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Black Truffle is thrilled to announce ViewFinder / Hide & Seek, a new release from acclaimed American experimental composer David Behrman, presenting recordings made in collaboration with Jon Gibson and Werner Durand between 1989 and 2020. Last heard from on Black Truffle as part of the collaborative art song/live electronics madness of She’s More Wild, these recordings find Behrman continuing the pioneering work in interactive electronics that have established him as one of the major living experimental composers.

Side A presents excerpts from two live realisations of Unforeseen Events (1989), the fourth in a series of pieces focussing on the interactions between instrumental performers and responsive software. Like the classic earlier works in the series, On the Other Ocean (1977), Interspecies Smalltalk (1984) and Leapday Night (1986), Unforeseen Events is an “unfinished composition” in which a computer system listens for and responds to specific pitch cues from an instrumentalist. Performed by the composer on electronics and Werner Durand on soprano saxophone in Berlin in 1989, the first realisation immediately ushers the listener into an environment of long soprano notes, lush, sustained synth harmonies, randomised percussive interjections and distantly burbling arpeggiated patterns.

The 1999 realisation recorded in New York with Jon Gibson on soprano shows how much room for the instrumentalist to affect the course of the music exists in Behrman’s interactive pieces, in which, as he notes, ‘performers have options rather than instructions’. Beginning in a roughly similar area to the version with Durand, this later recording eventually becomes substantially more active, as polyrhythmically layered arpeggios and percussive patterns respond to fast chromatic lines and dynamic phrases from the saxophone, moving Gibson in turn to respond with cycling figures and moments of extended technique that touch on the soprano languages pioneered by players like Steve Lacy and Evan Parker. Yet even at its most active, the lack of conventional forward movement in the music allows it to retain what Behrman’s friend Jacques Bekaert called its ‘fragile tranquillity’, as episodes of activity appear only as momentary disruptions of an underlying calm.

On the B side, we are treated to a new collaborative work from Behrman and Werner Durand, building on the 2002 installation work ViewFinder, in which a camera detecting physical motion triggered changes to electronic sound. The piece presented here is a long-distance studio construction, recorded by Behrman in the Hudson Valley and Durand in Berlin, offering up an expansive duet between Behrman’s lush, gliding synth tones and the alien, untempered tones of Durand’s invented and adapted wind instruments. Presented in a stunning gatefold sleeve with art from Terri Hanlon, archival photographs and new liner notes from Behrman and Durand,ViewFinder / Hide & Seek is an essential release showcasing the continuing vitality of a legendary figure in experimental music.

Over nearly 20 years, Howlin Rain may have become the quintessential independent American rock ’n roll band: a steam-spitting Hydra of cranked guitars, kicking asphalt dust through a kaleidoscoping travelogue of desert motels and dives, volleying forth transmissions of sci-fi poetry from the blacktop veins of this cracked and aching country.

Now, in America 2021, capping these strangest and sorest of times, the band returns with The Dharma Wheel, a six-track, 52-minute dive into a joyous fantasy realm of exaggerated present.

“I wanted The Dharma Wheel to be a portal from our everyday world, the one from which you stand on hard ground and hold the album in your hands and peer into the artwork, and into another universe,” says songwriter, guitarist and vocalist, Ethan Miller. “You enter into that universe with your eyes and ears and mind and take a ride through free-form meditation on these ideas — from big, fundamental concepts about our existence right down to the grease that rolls down the arm of a pulp novel killer as he eats a gas station hot dog in an old Dodge in an alleyway.”

Lyrically, Miller has completed his evolution into a mushroom-plucking Whitman of the West, singing outlandish tales in a topographic blend of Humbead’s Revised Map of the World and an inverted U.S. where downtrodden bodhisattvas roam the back streets and moonless country roads.

“Down in Florida swamps, run by nature’s law, standing in the water, Eden gone. Two men loading rifles, beasts making time, they shot a boy from an orange tree and watched the colored birds take flight, watch the colors as they soar and dive.” — ‘Under the Wheels.’

The band, Jeff McElroy (bass, backing vocals), Justin Smith (drums/percussion, backing vocals) and Dan Cervantes (guitar, backing vocals), again sounds hardwired into Miller’s vision, building tracks that swagger and sway in response to his verse. Lending a hand this time around is the legendary Scarlet Rivera (Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue) on violin, and the endlessly inventive Adam MacDougall (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Circles Around the Sun) on keys.

Songs were shaped via the blast furnace of endless gigs, then recorded often mere hours after the band slipped the stage.

“The captured sonic fact about this record is that it’s the sound of a band that rehearsed this material a lot and put a ton of work into its construction and was on the road a lot and recorded on days off in the tour schedule,” Miller says. “In some cases we were on stage on Saturday night playing these songs at quarter-to-2 in the morning and by Noon the next day we were sipping coffee in the studio playing them for the machine.”

Rivera’s violin is the first sound heard as the album dawns on the instrumental “Prelude.” Soon, the band joins, twirling the theme into a psychedelicized awakening. “Don’t Let the Tears” brings the boogie, with MacDougall’s madcap synth work and wah-wah guitars showering 70’s glitter upon a parquet dance floor of the mind. “Under the Wheels” and “Rotoscope” center the album with taut, compositional epics populated by murdering drifters and fuzz pedal explosions. The blue hour comedown of “Annabelle” meditates upon the weariness of lost love, with Rivera again amping the heartache via her violin strings.

“In the evening the trains go by, and shake the dust from dirty walls, sometimes I feel like a spider in an old mason jar, who threatens only convex light from down the hall. I’ve been lost to the world since the photos of the black hole, landed on my desktop screaming, perhaps the all and nothing all-in-one is just too much to take, for particles and matter that never found their way.” — ‘Annabelle’

The record closes with the 16-minute title track, a multi-movement suite which cycles from Crazy Horse-meets-Traffic jams through colossal, mass-moving funk stomp, eventually cresting and washing into a sing-along gospel lament.

The Dharma Wheel is an album of great depth, and one steeped in good vibes: a rich, glistening world of the ultra-vivid. As illustrated in Arik Roper’s cover art, the grand dharmachakra has been set in motion, churning off the California coast.

“We were trying to build a world big enough that the imagination won’t go soft on you after just a few listens and where our love for this music, and music in general — along with a good dose of audacity — create a magic carpet ride through the world of The Dharma Wheel,” Miller continues. “In pursuing that I think we also managed to make a record that has a lot of joy in it: the joy of playing music, the joy of experiencing music, the joy of storytelling and poetry, the kind of singular joy and extended ecstatic moment that only a real ‘band’ can express in just that way.”

And it’s this joy, this exuberance and dedication to the lines of cosmic expression — all centered in the exalted art of the everyday — that constructs the heart of the record. At its core, The Dharma Wheel is the triumph of a working band, a transmission from a never-paused before arriving for our strange, bruised, spectacular now.”

Over nearly 20 years, Howlin Rain may have become the quintessential independent American rock ’n roll band: a steam-spitting Hydra of cranked guitars, kicking asphalt dust through a kaleidoscoping travelogue of desert motels and dives, volleying forth transmissions of sci-fi poetry from the blacktop veins of this cracked and aching country.

Now, in America 2021, capping these strangest and sorest of times, the band returns with The Dharma Wheel, a six-track, 52-minute dive into a joyous fantasy realm of exaggerated present.

“I wanted The Dharma Wheel to be a portal from our everyday world, the one from which you stand on hard ground and hold the album in your hands and peer into the artwork, and into another universe,” says songwriter, guitarist and vocalist, Ethan Miller. “You enter into that universe with your eyes and ears and mind and take a ride through free-form meditation on these ideas — from big, fundamental concepts about our existence right down to the grease that rolls down the arm of a pulp novel killer as he eats a gas station hot dog in an old Dodge in an alleyway.”

Lyrically, Miller has completed his evolution into a mushroom-plucking Whitman of the West, singing outlandish tales in a topographic blend of Humbead’s Revised Map of the World and an inverted U.S. where downtrodden bodhisattvas roam the back streets and moonless country roads.

“Down in Florida swamps, run by nature’s law, standing in the water, Eden gone. Two men loading rifles, beasts making time, they shot a boy from an orange tree and watched the colored birds take flight, watch the colors as they soar and dive.” — ‘Under the Wheels.’

The band, Jeff McElroy (bass, backing vocals), Justin Smith (drums/percussion, backing vocals) and Dan Cervantes (guitar, backing vocals), again sounds hardwired into Miller’s vision, building tracks that swagger and sway in response to his verse. Lending a hand this time around is the legendary Scarlet Rivera (Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue) on violin, and the endlessly inventive Adam MacDougall (Chris Robinson Brotherhood, Circles Around the Sun) on keys.

Songs were shaped via the blast furnace of endless gigs, then recorded often mere hours after the band slipped the stage.

“The captured sonic fact about this record is that it’s the sound of a band that rehearsed this material a lot and put a ton of work into its construction and was on the road a lot and recorded on days off in the tour schedule,” Miller says. “In some cases we were on stage on Saturday night playing these songs at quarter-to-2 in the morning and by Noon the next day we were sipping coffee in the studio playing them for the machine.”

Rivera’s violin is the first sound heard as the album dawns on the instrumental “Prelude.” Soon, the band joins, twirling the theme into a psychedelicized awakening. “Don’t Let the Tears” brings the boogie, with MacDougall’s madcap synth work and wah-wah guitars showering 70’s glitter upon a parquet dance floor of the mind. “Under the Wheels” and “Rotoscope” center the album with taut, compositional epics populated by murdering drifters and fuzz pedal explosions. The blue hour comedown of “Annabelle” meditates upon the weariness of lost love, with Rivera again amping the heartache via her violin strings.

“In the evening the trains go by, and shake the dust from dirty walls, sometimes I feel like a spider in an old mason jar, who threatens only convex light from down the hall. I’ve been lost to the world since the photos of the black hole, landed on my desktop screaming, perhaps the all and nothing all-in-one is just too much to take, for particles and matter that never found their way.” — ‘Annabelle’

The record closes with the 16-minute title track, a multi-movement suite which cycles from Crazy Horse-meets-Traffic jams through colossal, mass-moving funk stomp, eventually cresting and washing into a sing-along gospel lament.

The Dharma Wheel is an album of great depth, and one steeped in good vibes: a rich, glistening world of the ultra-vivid. As illustrated in Arik Roper’s cover art, the grand dharmachakra has been set in motion, churning off the California coast.

