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Fiat Lux is the debut album by Tarta Relena, a Barcelona-based project featuring Marta Torrella and Helena Ros. The group approaches the oral traditions of the Mediterranean from a contemporary perspective using a unique combination of ancient vocal melodies and subtle electronic textures.

Tarta Relena’s inspiration for Fiat Lux comes from historical characters, such as the Virgin Mary and Hildegard of Bingen, and timeless verses that deal with the cyclic nature of the human experience: “E suïcidi i el cant” (1) is an adaptation of a traditional poem by Pashtun women in Afghanistan; “Esta montanya d’enfrente” (3) is a traditional Sephardic song; “Safo” (9) is based on the love poems by Sappho of Lesbos.
Singing in Catalan, Spanish, Greek, Latin, English, and even Sephardi, the language of Hispanic jews, Tarta Relena explore a complex array of Latin cultures through the simplicity of voice. They draw from vocal techniques that range from flamenco to jazz, introducing elements of electronic music to redefine the melodies.
In January 2019, Tarta Relena released their first EP, Ora Pro Nobis: eight a cappella songs with minimal electronics. In April 2020, they released their second EP, Intercede Pro Nobis: a five-song dialogue between voice and electronics.
Fiat Lux expands on past experimentations, moving away from organic harmonies to embrace digital textures and distortions. The musical production of Juan Luis Batalla and Òscar Garrobé is remnant of Holly Herndon or Eartheater.
Tarta Relena have perhaps been best described by Pitchfork in their review of Pack Pro Nobis: “Tarta Relena is a celebration of musical exchange. At a time of rising nationalisms across Europe, Tarta Relena’s songs are a testament both to the porousness of borders and the ideas that unite disparate cultures, running beneath the centuries like a pedal tone”.

From its earliest utterances, experimental music has been particularly disposed to transnational and cross-cultural collaboration. Seeking the answer for a fundamental problem - how to transcend the boundaries of difference, distance, and time - it presents a means to find common ground and communicate through the elemental form of sound. Over the last 5 years, this precisely what the duo of Félicia Atkinson & Jefre Cantu-Ledesma has achieved, intertwining sublime sonorities across the geographic expanses between their respective homes in France and the United States. Their third album for Shelter Press, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ (‘A winter in the middle of summer’) - the first to have been largely recorded by Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma together in the same space - distills a mesmerizing pallet of acoustic and electronic sources into an open discourse of radically poetic forms, offering glimpses of warmth and intimacy waiting in the post-covid world to come.

Both veteran experimentalists with celebrated bodies of solo work behind them - each traversing the challenges of electroacoustic practice in their own singular ways - prior to their first recorded outing in 2016, Félicia Atkinson and Jefre Cantu-Ledesma had only crossed paths in person once, initially meeting in San Fransisco during 2009. The mutual bond formed during that brief encounter flowered into their first LP, ‘Comme Un Seul Narcisse’, followed two years later by 2018’s ‘Limpid As The Solitudes’. Both recorded remotely - sending files back and forth, fortified by conversations on a vast range of subjects - these two albums were guided by impassioned conceptual nods to Guy Debord, Baudelaire, Brion Gysin and Sylvia Plath, while seeking resolutions for the challenges and unique possibilities that working at a distance provoked.

Where the triumphs of its predecessors rose from the bridging of disparate moments and divergent spaces, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ culminates as a celebration of closeness, a result of Atkinson and Cantu-Ledesma working together in the studio, responsively in real time, for the first time. Recorded in Brooklyn during August of 2019 - a handful of months before the pandemic would impose chasmic distances across the globe - its six discrete works, carefully crafted and finalized over the ensuing year, evolve seamlessly across the album’s two sides, weaving a sprawling tapestry of sonority, within which both artists retaining their own voices and visions, while drawing each other towards uncharted ground.

Atkinson likens the recording of ‘Un hiver en plein été’ to have been akin to “a playground”, each artist “hungry for each sound, a bit like the rush in the Louvre in Godard’s Bande à part”, to which Cantu-Ledesma adds that the process seemed to have had “a mind of its own”, with both “along for the ride”. This organic sense of entropy and enthusiasm - a joyous exploration of the unknown - guides the momentum of the album’s evolving arc, as unfolding chasms of ambient space ripple with humanity, life, and fleeting glimpses of the actions that led to its material core.

