten arbeiteten, darunter auch Tonras Soloplatte als Ex:Re, trafen sich Daughter gelegentlich zum gemeinsamen Schreiben in Studios in London, Portland und San Diego, wo Haefeli 2019 für sechs Monate lebte. Die zentrale romantische Figur der Platte ist jemand, den Tonra dort kennengelernt hat, als sie aus London zu Besuch kam. Sie teilten eine bedeutende Verbindung, aber sie wusste, dass der Atlantik zwischen ihnen liegt. Daughter begann 2021 konkret mit den Aufnahmen für die zwölf Songs des Albums. Haefeli, der in Bristol lebt, traf sich mit Tonra in den Middle Farm Studios in Devon. Aguilella, der in Portland, Oregon, lebt, nahm seine Schlagzeugparts im Bocce Studio in Vancouver, Washington, auf. Haefeli produzierte eine Reihe der Songs, während Tonra "Junkmail" produzierte. Den Rest haben sie gemeinsam produziert. Die Sehnsucht, physische Entfernungen zu überwinden, ein Gefühl, das sich während der Pandemie noch verstärkt hat, ist in viele dieser Stücke eingeflossen. Auf "Wish I Could Cross the Sea" hören wir Sprachnotizen von Tonras junger Nichte und ihrem Neffen, die in Italien leben. "(Missed Calls)" enthält eine weitere Sprachnotiz, in der ein Freund einen Traum beschreibt. Gefüttert mit einigen modularen Effekten, klingt er geisterhaft eindringlich. Diese Nachrichten, Versuche einer Verbindung von geliebten Menschen, die man nicht sehen kann, "können einen aus dem Brunnen ziehen", sagt Tonra - aber nur, wenn man den Hörer abnimmt. Wenn man andere hereinlässt, kann Schönheit entstehen. Tiefes Gefühl kommt von den Bögen des 12 Ensemble, dem in London ansässigen Streichorchester, das bei vielen Stücken des Albums zu hören ist. Die von Haefeli und Tonra arrangierten und von Josephine Stephenson orchestrierten Stücke wurden, passenderweise, im The Pool aufgenommen, einem Raum in Bermondsey im Süden Londons, der eine ehemalige Badeanstalt war. Ein Blechbläserquartett verleiht auch "Neptune" und "To Rage" eine wohlig klangliche Wärme. Während Daughters frühere Arbeiten ihre Kraft in ihrer entwaffneten und emotionalen Ehrlichkeit fanden, handelt "Stereo Mind Game" von gegensätzlichen Gefühlen. "Es geht darum, nicht in absoluten Kategorien zu arbeiten", sagt Haefeli. Nach mehr als einem Jahrzehnt, in dem sie die dunkelsten Emotionen darstellten, haben Daughter ihr bisher optimistischstes und ein fast schon strahlendes Album aufgenommen.

Like a phoenix rising from the molten vinyl ashes of European pressing plants that are being overrun by Taylor Swift represses, DABJ are back with their first release in what seems like an eternity.

For this one they welcome Modman to the family, who some of you may have heard before on Jerome Hill's Don't Recordings. Four cold as ice Techno and Electro modular jams aimed squarely at the more discerning dancefloors, on which they have already been causing quite a stir over the past few months.

Strictly limited numbers on this one so don't hang around.

Animalia's exploration of the lesser known artists of Melbourne continues with the launch of new sublabel, Cirrus, focusing on non-club, downtempo, ambient and otherworldly sounds from local Australian artists. The first release comprises of dreamy, non-linear modular improvised soundscapes from Melbourne/Naarm local The Soulscaper, a sideproject of Eugene Pascal, member of Animalia's electronic trio Menage. The Inside Voices LP offers a sentimental, familiar musical journey, evocative of the distinctive charms of life in Australia's south-eastern hub. All produced in the northern suburbs of Melbourne/ Naarm, the tracks provide an open window into the studios of the city's deeper side. The LP is a poignant follow on from the musical outputs of Animalia, staying true to the label's deep, cinematic and melodic style.