“We were trying to build a world big enough that the imagination won’t go soft on you after just a few listens and where our love for this music, and music in general — along with a good dose of audacity — create a magic carpet ride through the world of The Dharma Wheel,” Miller continues. “In pursuing that I think we also managed to make a record that has a lot of joy in it: the joy of playing music, the joy of experiencing music, the joy of storytelling and poetry, the kind of singular joy and extended ecstatic moment that only a real ‘band’ can express in just that way.”

And it’s this joy, this exuberance and dedication to the lines of cosmic expression — all centered in the exalted art of the everyday — that constructs the heart of the record. At its core, The Dharma Wheel is the triumph of a working band, a transmission from a never-paused before arriving for our strange, bruised, spectacular now.”

Nervous Records, the iconic label synonymous with the rise of house from the streets of New York City, will mark 30 years in the music industry by releasing the celebratory compilation LP ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ on October 1st (Part 1) and October 15th (Part 2).

Featuring original mixes of the label’s biggest tracks, plus remixes by some of its most celebrated acts, ‘Nervous Records: 30 Years’ is both a celebration of the past and of the future. Featuring a who’s who of electronic dance music, the long player sees names including Louie Vega, David Morales Darius Syrossian, Tensnake, Monki, Franky Rizardo, Danny Howard and more take on iconic Nervous cuts: ‘You Make Me Feel Mighty Real’, ‘Treat Me Right’, ‘Future Groove’, ‘Feel Like Singing’, ‘Get Up Everybody’, ‘Break You’, ‘Hot’, ‘End This Hate’, ‘Unspeakable Joy’, ‘Can Ya Tell Me’, ‘Jerk It’, ‘The Anthem’, ‘It Makes A Difference’, ‘Learn 2 Luv’ and ‘Don’t You Ever Give Up’.

The album marks one of the most enduring, extraordinary legacies to grace America’s illustrious music history, not just in electronica but far beyond. Founded in 1991 by Michael and his father Sam Weiss, and recognizable immediately by its distinctive character logo, the label grew rapidly, in no small part due to Michael Weiss’ practically unmatched passion for discovering new music.

“Louie Vega and Kenny Dope woke me at 4am on Tuesday night, Wednesday morning from their studio telling me they had something really different that I needed to hear,” Michael recollects. “I asked if they could play it over the phone. They said if I wanted to hear it I had to come to the studio. So of course I got myself up, got dressed and went there. That “really different track” ended up being ‘The Nervous Track’, a tune that became our signature release and was also highly instrumental in the emergency of London’s ‘Broken Beat’ movement.”

The label’s willingness to take chances on fresh sounds and innovative concepts rising up from the melting pot sidewalks of NYC ensured a body of work that has become a living musical history of the city. House cuts ‘Unspeakable Joy’ and ‘Nitelife’ (Kim English), ‘Get Up (Everybody)’ (Byron Stingily) and ‘Feel Like Singing’ (Sandy B) bump up against hip-hop anthems like ‘Who Got Da Props’ (Black Moon) and “Bucktown” (Smif-n-Wessun) and reggae cut ‘Take It Easy’ (Mad Lion); soulful flows from Mood II Swing (Kim English ‘Learn 2 Luv’, Loni Clark “Rushing”), Armand Van Helden (‘The Anthem’) and Nuyorican Soul (‘Mind Fluid’) sit alongside seminal techno singles like Winx’ ‘Don’t Laugh’. The young artists and producers who joined the Nervous Records’ family have gone on to become some of the most hallowed and celebrated dance acts of all time: Louie Vega, Kenny Dope, David Morales, Tony Humphries, Roger Sanchez, Armand Van Helden, Kerri Chandler, Kim English, Byron Stingily, Josh Wink, to name just a handful.

“We did a release with Josh Wink under his Winx alias entitled ‘Nervous Build-Up’,” Michael said. “It did well and it was obvious how talented Josh was. Subsequent to that release I was pretty persistent in asking him to continue to play me his new demos. During one phone conversation he said, “Mike I’m gonna play you something over the phone but don’t laugh when you hear it.” That demo ended up being ‘Don’t Laugh’, which became one of our biggest international hits and still to this day is one of America’s earliest and most impactful techno hits.”

As much a celebration of the label’s future as it is of their past, Nervous Records: 30 Years is but a marker in the imprints’ history, a clear sign of where they’ve been and also where they’re going. With 30 years behind them, the label’s determination to unearth new raw diamonds in the rough is as unwavering as ever.

“I’ve always been one to look at what others are doing (the industry at large) and think, “ok, are they doing this specific thing for a reason, or doing it because everyone else is doing the same thing” and make my decision based on that,” says Nervous Records’ General Manager Andrew Salsano. “In an age where data metrics and analytics reign supreme, I remain steadfast that they should be complementary to your decision and not the sole indicator to make one. So many songs today are written with 15 second hooks in mind for social media, and while there’s nothing wrong with that business model you will always be chasing the wave instead of carving out your own path and identity.

“My primary focus for the sound of the label has and will continue to revolve around signing good songs and music that has the ability to react at the street level first. The best results come from artists that are firstly given a bit of local love that grows into a global impact. Fresh ideas that express child-like curiosity and artists showing vulnerability in their music are also something I look for, artists and producers that are not making music with certain markets in mind, but rather their own style and signature that is unique but able to straddle the fine line of underground and overground.”

Still as raw, as underground and as finely tuned to the dance floor as they ever have been, perhaps the secret to the success - and the longevity - of Nervous Records has something to do with that hard, dogged, no-holds-barred NYC edge that runs through the veins of the label. With the next generation of producers rising from the clubs of New York, one thing is certain; Nervous Records will be there to find them, nurture them and bring them to the world at large, over the next decade and beyond.

First time on vinyl
10th Anniversary of the Breaking Bad TV Series
5 x 10' vinyl in 5 different jackets, 1 relating to each season
Each 10' is the same colour, Strictly Limited Edition Albuquerque Crystal Coloured (transparent with a hint of turquoise) Vinyl!
Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish
Exclusive Breaking Bad Poster & Pollos Hermanos plastic ID badge
Booklet with exclusive pictures and extensive liner notes by Thomas, the musical supervisor of Breaking Bad
One run only of this very exclusive BOX-SET
Individually numbered the manufacturing qty for Worldwide is est 4000 with 800 for the UK - we could get some more
PLEASE ORDER BY 12.00 TUESDAY 25 SEPT TO BE GUARANTEED YOUR QTY
Available worldwide
Weight ESTIMATED 950g
All the essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others
Various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more
This release will be heavily promoted on social media, including the social media accounts of Breaking Bad (facebook, over 11 million followers!!!).

MOV proudly presents the OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) 5 x 10' BOX-SET!

A TOP PRIORITY RELEASE with WORLDWIDE RIGHTS!

So far only the score music has been released on vinyl and now finally, for the very very first time, the original soundtrack music is released on vinyl!

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time and celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2018.

The legion of fans have been waiting for this to be released for a long time. There will be a huge demand for this exclusive BOX-SET!

This release was never released in any other format (CD, vinyl, digital) before and will only be available on vinyl!

OST - BREAKING BAD (MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SERIES) is presented in a beautiful Lift off box-set with Breaking Bad logo on front with special drip-off varnish. The box-set includes a selection of defining songs, devided in five 10' records on coloured vinyl, each representing a season with accessory artwork. The numbered box-set also includes a booklet, poster and Pollos Hermanos plastic ID Badge. Next to all essential Breaking Bad songs by Badfinger, Calexico, Far East Movement, America, Fever Ray, Apparat, Whitey, Knife Party, The Peddlers and others, the 10' records also include various dialogies by Walter, Jesse, Skyler, Mike, Gus, Saul and many more. The box-set is a ONE-RUN-ONLY and is STRICTLY LIMITED!

Breaking Bad is an American neo-western crime drama television series created and produced by Vince Gilligan. The show originally aired on the AMC network for five seasons, from January 20, 2008 to September 29, 2013. The series tells the story of Walter White (Bryan Cranston), a struggling and depressed high school chemistry teacher diagnosed with lung cancer. Together with his former student Jesse Pinkman (Aaron Paul), White turns to a life of crime by producing and selling crystallized methamphetamine to secure his family's financial future before he dies, while navigating the dangers of the criminal world. The title comes from the Southern colloquialism "breaking bad", meaning to "raise hell" or turn toward crime. Breaking Bad is set and filmed in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Walter's family consists of his wife Skyler (Anna Gunn) and children, Walter, Jr. (RJ Mitte) and Holly (Elanor Anne Wenrich). The show also features Skyler's sister Marie Schrader (Betsy Brandt), and her husband Hank (Dean Norris), a Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agent. Walter hires lawyer Saul Goodman (Bob Odenkirk), who connects him with private investigator and fixer Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks) and in turn Mike's employer, drug kingpin Gus Fring (Giancarlo Esposito). The final season introduces the characters Todd Alquist (Jesse Plemons) and Lydia Rodarte-Quayle (Laura Fraser).

Breaking Bad is widely regarded as one of the greatest television series of all time. By the time the series finale aired, it was among the most-watched cable shows on American television. The show received numerous awards, including 16 Primetime Emmy Awards, eight Satellite Awards, two Golden Globe Awards, two Peabody Awards, two Critics' Choice Awards and four Television Critics Association Awards. For his leading performance, Cranston won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Drama Series four times, while Aaron Paul won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series three times; Anna Gunn won the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Drama Series twice. In 2013, Breaking Bad entered the Guinness World Records as the most critically acclaimed show of all time.

Horace Tapscott's Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra (P.A.P.A.) was one of the most transformative, forward-thinking and straight-up heavy big bands to have played jazz in the 1960s and 1970s. If P.A.P.A. doesn't have the interstellar rep of that other famous Arkestra, and if the name Tapscott doesn't ring bells like Monk or Tyner, there's a reason why: in an industry dominated by record labels, a band that doesn't record doesn't count. And the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra didn't record for nearly twenty years. But recording success was never their concern -- they weren't about that. First formed as the Underground Musicians Association in the early 1960s, Tapscott always wanted his group to be a community project.