Crafted from deconstructed melodic elements and drifting long-tones - laden with subtle nods to Indian classical ragas and free jazz - searching patterns of speech, textural elements captured within the studio and the outside world, and searching tonal and percussive interventions, ‘Un hiver en plein été’ coheres as a multi-faceted series of electroacoustic dialogues; nesting conversations between two artists working at the juncture of abstraction and narration, field recording and harmony, and the philosophical and phenomenological, in search for the meaning of friendship, and its manifestation in pure sound.

This double album is a new collaboration between long-time Umor Rex artists Andreas Gerth (one half of Driftmachine) and Carl Oesterhelt (11 Pieces for Synthesizer). Both developed their shared musical cosmos during their time with the now defunct Tied +Tickled Trio. Oesterhelt is also known for his solo compositions for orchestras and for collaborations with Johannes Enders and Hans-Joachim Irmler of Faust.

As futurism seems inherent to electronic music, the backward-looking view is alien to its nature – consequently, a dialectical struggle between these principles is rarely expressed with the means of electronics. Especially today, its essence as a medium of progress stands in opposition to a sceptical position. By reconnecting us with history, The Aporias of Futurism seeks to define a critical location, that stands in opposition to the postmodern concept of interpretation, deconstruction and reformulation and the belief in progress that goes with it.

The working method for the album Andreas and Carl followed was the usual musique-concrète-technique – cut/assemble/edit/process pre-recorded sounds – but instead of deconstructing the concrete noises into an abstract sound entity, they followed a different path: the organic interweaving of orchestral structures with the electronically processed noise layers into a composition in the sense of classical modernism at the beginning of the 20th century.

Carl started with sketches recorded via a broken CD player, processed through a ring modulator, which sounded like old electronic music from the 1950s. To interact with these fragments Andreas recorded and processed a plethora of everyday noises, atmospheres, tonal fragments from the modular, industrial and shortwave radio noise, percussion in the form of door slamming, falling metal sheets, ball tracks, and so on. So, while they still played within the futuristic discipline, the reference to the past is actually unmistakable. One can hear it in the tonality of the contrasting orchestral passages, in the sound character of the processed samples and the sonic electronic layers. But it is precisely here, where a narrative tension develops. Theses and antitheses, extreme (unresolved) opposites, contrasts… essentially inner contradictions, or expressed in another word aporias… … but there is another factor at play here, something that plays a subordinate, almost ostracized role in the post-modern context: beauty (albeit the beauty of ruins) – beauty, the only refuge of the pessimist.

In the course of the process, a wide range of motifs and ideas emerged from the fog of memory. Free associations of concepts, books and authors from a wide period of time, such as Milton's Paradise Lost, William Blake, Robert Graves, ancient Rome, as well as Borges and Juan Rulfo. This flood of images is also incorporated on the album cover as a "free interpretation" of cultural objects and their relations in time.

The overarching motif of a sceptical rejection of the idea of Futurism is illustrated by a quote from Emile M. Cioran, the writer who most closely embodies the common spirit of the work presented here.

"But here comes the strangest thing: the Futurist idolizes becoming only until he has enforced that order for which he fought; then the ideal conclusion of time becomes apparent to him, the ‘always’ of utopia, which concludes and crowns the historical process. The conception of the Golden Age of Paradise par excellence, thus grips believers and unbelievers alike. But between the original paradise of the religions and the eschatological of the utopia there is the whole distance that separates a nostalgia from a hope, a repentance from a delusion, an achieved from an unrealized completion."