"When you cut into the present, the future leaks out" William S. Burroughs. Third Ear are proud and excited to release a new Brendon Moeller project exclusive to Third Ear... Ultra Random Analog Orchestra. The project kicks off with 13 tracks released on vinyl over 3 individually released 12" and a digital album with 16 tracks. The music ranges from deep, wide-screen Techno to Ambient and beatless, that pushes the limits of the sonic palette. Artwork by The Designers Republic. Brendon says, "the ability to sculpt an audio collage in realtime employing techniques of randomness is one of my favorite pursuits using a Eurorack modular system.

Sunergy brings together synthesists Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani for the thirteenth installment of FRKWYS, RVNG Intl.'s intergenerational collaboration series. For this edition, a panorama of the Pacific Coast provides the place and head space for a musical appreciation and consideration of a life-giving form vast and volatile with change. Fortuitously (as is the freaky way), Smith and Ciani were discovered to be neighbors in the small coastal community of Bolinas, California. The two had become close friends, bonding over their experience as woman musicians and, more unusually, their shared passion for the Buchla synthesizer. The music of Sunergy embraces this kinship, with Ciani and Smith respectively performing on the Buchla 200 E and the Buchla Music Easel, two modern configurations of the innovative instrument developed in the '60s by Don Buchla.
Sunergy was recorded in the Bolinas home where Ciani has lived for the last twenty-four years. Her living room overlooks the Pacific Ocean from a cliffside perch, creating an idyllic, inspired setting for music making. Setting up their synths side-by-side, Ciani and Smith took turns keeping time and freely improvising for the album sessions. As a complete piece, Sunergy is shaped by slow, pulsing forms and sinuous, melodic sequences that conjure both an oceanic world and the unlimited sound made possible by modular processing.For her part, Ciani has long been a Buchla voyager. Suzanne proselytized the potential of Don's synthesizer instruments in the '60s and '70s, performing her own compositions before introducing synthesized jingles and sound effects to household audiences. Ciani then achieved wide recognition for her debut album Seven Waves, a collection of colorful, classical song-like melodies fluidly working with harmonic textures and sounds of the ocean shore. Since its 1982 release, Seven Waves has become an important chapter of the ambient canon within which contemporary artists like Smith have developed their own synth syntax. Smith was born just a few years after the appearance of Seven Waves, growing up in Orcas Island, Washington. A place of profound natural beauty, the islands would inform Tides, her first instrumental collection from 2014. Smith composed Tides as an accompaniment for Yoga classes, ultimately freeing her from conventional songwriting into the exploratory, synth-based compositions demonstrated in ecstatic variety on 2016's Ears. Despite the serene setting where Sunergy was realized, the album does not romanticize a complete oneness with nature. Smith and Ciani use their collaborative ground to reflect on the unstable forces at play across the Bolinas horizon. Sunergy takes stock of Bolinas in the 21st century, a once-thriving artist's refuge now vulnerable to real estate pressure extending from affluent San Francisco, and more irreparably, the specter of climate change erasing its many waterfront habitats.
A diametric dynamic is present in Sunergy, a somber meditation amidst the intense cultural and solar forces transforming the landscape, and a hopeful assertion of the surviving creative culture of Bolinas. Far from rehashing the gentle grace of the artists' seminal works, Sunergy instead seeks to awaken and bear witness, employing the Buchla waveforms to mirror the infinite rhythms of the ocean and our essential relationship to it.
Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith and Suzanne Ciani's Sunergy will be released on September 16, 2016 on LP, CD, and digital formats. An accompanying documentary by Sean Hellfritsch will be offered in tandem.

White Vinyl
300 copies, red cardboard folder, foil embossed, incl. 6 prints & 17-minute digital bonus track
arbitrary presents »Delirious Cartographies« by composer, improviser and synthesist Richard Scott. Part of the Danish imprint’s Framework editions, this release includes three pieces on 12” vinyl and 6 printed drawings – as well as a text by Scott – published as a limited edition portfolio folder.

"These compositions capture aspects of my personal sonic experience of specific times and places. Extending beyond my usual work with analogue synthesizer, these pieces open the doors and windows to the outside world, incorporating field and live recordings made in various locations and situations. Rather than intending any clear sense of narrative, these are molecular dialogues between elements and geographies which do not necessarily share organic points of connection, other than my own incomplete experience and memory of them."