From their base in Watts, UGMA got down at the grassroots. The group was renamed the Pan-Afrikan Peoples Arkestra in 1971, and soon after they established a monthly residency at the Immanuel United Church of Christ which ran for over a decade, while still playing all over LA and beyond. But they never released a note of music. It was the intervention of fan Tom Albach that finally got them on wax. Determined that their work should be documented, Albach founded Nimbus Records specifically to release the music of Tapscott, the Arkestra, and the individuals that comprised it. The first recording sessions in early 1978 yielded enough material for two albums, and the first release was Flight 17. The album commences with the magnificent title track. It is effectively in three parts. It begins with unaccompanied pianos. Then the ensemble embark on a dense, circular and mechanical movement, a platform for horns and pianos to swoop and dive. We return to Earth with a beautiful solitary flute. The second track, the piano-centric, ‘Breeze’ is different to ‘Flight 17’ in intensity and also brevity but it is quietly as daring as the title track. It concludes with a moving lush wash from the full Arkestra, which sound almost like strings only more substantial. These first two tracks take full advantage of the texture of the unusual mix of the various instruments. Next though, it’s a significant change with ‘Horacio’, which is an exuberant Latin infused jingle. It’s unlike anything else on the album. I like to think it was named after the conductor’s Cuban alter-ego! ‘Clarisse’ gracefully switches between slow blues and bop and is bookended with a grand vaguely East Asian theme. The busy bass line introduces ‘Maui’. As with the previous track, it moves between a number of contrasting melody lines and rhythms but there’s still space for a tuneful sax solo.

This is a must-have album. I think the first two tracks on their own make this release essential. Kevin Ward/UK Vibe/Boomkat

Summer was conceived as an entry point for Sonae to access and wrestle with difficult themes, to engage with them authentically, artfully, personally. It was also the starting point for a collaborative audio-visual project with video artist Jennifer Trees (the confronting multimedia installation that premiers in September 2021 at Stadtgarten, Cologne).

Summer articulates these ideas using the unique musical and sonic language that Sonae has been developing across previous releases. The expressive textures and tender melodics of 2015’s Far Away is Right Around the Corner; the atmospheric noise and brute unease of 2018’s I Started Wearing Black; the vicious edges of her 2019 remix-tape Music For People Who Shave Their Heads. Summer is haunted by blistered cellos and spectral string drones, the elegant and emotive movement around diatonic harmonies that echo the classicism and bucolic themes of Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons (1775). Like Vivaldi, Sonae’s work is programmatic, presenting a progressive, intensifying narrative and suggesting aural phenomena of the natural world - buzzing insects, breaking rocks, waves crashing, dust and heat rising - and characterising the seasonal spirit as capricious, volatile and punishing. In these ways, Summer is related to pastoral traditions of European classicism, evoking the aura of doomed and dust-blown gothic grandiosity. It also has feet firmly planted within the lean, sound worlds of underground techno - pulsating four-on-the-floor beats with deep, vibrational sine-wave sub kicks; elegantly bleak, distorted atmospherics that straddle the uncanny space between corrosion and euphoria. The result is a visceral and poetic listening experience. Original, highly affecting, fully engaging body, mind and soul. (…)

Sonae’s music evokes imagination, provokes emotion, and disrupts and defies expectations. She explores the edges and intensities of experience, creating audible and embodied sensations that suggest the physical, atmospheric, and psychological effects of global warming on a living organism. We feel the fatigue, the slowness, sweatiness, dizziness, the sensations of uncomfortable warmth and burning; the atmospheres are hazy, dark and heavy, articulations are brutish and tactile, crunchy and sharp; there is restlessness and resignation, desolation and awe.

Summer is not a warning. It is not an explanation or an argument. It offers no answers. Summer simply holds up a mirror and asks us to experience and behold both the beauty and the brutality of our present reality. It is a work of protest, grief and hope, and it functions as a space for the listener to reckon with these truths and sensations for themselves. (Leah Kardos, London, June 2021)

Sonae (Sonia Güttler) is a German electronic producer and DJ, based in Cologne. Her acclaimed debut album was released in 2015 with Monika Enterprise (Berlin) followed on the same label with her second album in 2018 : ‘’I Started Wearing Black’’. Her Third album ‘’Music For People Who Shave Their Heads’’ has been released in 2019 with bit-phalanx (London).
Sonae plays live solo and with the label collective Monika Werkstatt at places like Institut Für Zukunft (Leipzig), Meakusma Festival (Eupen), Ausland (Berlin), Pop Kultur Festival (Berlin), Fusion Festival (Germany), Uh-Fest (Budapest), Cafe Oto (London), 23rpm Festival (London) The Cube (Bristol) and more on the same bill with Squarepusher, Plaid, Darkstar, Kyoka, Frank Bretschneider, Tim Exile.

"Oscillation associations

This album is titled Os. When I look at the shape of these two letters, O and S, I realize that they are a rotation and an oscillation.

Os is Dutch for Ox. An ox is a castrated male bull. The primary benefit of castrating bull calves is to temper their tempers, making it easier and cheaper for people to handle them. Os is also an abbreviation of oscillation, -cillation being castrated off. Oscillation means a movement back and forth in a regular rhythm, like breathing, push-ups, tides, swinging or sound. For this album Lyckle was not dealing with oxes or bulls, but with oscillations, guiding them through synths, handling their tempers. If I look at the etymology of oscillation, I learn that it stems from the term Oscilla, which were ancient disks depicting a face or animal on each side. Oscilla is a diminutive of os and means ‘little face’. They were hung in trees during religious feasts honoring various deities, as well as being thought of as purifying the air as they swung in the wind.

The wind chime with its little sunny face, smiling on the cover of this record was hanging in the windowsill of Lyckle’s studio, behind his back, where the wind would make it jingle, averting the Evil Eye according to apotropaic magic. In ancient Rome, wind chimes named Tintinnabulum were decorated with a phallus, which was also seen as a good luck charm. Phallic charm also appeared as objects of jewelry such as pendants and finger rings. It has been suggested that some types of phallic pendants were designed to point outwards in the direction of travel in order to face any potential danger or bad luck, nullifying it before it could affect the wearer.

When I take the record itself out of the sleeve, I see that there are two phalluses carved into the surface of the vinyl, like little ornaments. When you start playing the record, they start chasing each other, going round and round. They point in all directions of the room, but are never able to point at each other. Finally, I am told that it is recommended to listen to this record with the window open, allowing sounds from outside to blend in with the music. "

- Bernice Nauta

Forty years ago, on July 8th and 9th in 1981, a group formed by the splintering of some of Bristol’s essential post punk bands, entered the hallowed studio at Berry Street in London to record their debut single. What would emerge was not only an exuberant post funk classic on the A-side, but also a wildly influential dub workout on the flipside, whose reverberations can still be heard today. Both songs have proven essential in very different ways.

A focal point for the unique punk-funk that was coming together in Bristol as the bridge from the 70s to the 80s arrived, Maximum Joy was formed by Glaxo Babies multi-instrumentalist Tony Wrafter and 18 year old vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Janine Rainforth. Soon they drafted in additional Glaxo Babies in the form of drummer Charlie Llewellin and bassist Dan Catsis, along with guitarist John Waddington, fresh from The Pop Group. The group set about making a one-of-a-kind mix of funk, punk, pop, jazz, dub, soul, afrobeat and reggae; creating a brilliant charge of danceable tunes wrapped around elastic basslines and complex percussion, punctuated by melodic horns and stabs of guitar, all of it highlighting Rainforth’s naturally enthusiastic vocal style.

Bursting at the seams, “Stretch” feels like it can barely be contained within the studio walls. Rainforth delivers a vocal performance that can only be found within the freedom of someone recording their first ever single. I’m not lying when I say there isn’t another song that sounds quite like it. The group’s love of funk is evident on “Stretch”, but the heavy influence of dub and reggae from their surroundings shapes the moody skitter of “Silent Street”. Here, the sing song vocals seem to drift across the heavy late night air. The two songs are wildly different, yet both could only have come from this key collection of players. Paired with the likes of The Pop Group, The Slits, The Raincoats and the On-U-Sound collective, Maximum Joy still stands out as a unique voice in the movement.

Y Records head Dick O’Dell would join the sessions and give the release a warm home in the UK while legendary 99 Records in New York took on the US release since Maximum Joy made perfect sense being equal parts ESG and Liquid Liquid. This 12” has been a staple for DJ’s in the know since day one.

The Altered Hours have just announced details of their second full length album ‘Convertible’. The Irish group have just signed with Pizza Pizza Records and the 8 track album is set for release in May 2021. Following on from some successful headline tours across Europe supporting their debut album & some blistering EP’s along the way, the group found themselves looking for the next step in their ever- evolving journey. Having previously recorded in Anton Newcombe’s Berlin studio for their debut singles & ending up in the infamous Funkhaus studios to lay down what would become their debut album ‘In Heat Not Sorry ’, the band decided once again to



change the approach & take their new songs back to the privacy of their own studio space on the outskirts of Cork City. The new LP ‘Convertible’ is the result of countless late night/early morning sessions that took place over the past 2 years. Choosing to self produce and engineer this record was a conscious choice as the band felt an urge to take what they had learned on the road & in various studios previously, and condense all of this energy back into the boiling pot of their own rehearsal space.

The group have been a part of some exciting movements since the beginning and their path has been an organic one. They quickly became known in their hometown for taking over an ex-government building in the heart of Cork city, turning into a studio and creating a hub for the scene that surrounded them. The years that follow shine a light on the relentless energy of this group and unwavering love for playing shows anywhere & everywhere. Having been invited to perform at Liverpool Psych Fest numerous times, supporting the Brian Jonestown Massacre, selling out venues, churches & clubs, playing rip-roaring DIY shows in friends’ basements, getting joined by members of Spacemen 3 on stage and more recently, being invited by fellow Irish rockers Fontaines D.C to join them on their 2019 European tour playing sold out shows in venues like The Bataclan, Paris & Paradiso, Amsterdam. It’s been a wild ride for The Altered Hours so far & their music keeps evolving & growing as the experiences build. This is a group with the spirit of music deeply ingrained in them and a passion for making rock music something that you can believe in.

Their second full length album ‘Convertible’ is a window into the band’s idiosyncratic tendencies, a closer look into how their writing & sound continuously moves forwards while somehow remaining rooted in their own unique world all at once. The Altered Hours seem born to be an underground affair, something that they wear with pride and this album is a wonderful culmination of their DIY upbringing, their unfiltered rock ‘n’ roll spirit along with a confident stride into personal songwriting.