All music composed by Andreas Gerth and Carl Oesterhelt between Berlin and Munich, Germany in 2021. Produced and mixed by Andreas Gerth in Berlin. Mastered by John Tejada in Sherman Oaks, USA. Artwork by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

DIALOGUE was conceived as a series of musical letters written back and forth between Luke Slater, Anthony Child (aka Surgeon), KMRU, Lady Starlight, Speedy J and harpist Tom Moth (of Florence + the Machine) at the height of the pandemic between 2020 and early 2021. Using the common language of rhythmic ambient electronics, each DIALOGUE features three actors in a sonic conversation of longform improvisation between 15 and 25 minutes in length, with Luke Slater the common denominator. The results are a brooding, psychedelic exchange of melody, texture, bass, oscillation, key changes and volume swells, which organically merge into complete compositions. It’s music that both reflects and transcends the artists' common reality of isolation – a meditative, consciousness-expanding conversion of musical ideas born from necessity. Cosmic but not escapist. And very much of its time.

After the exploration of snowy mountains of Alpestres, released on Hands in the Dark in 2018, French composer Matthias Puech ventures into new territories, sketching a cartography of the invisible where the journey, in chiaroscuro, is announced as a rite of passage. A Geography of Absence, as introspective as unpredictable, immerses the listener into a unique sensory whirlwind where organic matter becomes almost palpable. A researcher in theoretical computer science and an engineer at GRM, Matthias Puech constructs a dialog between synthetic music and field recording, capturing sounds that surround him and creating his own sonic language with the help of synthesizers he designs and develops; notably the Oscillator Ensemble and the Tapographic Delay, made by the American company 4ms.

Composed during a moment marked by ordeal and mourning, A Geography of Absence retraces an inner journey where the physicality of sound leads the listener into an initiatory tunnel filled with apparitions, ghosts, visions. With sound oscillations as a navigational map, we progress, step by step, through the meanders of an unknown world, dazzled by the prospect of a new synthetic horizon, an electronic biotope teeming with life and incarnations. Playing with time, space and matter in an approach similar to that of musique concrète, Matthias Puech combines ambient and noise, floating sounds and electroacoustic experimentations, thus shaking up our listening perspective, which finds itself walking through a parallel universe, strata after strata, sequence after sequence.

The trip begins with “Hollow”, as if on board a night train travelling at full speed through ghost towns. Or is it a spaceship? Removed from their original habitat, sounds – picked up during walks or moduled by synths – are free to be interpreted differently by everyone, according to the memories that shape us. Granular and metallic, this first piece takes us to an elsewhere in orbit. "Work Song" is built around the pulsation of the void, of space, where strange creatures and liquid emanations abound. We become fetus, cocoon coiled in the placenta, heart beating to the rhythm of the gooey choreography of the human body. "Chrysalis" awakens the racket that lies dormant in us, when the skin changes, when the transition takes place. One seems to recognize certain sounds stemming from nature but they could also be mirages, imitating reality to render the barely perceptible engulfing. “Tunnel Vision” brings out a herd of haunted bells, slowly swelling in a pastoral maelstrom, ending in a deafening buzz. Further on, the chirping of an animatronic bird mixes with the hooting of an owl: "A Faint Beacon" invokes a nocturnal vigil that mixes the crackling of a fire and icy gusts of wind blowing everything away. Like an epic, sucking the listener into the breach of a black hole in the center of the Milky Way, it's up to "Homeostasis" to conclude in the high spheres and contemplative vapors, where the balance of dawn announces a rebirth.

A Geography of Absence is a meticulous and sensitive piece that constructs a delicate symphony of extremes, between introspection and desire for the unknown. Accompanied by the ink work of the artist Léa Neuville, whose folds of prints sketch this imaginary atlas, Matthias Puech becomes a narrator of mental adventures. And succeeds once again in transcending reality to dig a path to the unspeakable.

Oiche, the debut album from Fears, available 7th Mayl 2021. Pieced
together over five years, Oiche chronicles growth through challenges,
instability, and relationship changes, both with one’s self and others.
The album reveals itself much like a coming of age novel about the breaking
apart of girlhood and rebuilding of a young woman. An intimate depiction of
discovery, Oiche unearths internal dialogue, and makes peace with uncertainty.
Oiche, meaning ‘night’ in Irish, was recorded in three bedrooms, hospital, and
the Domino Recordings studio in Brixton.
Fears is London-based Irish artist Constance Keane. Combining reflective electronics, acoustic samples, and haunting vocals with organic visuals, Fears invites the listener on an ethereal journey, blurring the boundaries between
music and visual art. Her minimalist approach centres on emotive subjects,
which are all-at-once deeply personal yet remarkably universal. Oiche is the
first release on TULLE, run by and for exceptional womxn.