The final piece »6 Graphic Etudes« (included as digital prints) is intended as a set of visual / sonic sketches, each of which describes a discrete kind of movement or texture. These may have a variety of uses; as musical exercises, as scores, combined as parts of scores, or simply as stand-alone visual propositions / artworks.

The pieces were composed between 2017 and 2021 at Sound Anatomy, Berlin, Spektrum Berlin, EMS Stockholm, NOVARS, University of Manchester University, Boliqueime, Portugal and the Electronic Music Studios University of Huddersfield.

As well as various microphones, hydrophones and recorders, the instruments used on this recording are mostly analogue and modular synthesisers: Hordijk Modular, Serge Modular, EMS Synthi A, various Eurorack modules, Buchla Thunder midi controller, Oberheim Xpander, Clavia Nord Micro Modular, CataRT and maxMSP, Rob Hordijk Blippoo box. On “Thunder, actually bicycles...” Axel Dörner plays a Holton Firebird trumpet with additional live-sampling via maxMSP and a controller interface developed by Sukandar Kartadinata.

Written & produced by Richard Scott. Drawings by Richard Scott. Graphic design by Mads Emil Nielsen. Mastered & cut by Kassian Troyer at D&M, Berlin.

Thanks to Axel Dörner, Rob Hordijk, Beatriz Ferreyra, Ricardo Climent, David Berezan, Joseph Hyde, Richard Whalley, Pierre Alexandre Tremblay, Tim Scott, Andy Adkins, Electric Spring Festival, Sines & Squares Festival, Basic Electricity and Sound Anatomy.

Wil Bolton is a London-based artist whose work uses synthesizers, guitars, acoustic instruments and effects to create warm and emotive melodies, fragmented and submerged among beds of droning ambient textures and environmental sounds.

Wil has released albums on labels including Home Normal, Hidden Vibes, Krysalisound, Audiobulb, Hibernate, Eilean Rec., Dronarivm and Sound In Silence. He has also shown his sound and video works in exhibitions at ICA, Incheon Art Platform, Liverpool Biennial and others, and has performed at venues including Cafe Oto, Tate Liverpool and Iklectik.

‘Like Floating Leaves’ was recorded January - July 2022 in East London, using modular synthesizers, Mellotron, Yamaha PSR-6, Waldorf Micro Q, Modal Argon8, OP-1, iPhone, glockenspiel, chimes, effects and field recordings from Venice, Stockholm, New York and Tokyo.

Franco-Swiss composer & director of INA GRM François J. Bonnet, aka Kassel Jaeger, returns with a new solo album. Following a compositional approach stemming from the musique concrète tradition, without adopting a structuralist aesthetic, Shifted in Dreams explores a wide range of instruments and techniques, going seamlessly from instrumental improvisation to field recording, via micro-editing and the use of asynchronous loops. Mixing the electronic sounds of an ARP 2500 synthesizer with the acoustic drones of a positive organ, articulating guitar layers with the resonance of the Cristal Baschet, bringing together recordings of slamming windows and sound produced by complex modular synthesis patches, Bonnet offers a rich and generous palette of sounds, inviting a constantly renewed sonic investigation.

The 1st volume of »San Francisco Moog: 1968-72« introduced the world to a trove of recordings from a little-known hinge point in electronic-music history. Vol. 2 brings to light the rest of tapes—and the rest of the story. In 1968, Bay Area native Doug McKechnie got hold of one the very first modular Moog synthesizers ever made and began finding his own way to play it. Soon, he was hauling the finicky instrument around to perform improvised concerts at colleges and psychedelic ballrooms, as well as an ill-fated appearance on the bill at Altamont. Some of the performances were recorded, and the surviving tapes—never before released—capture a free-flowing, transportive sound that fills in the gap between the austere mid-century academic avant-garde and the expansive cosmic suites of Tangerine Dream and the rest of the Berlin School in the ’70s.

Vol. 2 captures a wider range of sounds and moods, encompassing austere sonic experiments, early sequenced pulses, and melodic etudes.