Nick Dunton has been involved with music since the early 90's and helped push the sound of UK Techno to it's very limits as one half of the 65D mavericks with Richard Polson (RIP). He has recorded and remixed for his own labels and many others and released music from the leading lights of the UK scene and beyond.

Exalt Records are pleased to release the first album from Nick Dunton under his Ever Vivid guise. These 12 tracks were recorded between 2003 and 2013 and reflect the most personal side of Nick's musical production, echoing around themes of movement, loss, bereavement and love.

Presented in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with original artwork and design from David Watson at Grid Pattern.

Limited edition vinyl set featuring eight live installations from the ISM Hexadome, recorded in binaural sound at MASS MoCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Massachusetts) in December 2019. Listening to the recordings on headphones recreates the detailed sense of spatialisation and movement of the ISM Hexadome's immersive 52-channel sound system that these works were exclusively composed for. The album also includes artwork prints of 10 still images excerpted from the installations created by visual artists in collaboration with the sound artist. The prints by Holly Herndon & Mathew Dryhurst and Tarik Barri are bonus visual material, as it was not possible to use the tracks for the record.

The UK’s love affair with American soul music blossomed in the
mid 1960s, with the launch of the Tamla-Motown record label in
Britain. But by the end of the decade this passion took on a
distinctly homegrown twist with a new movement that grew out
of the North of England and Midlands’ underground soul and
R&B scene. It was here at dancehalls and clubs such as
Manchester’s Twisted Wheel and the Wigan Casino that
devotees danced the night away to uptempo, joyous US soul
records that always came with a heavy beat. Pretty soon the
movement had a name: Northern Soul. This collection is the
next best thing and it is all on vinyl, exactly how the movement’s
fans originally heard them

Italian experimental music is notoriously resistant to definition and location. If ever there was an object to encapsulate the spirit of that movement, it is the composer and musician Roberto Musci’s debut album from 1984 - The Loa Of Music. Recorded after a decade travelling the world - drifting between African, Indian, and the Near & Far East - studying music, making field recordings, and collecting instruments, not only is it a perfect culmination of such an experience, but a lens into the rigorously democratic and international spirit of the generation of artists to which Musci belongs. Phenomenally ambitious,The Loa Of Music entirely refuses the well trod path - distilling a remarkable range of sonic reference and reality. A work of field recording, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis, and instrumentation, pulling from countless musics from across the globe, the result is nothing short of brilliant and stunningly beautiful. A near perfect work - an egoless gesture, which rather than attempting to find consensus, offers every voice equity and cohabitation - harnessing the history music, with all of its cultural diversity, as a vision for a more ideal future. Geographies and their sounds intertwine, while Musci’s interventions and instrumentation thread a path. Ambiences ripple, sounds and voices converse in a vision of unity that may only exist within sonic realms. Unquestionably seminal, and one of the most important works to emerge from Italy in the last 50 years. Never before issued on vinyl since it’s original release, and surely not to be around for long, this is one not to miss.

Nocturnes: Music For 2 Pianos was written during 2020 and 2021. There are 14 compositions, written mostly at night in lockdown. The decision to compose for two pianos gave me the ability to write more abstract compositions, blurring the melodies and harmonies to make a diffused sound. Other Nocturnes are more pure and focus on delicate melodic fragments, revealing their compositional process as they develop. Each short piece should stand on its own however the atmosphere and intention of each movement work together as a whole. Writing the work, which was composed and recorded at home was in a way therapeutic amidst the pandemic. I would like to think the beauty of the sound and reflectiveness of the music communicates and in turn perhaps might help the listener find some solace in these strange times. I wanted Nocturnes to be an acoustic album, playable by any two pianists who might want to perform them.” – Craig Armstrong

Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the U.S. in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast. Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centers, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados.Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard.

Lasooing together white-knuckle posthardcore tension, sharply focused slowcore serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggletoothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like canonfire.

Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out

slowcore’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). Karate formally introduced the trio as a vital part of an independent U.S. punk scene stubbornly flowering in the face of the major labels’ ’90s harvest.

Sergiu Celibidache was without question one of the most important and original conductors in recent memory. He was a perfectionist who disliked what he perceived to be the synthetic sounds created in the modern recording studio, preferring the immediacy of the concert platform and the interaction with a live audience. This Bruckner recording celebrates the extraordinary legacy of his collaboration with the Münchner Philharmoniker, from which he was Musical Director between 1979 and his death in 1996.

“One of the greatest Bruckner performances I have ever heard – a truly towering act of the re-creative imagination (…). This performance is centred in string playing of astonishing depth, eloquence and homogeneity. As with Giulini, it is the viola and cello sections which seem to harbour the very soul of the music. The viola cantilenas in the slow movement (…) are things of rare beauty.” Gramophone

Keplar re-issues the fourth album 'Chessa' by Dan Abrams' project Shuttle358 on vinyl for the first time. The double LP edition includes 3 previously unreleased tracks from the same recording sessions back in 2004, as well as an extended artwork with unseen photographs by Dan Abrams.

While undoubtedly associated with the microsound and 'clicks & cuts' movement around the turn of the millennium, on 'Chessa' Shuttle358 left behind the classical rhythmic patterns of the genre and shifted further towards warmer territories, meandering between modern digital minimalism and the soft tones of ambient music. Counter to his microsound synthesis approach on Frame (2000), Abrams created Chessa by writing software that manipulated samples from his unreleased songs, guitar pieces, and vintage japanese films sampled from video tape. In particular, a special granulating technique was written and performed at intentionally low sample rates that gave the uniquely fragile, yet dense sound to the album. Over fourteen tracks Abrams arranges slowly evolving sonic entities of unfading elegance. Strayed and hazy melodies pulse and cascade, elongated but brittle harmonies shimmer and disappear, echoing far-off in the rounded corners of the mind. The patient and detailed way Abrams combines the broken with the beautiful in creating organic collages of sound that retain the euphonic essence of a song, makes this piece of work so powerful and timeless, sounding just as relevant today, as it did 17 years ago.

Under modern scrutiny in Abrams latest studio, he refocused the original recordings to emphasize the elements most important to the original vision. The final mastering and vinyl preparation was done in collaboration with Stephan Mathieu, vinyl was cut by LUPO.

From the original press release in 2004 by Taylor Deupree:

Without a doubt Shuttle358 has become one of the most admired artists to emerge from modern electronic music’s sea of musicians. From the humble beginnings of a demo CD in 12k’s mailbox to 4 critically acclaimed CDs, Dan Abrams is, to some, the one credited for bringing a warmth and human touch back into what has often been considered a very cold, sterile genre. It began with 1999’s Optimal.lp (12k1005), a groundbreaking debut release that immediately defined the Shuttle358 sound; a hybridization of the then-emerging “microsound” genre with Eno’s true ambient explorations. In 2000 Abrams outdid himself with Frame (12k1011) by honing his sound design and exploring production techniques at rates that made his “now” quite brief and creating what was to become one of the most sought-after CDs in the 12k catalog.

Chessa is the third release from Abrams’ Shuttle358 moniker on 12k and he continues to do what he does best: attempt to move microsound away from the world of theory and towards absolute real life. Like his photographs, Chessa is music about, and to be listened to in, unexpected places. It is a narrative, a simple slice of life that plays out through the incidental photography of the cover artwork. To achieve this Abrams fuses irregular granular sound particles, like the movements of everyday life, with a deliberate melodic base that captures emotion and simplicity.

Vanguard captures the iconic Bristol Sound.

The early days of the iconic Bristol Sound are captured in a new album including an exclusive re-release of the very first track from Massive Attack and tracks from Smith & Mighty, Purple Penguin and more.

The curated tracks are also linked in that all were originally released with bespoke original covers from legendary Bristol street artists, including Banksy and Will Barras, tying its release toVanguard’s current exhibition Bristol Street Art: The Evolution of a Global Movement at M Shed, Bristol, running until October.
Compiled by DJ Boca 45 (Scott Hendy), Vanguard brings together the seminal tracks that defined the rebellious era which saw the birth of the Bristol Sound for the first time. Featured tracks include an exclusive re-release of Any Love - the first ever track by Massive Attack released on Massive Attack Records in 1988, Smith & Mighty’s breakout hit Walk On, Purple Penguin’s downtempo classic Memphis and other trip hop classics.

The LP celebrates the globally recognised Bristol Sound whose experimental breakbeat rhythms and influence still dominate the scene today. Along with classic tracks from the ‘90’s into the ‘00’s and beyond, the album uncovers lesser known cuts by some of Bristol’s pioneering musicians such as One Cut and West Country hip hop’s finest Aspects.

The explosion of the Bristol Sound coincided with the boom in UK street art which led to fruitful collaborations between artists and musicians. Finding inspiration in each other’s work, street artists frequently designed rave posters, logos and cover art while DJs provided the beats to accompany street artists’ clandestine painting.
Vanguard The Album pays homage to these relationships with a beautifully put together gatefold LP featuring iconic cover art designed by some of the biggest names in street art such as Inkie, Dicy, Will Barras and Nick Walker. These early works capture the boisterous energy of the era and confirm Bristol’s status as an extraordinary cultural melting pot.

The double vinyl record also features extensive sleeve notes written by Bristolian writer and curator Jamie Hombre as he reflects on these ground breaking cover art collaborations.

Audiophile 180glp pressing includes eight 12"x12" art print reproductions of analog film stills by renowned experimental filmmaker Daïchi Saïto. The first purely solo record by Jason Sharp - where every sound is created by his saxophone, breath, heartbeat & modular synthesis rig. Sharp's customized electroacoustic biofeedback system utilizes a heart monitor to turn his pulse into signal & tempo responsively synthesized in real time during peformance & recording. Produced by Radwan Ghazi Moumneh (MATANA ROBERTS, SUUNS, BIG | BRAVE, ERIC CHENAUX, JERUSALEM IN MY HEART). For Fans of Fennesz, Christina Vantzou, Tim Hecker, Klaus Schulze, Ben Frost, Gas, Windy & Carl, Colin Stetson. Montréal saxophonist and electroacoustic composer Jason Sharp presents his third album on Constellation. The Turning Centre Of A Still World is Sharp's first purely solo record and his most lucid, poignant, integral work to date. Following two acclaimed albums composed around particular collaborators and guest players, Sharp conceived his third as an interplay strictly bounded by his own body, his acoustic instrument, and his evolving bespoke electronic system. The Turning Centre... is a singular sonic exploration of human machine calibration, interaction, expression and biofeedback. Using saxophones, foot-controlled bass pedals, and his own pulse - patched through a heart monitor routed to variegated signal paths that trigger modular synthesizers and samplers - Sharp paints with organic waves of glistening synthesis, pink noise and digitalia. Melodic strokes and harmonic shapes ripple and crest across ever-shifting seas, through an inclement cycle from dawn to dusk. The album's six main movements navigate a world where placid surfaces are always roiled and disquieted by a deeper inexorable gyre: the gravitational pull and tidal perpetuity of our bodies made of water, buffeted by terrestrial atmospheric pressures, wrung out by emotions, coursing with blood, sustained by breath, inescapably yearning for and returning to ground again and again. Sharp's heartbeat literally courses through these compositions - while only occasionally surfacing as a clearly audible pulse or rhythm, it physically feeds into a spectrum of generative synthetic processes that help constitute and conduct the music.