After NEF's album in 2019, Ici Bientôt is happy to present today the reissue of Comme Au Moulin by Nyssa Musique.

Paris 1985... ‘Extra-European’ Traditions meet Jazz and Minimal Music. An unusual array of instruments turn music into a dialogue. For a unique record ... vivid, full of texture, somewhere between Midori Takada, Don Cherry and Jon Hassell.

Beginning of the eighties, 5 musicians rehearse in a contemporary dance class hall, upstairs from the ‘’New Morning", renowned Music venue in Paris. Nyssa Musique is born. Passionate for a long time about traditional music, like those of the Middle East, India and East Asia, but also about African traditions, they throw a bridge between Jazz and ‘Extra-European’ traditions, resulting in what would be called "Spiritual Jazz" today, a little bit in the style of Don Cherry's Organic Music or Pharoah Sanders. With the notable difference, however, that their creations are strongly infused by contemporary classical and repetitive music, notably Steve Reich's work with whom they share a great interest for the traditional cultures of Southeast Asia, particularly Indonesia and its gamelans.

In the original group we have Armand Amar, Ballet Music composer and John Boswell. Both specialists of traditional hand percussion which they had been studying for a long time in India and the Middle East, they are also very fond of synthesizers. Three other talented musicians quickly join them: Jean-François Roger, percussionist, marimba and vibraphone specialist, Henri Tournier, multi-flutist and Renaud Garcia-Fons, double bass player, who has a passion for the Middle East and has developed a virtuosic play of the bow, reminding that of Cecil Mc Bee.

Each of them enriches the ensemble with their personality, originality and musical generosity. The rehearsal hall is rapidly invaded by the phenomenal instrumentarium put together by Armand Amar. A great opportunity for the musicians, for the dancers, to have access to an endless choice of instruments, offering infinite possibilities for mixing different colors and timbres. Their sense for being a group and their great capacity for improvising culminates, in 1986, in the composition of their first and only album Comme au Moulin (« As by the windmill"), testimony of years of creating without hidden agenda.

Authentic, free and vibrant, still today, this album has no real equivalent. Even though it recalls the Fourth World current by its combination of traditional instruments with a subtle use of synthesizers, Comme au moulin gives more space to improvisation. It may also recall those of Midori Takada, less the New Age esthetics. An album that should delight as well lovers of "Love Supreme" by John Coltrane, of "Vernal Equinox" by Jon Hassell, as those of Moondog, an artist who, like them, invented a music based on the use of untypical percussions, at the confluence of 'Extra-European' traditions, Jazz and Classical, all together complex and hypnotic.

After making a name for itself through acclaimed reissues of forgotten gems, Lyon’s Tunnel Vision Records is back, this time with a previously unreleased cult EP from the Serbian underground: InnVision’s Lake produced by Welljam aka Velja Mijanović, one of the pioneers of electronic music in Serbia and host of the legendary “Liquid” show on Yu Radio.

While it is fairly common these days for tracks to reach cult status after being uploaded to Youtube and picked up by its recommendation algorithm, the story of the Lake EP is truly unique.

Picture this: it’s the summer of 94 in Serbia and despite US sanctions, something was going on in the country’s musical underground with open-air parties on lakesides and other natural locations, fuelled by a feeling of freedom and creativity. At the time, InnVision was a 26-year-old producer inspired by the likes of The Orb, Brian Eno, Underworld, and Spooky. Unconcerned with adhering to trends or finding ways to make commercially-viable music, he created the tracks on this EP with Cubase running on an Atari computer and several synths fairly common at the time.