“These pieces represent amazingly fully formed early approaches to the very idea of musical synthesis...arresting even to modern ears.” — Goldmine

“Presages both Tangerine Dream’s soundtracks and, in its most grimy moments, Acid Tracks.” — The Wire

YoshimiOizumikiYoshiduO"s debut album To The Forest To Live A Truer Life combines the thrill and precision of masterful improvised music practitioners unearthing new sonic possibilities. Yoshimi P-We, now known as YoshimiO, is best known for her work as one of the founders and drummer in the Japanese rock band Boredoms alongside IzumikiYoshi (synthesizer, sampler, and programmed midi instruments on Vision Creation Newsun and Super æ), and multi-instrumental work in the all female group OOIOO. She has worked as a session player and vocalist on Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots by The Flaming Lips. A balance of YoshimiO"s live improvisations and IzumikiYoshi"s correlated processed sounds give the pieces a sense of grounding and weightlessness in tandem. Being described by Wayne Coyne (The Flaming Lips) as "one of those strange genius musicians", YoshimiO uses the piano as her primary instrument in addition to her singular voice- every move is bent, stretched, and mutated by IzumikiYoshi"s modular synthesizer into cascades of brightly colored waves and dotted constellations of sound. Rather than taming YoshimiO"s spirited performances, IzumikiYoshi adorns every unique flutter with complementary otherworldly textures. Recorded primarily in a cafe nestled in a forest in Japan, To The Forest To Live A Truer Life is a celebration of pure potential, of music born of the moment expanding in every direction. YoshimiO has collaborated with and worked on numerous projects, most notably a raga band called SAICOBAB, an ambient project called Yoshimi and Yuka, the tribal drum OLAibi, and indie supergroup Free Kitten.

The quiet Irish mastermind is releasing new material on Tape Hiss. When he is not busy with his Monoak alterego, he works alongside Keith Tenniswood (Radioactive Man) and Simon Lynch (London Modular Alliance) as L-R to compose hard-hitting electro tracks. This time there is a diverse selection on the table: breaks, bass music, electro and techno. All with a bass-heavy, repetitive twist. The EP comes with a digital bonus tune 'Hitchcock'.

Following 2 heavy reissues of “Silver Mirror Of Her Eyes” and “Heavy Water” from original works on D*Fusion Records in 1994-1997, Howard Dodd aka Anoesis returns to physical in 2023 for a new full feature-length album via Australian based imprint Paper-Cuts. Selected works between 2010-2022 “Memory On Memory” offers a modern take from the underground UK artist, spanning refined breaks, playful tech-house and modular experiments stretched across this 9-track LP.

2023 Repress

His five years at the helm of IDO (Intercontinental Dance Organization) have provided Valentino Mora the outlet to explore his concept of "active meditation", through the lexicon of deep and organically-textured ambient house and techno. Now with the inking of sub-label imprint EDO (Exothermal Dance Organization) Mora's newest output finds direct, molecular inspiration from deep in the aquaverse. Taking its name from the chemical release of heat, EDO's exothermic first EP delivers four tracks of heady, transformative techno atmospheres. Charting Mora's evolution from multi-channel acoustic recordings, samples and digital-analog hybridity, Hydrosphere EP continues his production complexity yet arrives at this point via the singular expression of modular synthesis. "Erosion" opens as a cryptic transmission from submersed entities, with haunting tone tendrils emerging from within the indigo unknown. A subtle echo of reverb softens the edge of its propulsive kick drum, creating an entrancing, enticing and unsettling journey into the deep. The snaking minimalist shimmer of the title track "Hydrosphere" evokes a landscape of frozen tundra, with a backdrop of shifting, urgent techno precision. Bewitching through endless motion and slow deliberation, chimes and pings are stretched out and warped to mind-bending effect. "Doppler Shift" takes a forthright approach, leading with prominent looped bass tones, percussion and rhythmic sweeps. Rounded shapes move rapidly through the inkinesss, forming repetitions that only intensify in pace and energy. To complete the resynthesis, "Solarized" embodies the life-giving warmth of it's name, beaming irregular shafts of illumination into dark, bass-heavy, chugging terrain, forming melodic wisps of tonal condensation.