Francesco Cavaliere and Tomoko Sauvage embody a tactile audio visual display, radiating the color green into sounds and painting meditative music. By transforming collected objects into invented instruments and scenography, each motif becomes a dedication to a specific situation, an anecdote or a symbol, sometimes real and other times absurd, that the artists have encountered through their travels and conversations: the Chinese myth about a man wearing a green hat, naming convention of Japanese traffic lights, or even the imaginary chants of frolicking twin dolphins. This inspired the duo’s personal research on experimenting with raw and synthesized idiophones, stage landscape design, spontaneous field recording and organized improvisation.

For their installation and performance, Cavaliere and Sauvage assemble a green cabinet of curiosities - instrumentarium combining water, glass, clay, bamboo xylophones, metallophones and synthesizers. Tomoko describes in an interview: “When you are actually surrounded by green musical instruments, it has a calming effect as if you were looking at a forest or mountain.” Surrounding themselves with amulets and fluorescent fluids, the duo transcend into a musical imagination that connects scores, choreography and sculpture. Motions like crisscrossing the stage, feeling the presence of a perfectly plump leaf as it strikes a glass bowl, minerals slipping through fingers, all resonate to the soothing sounds of splashing water. There’s an intuitive yet methodical nature to this conceptual approach to composition reminiscent of the fluxus art movement. The pair’s initial motif was to play Henning Christiansen’s Green Music, whose score turned to be nonexistent. By then, their green dream was already flourishing in their mind, retracing the path of so-called environmental music from Walter Tilgner, Knud Viktor, to the likes of Kankyo-Ongaku and Hiroshi Yoshimura.

Since there is a strong visual element to their work, witnessing this captivating site specific performance may be imperative in understanding the range and influence of the color green and the impact on the sounds they create together. On ‘Viridescens’, the first release by Cavaliere and Sauvage, we are invited to experience these recordings in a more musical context. Acting like an intermediary, the duo transport us to their special planet, enlivened by animal voices, wind, and aquatic creatures dancing across a luminous aurora.

Following “La Contra Ola” (BJR015), Bongo Joe presents 'La Ola Interior', a compilation exploring the ambient side of the Spanish electronic music produced in the 80’s, bringing together 19 little-known and innovative pieces from the golden age of Spanish electronic music !

It gathers musicians from various horizons and of many generations, who shared the desire to create an immersive soundscape and to combine electronic music with non-Western musical traditions. As a general rule, the Anglo-Saxon tropism did relate the spanish peninsula’s ambient music to the Balearic Sound, that is to say to the relaxing music played in Ibiza’s nightclubs. But this music takes place in the productive territory of experimental musics, and particularly in its two main breeding grounds: the tape recording underground and the independent musicians-producers scene.

Inseparable from the processes of self-publishing, distribution and exchange of music that were then taking place in Spain in an artisanal way, the vast underground movement of cassettes was divided between an "ethno-trance" combining industrial beats and oriental sounds on the one hand (Esplendor Geométrico, Miguel A. Ruiz / Orfeón Gagarin) and unclassifiable low-fi tinkerers on the other hand (Camino al desván, Eli Gras, Mataparda, Victor Nubla). Hyperactive, this scene is radical and strongly dominated by the hardest musical styles, but the ambient, influenced by the German Kosmische Musik and "krautrock", also develops here.

The second vein of Spanish ambient comes from some of the independent labels of the peninsula (DRO, GASA, El Cometa de Madrid, EGK) whose activity will mark the return of some of the most adventurous musicians-producers of the 70s. Some were influenced by American minimalism (Luis Delgado / Mecánica Popular, Suso Saiz, Javier Segura), others by Fourth-World Music conceived by Jon Hassell and Brian Eno (Finis Africae, Jabir). Having passed through folk, ancient, traditional or contemporary music, and being familiar with improvisation and studio techniques, these artists come from a mutant hippie culture, capable of phagocyting many musical styles from electronic ambient to ethnic improvisation and modal jazz.

These two scenes and generations that make up LA OLA INTERIOR intersect around a common interest in non-Western musical traditions. Their exploration may be that of the tribal origins of electronic rhythms or the Arab heritage of Spain. Above all, it is a dreamy exoticism, an immobile journey as the sounds, rhythms or instruments of these traditions are scrutinized by Western practices (avant-garde music, electronic technology). The result is a hybrid music, filtered and reinvented, neither Western nor extra-Western, with a pronounced taste for the fusion of opposites, which we have called "Acid Exoticism" because of its permanent search for trance or contemplation. Atmospheric, contemplative and serial, these musics still plunge us today into a sensorial journey, at the same time interior and distant, organic and technological, between exotic reminiscences and interior visions.

The redoubtable renaissance man Barrie K Sharpe is back with a scorching vinyl 45 showing he’s lost none of his edge or ingenuity in producing a potent fusion of funk, soul jazz and beyond. This effusive cut sounds utterly unlike anybody else and is testament to his flamboyant superfly style cementing why he is considered to being one of the burgeoning spearheads in the Acid Jazz movement of yesteryear.

It’s interesting to note he hasn’t stood still either and has been extremely prolific releasing three exceptional albums under the banner of Rhythm Rhyme Revolution and this slow burning dance floor groove is the perfect distillation of his recent body of work.

‘BaDThingz’ falls between the sensual and the spiritual like all good dance music and the direct ‘come on’ lyrics becomes an injunction to move on the facts not just suppositions!

The groove is the epitome of seduction itself with a funkified blessedness as clear as a bell. A fantastic homily signalling the virtues of sexual chemistry whilst highlighting the modern era of cutting edge studio production to sonic perfection. The groove is simply total atomic explosiveness and DJ Tabu is someone you’d definitely want cooing in your ear!

Aided and abetted by multi instrumentalist Gareth Tasker and trumpeter Kenny Wellington it seems your man is riding his groove to glory - with a bit of added polish from Fritz Catlin. This is going to have untold longevity in any DJ’s trunk of funk. Grab it now for a shock of pure pleasure. (Emrys Baird – Blues & Soul)

Concentric Records presents Radiant, the third compilation of its introductory release trilogy. Featuring music by ASWA, HOLOVR, Max Loderbauer, Petre Inspirescu, Supply, The Waves, William Selman, the album evokes luminous, iridescent and ethereal sonic spaces - a journey that overcomes struggles, spinning upward towards the light.

The album opens with calm, bright and assertive tonalities, evoking mental spaces prone to exploration and wondering. Molecular textures and real-world sounds bring us closer to an intimate and physical sphere, a voice. Ultimately everything dissolves into a synthetic domain of acid-like washes, in a cinematic sense of departure.

MAX LODERBAUER has been an active engineer, producer, and musician across four decades. He first came to notice in the late ‘80s as a member of Fischerman’s Friend. Known then as Daimler Max, Loderbauer’s associates included Stephan Fischer and Tom Thiel, as well as producer Thomas Fehlmann. Once the group went dormant, Loderbauer and Thiel established Sun Electric; one of the leading sources of entrancing downtempo and ambient techno through the ‘90s. During the 2000s and 2010s, Loderbauer collaborated in numerous settings, including NSI with Tobias Freund, Chica & the Folder with Paula Schopf, and Moritz von Oswald Trio with Vladislav Delay and Moritz von Oswald. Loderbauer was partly responsible for some of the most progressive and experimental electronic music released during these years. In 2011, he and contemporary Ricardo Villalobos assembled Re: ECM, a project that involved radical transformations of ECM label recordings by the likes of Bennie Maupin, Christian Wallumrød, John Abercrombie, and Arvo Pärt. More recently he consolidated the collaboration with Ricardo Villalobos via the Vilod project, and with Samuel Rohrer and Claudio Puntin as Ambiq - both described as ‘a fertile patch of inspiration, shaking up the principles of minimal techno with the loose, expressive qualities of jazz’. The album opening track - ‘Harmonic’ - feels like a glowing dream. Composed of stunning electronics in a polychromatic, blinding and shimmering light; harmonious interwoven melodies calmly wind down invoking a serene mental state and grounding peace.

WILLIAM SELMAN was the very first artist ever approached by Concentric Records prior to the label’s birth, back in 2018, following his defining release ‘Musica Enterrada’. A musician and multimedia artist currently based in Portland, Oregon, his work employs analogue and digital synthesis techniques, live percussion and instrumentation, and his own rich field recordings to create compositions and sound art focused on the ideas of place and environment. Selman's recent works have been released on Mysteries of the Deep and Hausu Mountain.

PETRE INSPIRESCU is an extremely versatile composer. As co-founder of the legendary RPR Soundsystem together with Rhadoo and Raresh, he mostly produced club-ready, heavily textured takes on tech-house and minimal techno. In 2015 he released his first album on Mule Musiq, considered a significant departure from his previous work, scoring piano, strings and woodwind instruments for the first time, resulting in a set that sat somewhere between ambient and neo-classical. Since then, he continued to explore further sonic territories, adding in vintage synthesizers and occasional nods to dub techno, resulting in melodious sequences of musical movements that relate to the work of classical composers, American minimalists and ambient legends. ‘The Garden’ is a dreamy, intimate and nature inspired composition, recorded in his home studio in Ibiza sometime in the Summer.

DJ and producer SUPPLY (youngest so far on the label) was born and raised in Gießen, within sight of the skyscrapers of Frankfurt am Main, and has been living in Berlin since 2017. Musically socialised through hip hop, he found his connection to electronic music produced in Chicago and Detroit in the 90s by moving to FFM in 2013. For almost 6 years he has hosted his own events in his hometown. His productions connect the dots between hip hop, retro futuristic movie soundtracks and techno, he recently released on YAY Recordings. ‘Inhale / Exhale’ was created during a time of stress and mental tension, partly self-inflicted, partly result of my surroundings, as it turned out in retrospect. The track tries to capture a moment of taking a deep breath by releasing that tension for a moment. I came up with the first sketch one night around 4am, the final arrangement found its way onto a C60 Chromoxid Cassette - inhale - exhale.’ - Supply

THE WAVES is a post-punk and synthwave-inspired project led by Maayan Nidam, that places her vocals at its front and centre. As a musician obsessed with sound and the technology behind its creation, her workflow places a strong focus on the studio environment. Triggering chain reactions between guitar pedals, drum machines, modular synths and acoustic instruments, generating sounds in unpredictable ways. Drum machines keep a steady groove as to give support to an array of guitars and synthesisers, all topped with The Waves own, mostly unmasked, lyrics and voice. ‘Hold On’ was written by Maayan during the 2020 pandemic as she dived deeply in studio work in Berlin. Her lyrics are featured as part of the art print insert, and have became a central statement to the LP and its narrative - the power to hold on and break through.

Jimmy Billingham's HOLOVR project has racked up various releases on some of the most forward-thinking electronic music labels over the past few years, including Firecracker Recordings, Likemind, Further Records, Opal Tapes and his own Indole Records. Though best known for melodic, drifting acid techno and electronica, he's equally at home crafting textured ambient soundscapes. HOLOVR's deeply emotional synth passages and pads will take you on a journey into the outer. 'Melancholy of Time came out of a period exploring ways of producing and recording outside of the grid-based structures that I was previously working with. I wanted to strip it back to what I often find to be the emotional core of a piece of electronic music - ebbing and flowing synth pads - but to push and pull it a bit to create a slight disjointedness, unpredictability and shop-worn texture, as if it's coming apart and fraying, yet retaining a sonic clarity. I recorded it live using looped and layered synth phrases, underpinned by a layer of hiss and pin-prick textures. I find reflections on time and its passing to be a recurrent feature of my work, both in a more straightforward way of harking back to music of a certain period or pieces of equipment but also in a more abstract sense of creating a feeling where time doesn't matter - a deep feeling of now; that escape that you find in music and other ecstatic experiences. Though of course we’re always in - and running out of - time, and hence the melancholy.’ - Jimmy Billingham

Hailing from the German underground scene, ASWA aka Attila Fidan has an intricate, hypnotic style of electro, techno and ambient. Coming from visual arts and not primarily a trained musician, Attila produces under various and multiple monikers: ‘I never really start out knowing which moniker the track will be made under’. Since 2017 he runs a boutique Berlin label named ‘Tape Archive’. ‘Dust Palace’ is a synthetic piece that resonates with a cinematic vastness, closing the LP in an uplifting tone that evokes new departures and new beginnings.

White Vinyl

For a second installment of The Instinct Series, we have invited Kursk (Berlin) and Volsent (Amsterdam). Both, alien to one another, their musical language broke through the borders and laid-out foundations of unity on this split EP.

Stylistically, the two artists’ have already crafted their distinct styles. Yet it is the rawness of their respective sounds, which is the glue that binds this release together. And to complete it, Duellist, the industrial techno warlock, lends his hand with a remix.

The whole EP embodies our vision, not only in the form of the “sonic medicine”. By offering our creative platform to the emerging artists’ as well as being true to our motto, we are “setting fire to the rage of acceptance”. Unearthing the yet unheard and locating them at the heart of our community.

The name of the label itself is about us working on bettering ourselves and being united in all our differences. “Reptile” is about our relationship with the reptilian brain and our efforts to understand what truly means to be human (tools to perfect your instinct), becoming aware of ourselves and the others around us. “House of” is a direct allusion to the “house and ball culture” movements in NYC in the early 80s.

The 10th anniversary of a milestone in the history of LCD Soundsystem will arrive August 6, when DFA Records partners with Parlophone / Warner Music to celebrate The Long Goodbye: LCD Soundsystem Live At Madison Square Garden; a 5-LP vinyl unabridged recording of LCD Soundsystem’s near four-hour April 2, 2011 show at New York’s Madison Square Garden, and released on 3CD for the very first time.

Produced and mixed by LCD founder and frontman James Murphy, The Long Goodbye is the ultimate audio document of LCD Soundsystem’s legendary — if not quite final — sold-out Madison Square Garden performance.

The Long Goodbye show was the lengthiest, most career-spanning LCD Soundsystem has played to date. The album finds the LCD core live band of Murphy, Pat Mahoney, Nancy Whang, Al Doyle, Gavilán Rayna Russom and Tyler Pope joined by a choir, string and horn sections — plus special guest performances including Win Butler and Regine Chassagne of Arcade Fire, Reggie Watts, the Juan MacLean, Shit Robot, Planningtorock, and Shannon Funchess of Light Asylum.

‘Part I’ is the debut LP from Indigo, the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder.

The first release in what will be an ongoing three-part series, Part I features nine tracks for bass guitar and tenor saxophone. Part II, an exploration of a slightly larger, more sonically diverse musical world will feature string quartet and voice. Finally, Part III will collaborate with choreographer Siobhan McKenna, who alongside Nick will develop a percussive movement work that seamlessly intertwines with the musical work.

“My aim is to create music that is sonically and musically atypical whilst still belonging to an accessible contemporary scene. Each project, album or ‘part’ will set out to explore a single ensemble or group of instruments. In the case of Part I, that ensemble is hollow body bass guitar and tenor saxophone. “ - Indigo (Nick Roder)

The Indigo project itself was inspired by Saxophone & Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, which prompted Nick to write an album of music for the same type of ensemble. Having only just purchased a bass guitar for a different project, the instrument was still very new to him.

“I was curious to see what I would write with my self-imposed rule of not being able to overdub material, and further, how my limitations as a relatively green bass guitarist would influence the writing of the material. A strong focus on harmonic movement and melodic material was where I eventually found my happy place.”

The result is a phenomenal debut. Burrowing into the space between it’s sparse instrumentation and dulcet tones, Part I is the realisation of a minimalist and concise vision of what a symbiotic relationship between two instruments can yield.

About Indigo
Indigo is the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder. The Indigo project was conceptualised in 2020 and focuses on deep sonic exploration of little-heard ensembles in a contemporary space.

Since 2018, Nick has been composing soundtracks for video games including The Invisible Hand, Roadwarden, N1NE: Splintered Mind, This Dead Winter and Miska. Nick has also played in art-rock ensemble, Tulalah, exploring sonic textures, combining contemporary jazz/rock with chamber sounds. The modular ensemble released The Flood (Equinox Recordings, 2015) and The Question (Independent, 2017).

oracle and audioMER. are honoured to announce the release of a new LP; Reading the City with music by oracle, Laszlo Umbreit & Mira Sanders.

In 2019 oracle invited artist Mira Sanders to interact with their practice through her writing. Due to the corona crisis, their shared working time couldn’t happen in the planned way:

“The writing project was originally planned as an exchange while travelling together one week on the Buratinas boat, navigating on the canals and rivers starting from Brussels. Due to the sanitary conditions with the Covid19, the trip together could not be realised or at least was complicated.

Instead of seeing the situation as an obstacle, I saw it as an opportunity to travel with them from afar. Me, living outside the city and them, inside. My question was ‘how, through their voices echoing with the urban spaces, will I imagine the city’s everyday life?’. Because one of the things that oracle’s practice does is to offer ways to perceive and encounter the city and its inhabitants.

For the texts I was inspired by the recordings oracle sent me every day during one week. Besides that, the book Invisible Cities written by Italo Calvino gave me a way of structuring my imagination.” – Mira Sanders

Following this artistic exchange and during a collaboration with sound artist Laszlo Umbreit, the idea of the record Reading the City was born. The existing recordings and the written sci-fi episodes by Mira Sanders functioned as a source of inspiration for the electronic sound composition Places, infiltrated by the original voices and city soundscapes. The recordings of the texts From Afar reflect oracle’s playful and spontaneous way of interacting with their given environment. From Afar is an invitation for the reader to immerse in the city while being in movement. Each track on this side has its own identity or colour, often in relation to what Mira’s text evoked, but this also happened in an empirical way, by trial and error.

Places is a composition in movement, following the idea of interaction with imaginary cities but regularly coming back to a presence of the workshop’s raw documentary sound. While being a carefully edited piece, it tries to keep a certain sense of immediacy and improvisation through semi-random dropping of heterogeneous sound materials in the timeline. Accidents are welcome. The arc drawn by the journey through different “places” is an interpretation of what can happen inside (and outside) when experiencing the oracle practice: being around them, imagining what was felt at different moments in the street, from a distance, preparing the itinerary in the city beforehand, talking about what oracle could be as a record and if it can exist outside the moment it happens.

The first release in what will be an ongoing three-part series, Part I features nine tracks for bass guitar and tenor saxophone. Part II, an exploration of a slightly larger, more sonically diverse musical world will feature string quartet and voice. Finally, Part III will collaborate with choreographer Siobhan McKenna, who alongside Nick will develop a percussive movement work that seamlessly intertwines with the musical work.

“My aim is to create music that is sonically and musically atypical whilst still belonging to an accessible contemporary scene. Each project, album or ‘part’ will set out to explore a single ensemble or group of instruments. In the case of Part I, that ensemble is hollow body bass guitar and tenor saxophone. “ - Indigo (Nick Roder)

The Indigo project itself was inspired by Saxophone & Bass Guitar by Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes, which prompted Nick to write an album of music for the same type of ensemble. Having only just purchased a bass guitar for a different project, the instrument was still very new to him.

“I was curious to see what I would write with my self-imposed rule of not being able to overdub material, and further, how my limitations as a relatively green bass guitarist would influence the writing of the material. A strong focus on harmonic movement and melodic material was where I eventually found my happy place.”

The result is a phenomenal debut. Burrowing into the space between it’s sparse instrumentation and dulcet tones, Part I is the realisation of a minimalist and concise vision of what a symbiotic relationship between two instruments can yield.

About Indigo
Indigo is the moniker and ongoing project of Melbourne-based composer and arranger, Nick Roder. The Indigo project was conceptualised in 2020 and focuses on deep sonic exploration of little-heard ensembles in a contemporary space.

Since 2018, Nick has been composing soundtracks for video games including The Invisible Hand, Roadwarden, N1NE: Splintered Mind, This Dead Winter and Miska. Nick has also played in art-rock ensemble, Tulalah, exploring sonic textures, combining contemporary jazz/rock with chamber sounds. The modular ensemble released The Flood (Equinox Recordings, 2015) and The Question (Independent, 2017).

In 1979 as a 15-year-old Eddie Piller was perfectly placed to be at the epicentre of the Mod revival. An inquisitive passion
for music, a family connection to Mod royalty The Small Faces, and an attitude that saw him travelling his home city, then
the country and then the world to take in the sounds that were emerging. In the years since, Piller has been a legendary
figure within the music industry setting up and continuing to own the ground-breaking Acid Jazz label, signing multiplatinum artists such as Jamiroquai and The Brand New Heavies collaborating on compilations with Martin Freeman and as
an award winning broadcaster even setting up his own Totally Wired Radio station. In The Mod Revival he looks back at the
movement that set him on his way.
• Mod is a sixties youth movement original built on sharp clothes, American soul music and nights on the town, that has never
really died. The originals added young British groups to their likes and then moved on, but their influence echoed on
through the 1970s in Northern Soul clubs, and in the sixties influenced bands of the pub rock era. When punk arrived, it was
supposed to sweep away the past, but instead the Sex Pistols were covering the Small Faces. The Clash brought in Mod DJ
Guy Stevens to produce London’s Calling, The Buzzcocks sounded closer to the Hollies than The Ramones and in The Jam’s
Paul Weller there was a musical and sartorial nod to the past of The Who, The Beatles and pop art arrows.
• Weller had spent the 1970s becoming obsessed by mod and saw punk as having a similar youthful energy to the era he had
missed by being born a decade too late. For others Weller’s style proved an inspiration, and as the Jam broke through in late
1978, they saw a wave of bands follow in their wake, and they themselves influenced others to form their own groups. But
there were other things. In bleak late 70s Britain the glorious optimism of the 1960s looked bright and shiny, and as it was
only a decade or so in the past, it was easy to pick up original records, clothes and books for pennies, and as you bought
these you met other like-minded souls who did the same. For those a little too young for punk, it was a community of gigs,
scooters, clothes, bands and records, and for many it developed on through.
• Eddie never stopped being a mod and has a unique perspective having now lived through four decades of being intimately
involved in the music that has emerged from the mod scene. In this part two double vinyl edition (Part 1 and its CD
equivalent reached #14 in the UK compilations charts) Ed guides us through some of his favourite music from the scene. He
guides us through a plethora of bands whose influences include The Who, The Kinks and the Jam, to sixties soul and R&B,
those with an eye on psychedelia. The records have a vitality and a certain stylish swagger to them, that marks them out as
mod. In the deluxe booklet, Piller has written a 5000 word note describing what it meant to him and has granted access to
his own scrapbooksfrom his many years of gig-going from which pages and memorabilia are reproduced.
• Eddie Piller’s Mod Revival is a personal appraisal from the founder of The Modcast, on what the mod explosion of the late
70s and 80s means to him…

Most of these songs have not been heard until now. Formed in L.A.’s South Bay in 1978, DESCENDENTS began as a power trio featuring bassist Tony Lombardo,
drummer Bill Stevenson, and guitarist Frank Navetta (d. 2008).
The band recruited vocalist Milo Aukerman in 1980 and began establishing
themselves as major players in the Southern California Punk movement. Over
the years, the band has sustained a potent chemistry and shared vision, further
cementing them as punk legends.
In 2002, the original four-piece lineup Frank Navetta, Tony Lombardo, Bill
Stevenson, and Milo Aukerman got back into the studio to finally record their
first-ever songs. The songs were written by the band from 1977 through 1980,
before recording the Fat EP (1981) and the Milo Goes to College LP (1982).
Every element of DESCENDENTS’ genre-creating sound is here: Stevenson’s
hyper-caffeinated surf-beats, Lombardo’s intrepid bass, Navetta’s crunching attack, Aukerman’s impassioned, infinitely relatable singing and all those great
melodies and harmonies.

Synth legend Suzanne Ciani, Demdike Stare’s Sean Canty & Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel come together on this killer hour-long 2014 synapse popper of a collaboration pooling the occasional group’s esoteric collage-based approach into a remarkably foreboding session pregnant with a dread that’s never quite resolved. Think Vladimir Ussachevsky, Todd Dockstader, Spectre and Company Flow melted thru the Deutsch-Italo industrial DIY tape era and funneled thru an almost impenetrable fog of Ann Arbor basement noizze.

Hustling some of Neotantrik’s most amorphous gestures, ’241014’ is a four-segment movement of reduced Buchla treatments, destroyed vinyl loops and scraping foley suspense; like a cosmic dream diary layered into a collage of drones and clatters. Little in Ciani’s extensive catalogue has hinted at what’s on display here; the joyful lullaby-pop of “Seven Waves” or metallic alien soundscraping of “Flowers of Evil” are only hinted at. She instead paints new sonic vistas, allowing space for her collaborators to make themselves known; Votel’s chiming toy autoharp and Bubul Tarang (a Punjab string instrument) add a distinctive flavor, while Canty’s grimy drones and noise-soaked textures drizzle pitch-black molasses into the cracks and crevices. Together, the effect is a bit like hearing Philip Jeck improvising over Popol Vuh’s peerless Moog-led debut “Affenstunde” or Demdike Stare knocking out impromptu reworks of Tangerine Dream’s abstrakt early run.

Perhaps unusually, the trio have still never set foot in a studio together, exclusively maintaining their practice in-the-moment and on stage when schedules intersect. So it’s all the more remarkable that their improvisations naturally find a democracy of role and such a heightened level of intuition, beautifully converging their thoughts to mutual, open-ended conclusions that leaves billowing room for interpretation. In a most classic sense, it’s like the sensation of sleep paralysis or dream/nightmare ambiguity, with a level of suggestiveness that’s disorienting from end to end.

For the first time the recordings are now available in high fidelity (there was a tape version a couple of years back) - now remastered by Rashad Becker to better represent the otherworldly scope of their actions on stage, from the NWW-like queues and drone of ‘Scanned Accents’ and keening silhouette of ‘Second Action,’ to new sections of subaquatic Porter Ricks-like murk in ‘Anti-Contraction’ and the levitating webs of synth and tactile, sampled textures in ‘Last Canción.’ Tape music and synth music have long shared a passionate embrace, and here turntablism coolly slides in on the action. Canty and Votel’s background in beat tape assembly and crate digging pays off: they’re keenly experimental creators but bring an unfussy sense of rhythm and performance that’s miles beyond any facile repetition of a nostalgia for vintage glory. Combined with Ciani’s delicate Buchla work - it’s a unique proposition.

Born in Naples, educated in New York and now residing in Paris, drummer Francesco Ciniglio combines spotless drumming facility with substantial compositional flair, and has the capacity to move, reflect and express through his music. An in-demand sideman, Ciniglio has collaborated with Wynton Marsalis, Shai Maestro, Aaron Parks, Dayna Stephens, Seamus Blake and Tony Tixier. Following his debut solo release (‘Wood’, with Parks and Joe Sanders), Ciniglio returns as leader for his Whirlwind debut, ‘The Locomotive Suite’, a set of compositions for sextet that combine a personal metaphor of resilience with snapshots of his formative familial influences. Barcelona-based Raynald Colom (trumpet), fellow Paris emigr e Matt Chalk (alto) and Matteo Pastorino (bass clarinet) take the frontline duties, with Frenchman Alexis Valet on vibraphone and rising star Felix Moseholm on double bass. The suite is a collection of substantial, knotty harmonies, rhythmic shifts and spacious textures. But it also experiments internally, with chordal horn textures giving bass and vibraphone more melodic freedom. The unusual scoring is inspired by the soundworlds of Pat Metheny and Ben van Gelder, bridging the gap between music for large ensemble and harmonically focused trio music. Or, as Ciniglio puts it, it’s all about “finding an ensemble that’s not too big or small.” “This album is all about movement - getting a train here, marching there,” summarises Ciniglio. But it also reflects on people and places, and on the personal growth that helps make ‘The Locomotive’ Suite a significant compositional statement.

Jazz Montez is a music collective from Frankfurt, Germany dedicated to spreading the gospel of jazz throughout the universe. To them, jazz does not describe a particular style of music but an attitude, mindset and an approach to art and life that can manifest itself in a variety of ways. For their first vinyl release, they invited seven of the most talented and ambitious young groups from all over Germany to Frankfurt to record a track in the renowned studio Lotte Lindenberg. Despite the band's various influences, ranging from classic jazz, afrobeat and funk to hip hop, electronic music and rock, "Jazz Montez Presents Vol. I", mixed in its entirety by Drum&Bass legend Kabuki, works as a cohesive album. Pressed on high quality 180g vinyl, the record comes packaged in a beautiful and eco-friendly bagasse gatefold cover, designed by artist Clara Sipf. It features a 20 page booklet that includes a comic on the making of the album, texts by and information on the participating musicians, an interview with the sound engineers and an essay on the contemporary relevance of jazz. May this record inspire us to go through life guided by a spirit of open-mindedness and collaboration so that we may create a better, healthier and more beautiful world.

Traditional village music transformed into fiery and frenetic underground Hip Hop. Emerging from the digital cultural renaissance of the early 2000s, where DIY studios sprung up throughout West Africa, "Patriote" is a shining example of localized global music. Hypnotic and driving rhythms built from sampled percussion and chopped-up instruments combine with syncopated staccato "ragga" inspired flow into infectious hammering tracks that sound like nothing before. Mamaki Boys was formed in 2002 by Aziz Tony, Bachou Issouf, and Salif André, when a local Hip Hop movement was exploding in the capital of Niger. "Patriote" was recorded to address a trend in the scene they perceived as too derivative. Produced at Studio BAT, one of the first studios in Niamey, Mamaki Boys sought to merge modern Hip Hop with traditional music. They invited elder musicians into the studio to play Nigerien instruments like duma and kalango, which were sampled and looped over their compositions. "We wanted to put tradition in the rap, ancestral dances, the things that our grandparents did in the village," Aziz explains. "Our mission was to re-value the culture, put it into Hip Hop, and to show all the colors of our country." Self-describing their music as "tradi-moderne", a Nigerien movement of folk revitalization, their cultural manifesto presents through every aspect of their work. Each track relies heavily on traditional instruments, and each rhythm is based on a dance from Niger. Their mission extends to the urgency of their lyrics: Takai challenges the population to preserve their culture, Kagani Kagani is a demand to take back mineral, oil, and uranium rights from their colonizers, while Komando uses war cries to inspire artists to keep speaking out. A strong entry in 21st-century global music, Mamaki Boys "Patriote" takes back the tools of globalization, repurposing them in the fight for cultural identity. Originally self-released in 2009 on limited edition CDR in Niger.

Riding the razor’s edge between rigorous experimentation, innovation, and tradition, London based, Italian composer, cellist, and electronic performer, Sandro Mussida, joins the Die Schachtel family with Rueben, his 3rd solo LP.

Active since the early 2000s, Sandro Mussida worked extensively with Mark Fell, Curl Collective, Lorenzo Senni, Oren Ambarchi, and Alessandra Novaga, among others, as well as a founding member of the interdisciplinary artists' group TQS Collective, before releasing his solo debut, Ventuno Costellazioni Invisibili, on Metrica in 2017, followed by Eeeooosss, released by Soave in 2019. Rueben, like its predecessor, deploys a microtonal vocabulary within a three-instrument sound palette and builds upon Mussida’s long-standing investigations of active listening, augmented by a developing practice that challenges aural perceptions of historical, non-equal-tempered tuning systems.

The 3rd instalment of Die Schachtel’s Decay Music series - launched to highlight inspired contemporary experimental efforts in the ambient, ethereal, and emotively abstract music - Rueben was recorded during 2018 in the church of St.Giusto in Volterra, Italy. Deeply inspired by Italian Renaissance paintings encountered by Mussida during the work’s composition, and conceived at the intersection of acoustic and electronic aural fields, in careful response to the space itself, the sounds of electric guitar, bass clarinet and cello - treated as minuscule sound atoms, rapidly projected to form structures of evolving densities - harmoniously enter into dialogue, forming a multi-layered, contemplative sonic landscape, within the interwoven complexity of their own reflections.

Central to Mussida’s work is the role of the performer, the experience of sound in a given space, and the relation of those sounds to memory and observation. Across the length of Rueben, bound to the work’s inspiration in the visual realm, the interplay between the senses blurs, presenting the act of listening as a mirror for the experience and legacies of seeing. In Mussida’s hands, sound emerges as a trace or memory suspended in a non-linear conception of time, where imprint, movement, and event, as they relate to place and happening, are perceived by the ear, recalling the Russian theologian Pavel ​Florenskij​’s idea of ‘reverse time’, that likens temporal condition activated by experiences with art as similar to that of dreams.

Vast in scope and intricate detail, the 9 discrete compositions that form ​Rueben​ unfold in a series of interconnected, shimmering landscapes of tone and texture, each, through the interplay of their elements, configuring a radically dense rendering of minimalist, ambient music that challenge the perceived boundaries of those historical definitions. The identity of individual sound sources fades against their collective whole, sculpting an inward-looking aural image of the church of St.Giusto, that echoes the radiance of the paintings that lay at the heart of the album’s inspiration.

An inspired and radically forward-thinking realization of electro-acoustic music, Mussida pushes toward innumerable possible futures of experimental practice, imbued with ghosts and histories of the past. Rueben is issued Die Schachtel on vinyl in a one-time edition of 250 copies, pressed to 180g marble vinyl and housed in a pro-printed inner sleeve and jacket, featuring an original Sumi-e painting by Japanese artist and avant rock drummer Akihide Monna (Bo Ningen), contained in a silk-screen PVC sleeve.

Originally conceived as a medium for Chicago-based multi-media artist/activist Damon Locks's sample-based sound collage work, Black Monument Ensemble (BME) has evolved from a solo mission into a vibrant collective of artists, musicians, singers, and dancers making work with common goals of joy, compassion, and intention. A genuinely multi-generational collective, ages of BME members range from 9 to 52 years old; members include instrumentalists and fellow IARC recording artists Angel Bat Dawid and Ben LaMar Gay. Their debut album Where Future Unfolds was released in 2019 by International Anthem glowing praise; landing at #3 on Bandcamp's "Best Albums of the Year," #25 on WIRE Magazine's "Best Albums of 2019," and being repeatedly dubbed "The Best Album of 2019" by BBC/Worldwide radio titan Gilles Peterson. Locks & BME's new album NOW was created in the final throes of Summer 2020, following months of pandemic-induced fear & isolation, the explosion of social unrest, struggle & violence in the streets, and as the certain presence of a new reality had fully settled in. Set up safely in the garden behind Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio, the music was recorded in only a few takes, capturing the first times members of BME had ever played or sang the tunes. For Locks, the impetus was more about getting together to commune and make art than it was about producing an album. In his words: "It was about offering a new thought. It was about resisting the darkness. It was about expressing possibility. It was about asking the question, 'Since the future has unfolded and taken a new and dangerous shape... what happens NOW?'"

CRIMSON/BLACK COLORED

Indie Retail Exclusive Crimson & Black color vinyl Originally conceived as a medium for Chicago-based multi-media artist/activist Damon Locks's sample-based sound collage work, Black Monument Ensemble (BME) has evolved from a solo mission into a vibrant collective of artists, musicians, singers, and dancers making work with common goals of joy, compassion, and intention. A genuinely multi-generational collective, ages of BME members range from 9 to 52 years old; members include instrumentalists and fellow IARC recording artists Angel Bat Dawid and Ben LaMar Gay. Their debut album Where Future Unfolds was released in 2019 by International Anthem glowing praise; landing at #3 on Bandcamp's "Best Albums of the Year," #25 on WIRE Magazine's "Best Albums of 2019," and being repeatedly dubbed "The Best Album of 2019" by BBC/Worldwide radio titan Gilles Peterson. Locks & BME's new album NOW was created in the final throes of Summer 2020, following months of pandemic-induced fear & isolation, the explosion of social unrest, struggle & violence in the streets, and as the certain presence of a new reality had fully settled in. Set up safely in the garden behind Chicago's Experimental Sound Studio, the music was recorded in only a few takes, capturing the first times members of BME had ever played or sang the tunes. For Locks, the impetus was more about getting together to commune and make art than it was about producing an album. In his words: "It was about offering a new thought. It was about resisting the darkness. It was about expressing possibility. It was about asking the question, 'Since the future has unfolded and taken a new and dangerous shape... what happens NOW?'"

Musique Pour La Danse is proud to present SPACED OUT!, a compilation curated by Belgian artist and producer DJ Athome (Front de Cadeaux) which focuses on psychedelic dub, space rock, and early electronica created in the UK's festival scene between 1986 and 1996, the result of a life long passion and 30 years of following artists from the festival scene.

It was a loosely organized British musical movement born in the early 80s and focused on free festivals in Stonehenge and other countercultural sites across the country. It represented a continuation of the psychedelic spirit of the 60s, with altered states of consciousness, dub production techniques, non-Western influences as well as instruments featuring heavily, along with a desire to side-step mainstream venues, labels, and attitudes.

Musically, it took on many forms, from mind-expanding space rock to third eye-opening electronica to shattering psychedelic dub. Visually, the zines, cassettes, LPs, and CDs created by this scene also displayed heavy influences from 60's psychedelia, updated for the late 80s and early 90s.

In the 90s, the zines and cassettes reached the eyes and ears of DJ Athome, then a young DJ living in Liège. After meeting a group of like-minded individuals organizing local gigs which was single-handedly responsible for putting Liège on the map for many British bands, he dived headfirst into the sights and the sounds of this festival scene, gathering as many albums as possible and joining local collectives involved in the organization of events.

This compilation is in equal amounts an introduction for newcomers and a confirmation for those who already know that this was without a doubt one of the trippiest and most compelling psychedelic musical movements of the last decades, notable for its hybridity, its sincerity, and above all its wonderfully life-changing effects for listeners and performers alike.

The compilation is presented in 2LP format, along with a limited edition Riso printed scene which features a foreword by acclaimed philosopher Timothy Morton, along with liner notes by David Borsu, one of the key players of Liège's musical collectives in the 90s and illustrations by designer Andrew Beltran.

Andrés Vargas Pinedo is a prominent composer of Amazonian popular music from Peru. He is blind and has excelled as a player of the quena and the violin. He was born in the city of Yurimaguas but he developed as an artist in Lima, for thirty years he has worked as a traveling musician on a street in the San Isidro district of Lima. Throughout his career, he has formed and joined various popular music groups. This compilation presents fifteen songs of his authorship, belonging to his first two groups: Conjunto típico Corazón de la Selva and Los Pihuichos de la selva, active between 1965 and 1974, and which helped define the sound of Amazonian popular music.

These years saw the emergence of an Amazonian popular music movement led by Vargas Pinedo as well as groups such as Los Solteritos, Flor del Oriente or Selva Alegre. These artists based their music on the rhythms of the Amazonian folklore (pandilla, sitaracuy, movido, cajada, chimayche) and were nourished by influences from the coast and the highlands of Peru, as well as by the tropical rhythms of Brazil, Colombia and Ecuador, achieving a musical synthesis that is an invitation to collective celebration and endless dance. A sound that is defined by a constant and hypnotic rhythmic base of kick and snare drums, upon which the quena and violin develop imaginative melodic lines. Sometimes there is a singing voice, sometimes the voices playfully appear as sounds that identify Amazonian popular speech or that emulate jungle animals.

The fifteen tracks gathered in 'El fabuloso sonido de Andrés Vargas Pinedo: Una colección de música popular amazónica' (1966-1974) / 'The fabulous sound of Andrés Vargas Pinedo: A collection of Amazonian popular music' (1966-1974) are a good introduction to the work of an essential creator of Peruvian music, whose sound expresses the spirit of the Amazonian people and summarizes the transition from tradition to the popular in the context of the emergence of a record industry of Amazonian music. Andrés Vargas constitutes a fundamental basis for the music of the Amazon, as his work synthesizes diverse influences, having that original root as its main motive.

This compilation is presented in vinyl format and includes a brochure with extensive information and photos. The audio has been remastered directly from the original tapes. Edition of 300 copies. Art by Jordy García (Blumoo Posters).