But the result was beyond anything common or ordinary. Described by its creator as “organic (ambient) house, but you can call it trance”, LAKE is rapture in its highest form. Pure enthusiasm seems to be driving this uplifting track, with an abundance of heavenly arpeggios and positive energy, along with masterful arrangements that make it even more grandiose, while retaining a light and dreamy quality (perhaps it is no coincidence that Lake in Serbian evokes weightlessness). It is one of those rare tracks that have a deep impact on body, mind, and soul and for which the repeat button was created. While adhering to a central theme, it never feels stale and this is explained by the fact that it was arranged live, with InnVision muting and tweaking everything in one go, which makes this track a “deskmix”, to use dub terminology. In fact, the producer remembers jumping around and shedding occasional tears while he recorded the final take.

On the flipside is another previously unreleased track, the forward-thinking NIGHTY. By no means filler, this is a timeless track with a subaquatic feel. With lush pads and elements doused in delay and reverb, you’d think this is a purely ambient cut, but it’s much more than that. Subtle melodic and rhythmic elements are engaged in a dialogue, and distant breakbeat samples can be detected in the background, enough to induce movement but never overtaking the vibe carefully created by InnVision. The result is a track that is at the same time featherlight and impossible to listen to without some sort of movement. Once again, truly unique music that transcends time and place.

Mason Bee is the solo project of Benet Walsh, multi-instrumentalist producer based in the Welsh Marches, best known as long-term co-writer and touring partner with U.K. electronic duo Plaid (Warp Records). His debut album ‘Play Flights’ is a brilliant patchwork of diverse influences, from choral folk mantras to modern glitch guitar sounds and beyond. If you hear live instrumentation on a Plaid track, it’s often Benet. His writing relationship with the iconic Warp duo dates back to the early days and has spawned some of the most evocative and heartfelt electronic music of our times.

Now as Mason Bee, Benet invites us into his own sonic universe, drawing on psychedelic, electronic and folk sounds to produce something quite different. There’s a narrative feel to the songs which unfolds to reveal morphing organic forms and technicolour landscapes, realised through a rich blend of acoustic instruments, phone recordings and DIY studio techniques. Although masonry

bees are solitary by nature, this album was recorded with the help of an international cast of musicians, from Australia and Portugal to the Welsh Marches of the U.K. adding considerably to the album’s richness. The title itself refers to the first outings (or Orientation Flights) of bees, making ‘Play Flights’ a fitting name for this unique debut.

A lucid dream meeting of synth waves, aquatic jazz spirits and drum-triggered electronics.'Linha D'Água'translates as 'water lines', fitting for an album that traces boundaries between water and air through an echo chamber of dizzying oceanic layers and free flowing ideas.

This is not a record based on genres. It's an album that navigates through atmospheres, through explorations and discoveries, through curiosity and dialogue. The eight tracks were recorded in a single day in the studio, but it is the result of more than two years of collaborations.

Mauricio Takara and Carla Boregas are two towering figures of the Brazilian underground/experimental scene, where they provide the rhythm section for demented genre-bending trio Rakta. While that band is all ritual percussion and red-blooded passion, as a duo they're a blue-water flowing counterpoint. From the drums, Takara fires melodies and, with the synthesizer, Carla sculpts the sound. The result iscaught somewhere between abstract improvisation and propulsive rhythm. Each song's an organic layering of manipulated synthesizers and acoustic sounds; teasing new rhythms from the drum kit via MIDI (and a near-telekinetic bond between Carla and Mauricio).

Sometimes'Linha D'Água'driftsclosest to ambient music, as in the title track, in 'Mãe D'Ouro' and 'Bocca Chiusa'; sometimes it runs into free jazz, as in 'Traçado Entre Duas Linhas'. There are moments when Carla and Mauricio explore a universe of tension that comes closest to the cosmic music of 70s Germany, as in 'Rosa de Areia' and 'Constante de Distância'; in others they evoke the metallic sounds of Indonesian gamelan (on 'Execution').

Carla Boregas is a founding member of the band Rakta, which started in 2011. She co-founded Auta, a DIY space dedicated to adventurous music in São Paulo hosting artists like Feminine Hi-Fi and Deafkids. She is also part of the transdisciplinary duo Fronte Violeta.

Mauricio Takara also plays drums/percussion with the bands Hurtmold and São Paulo Underground (with trumpeter Rob Mazurek from Chicago). Takara has played with a dizzying array of improv / experimental / jazz figures such as Pharoah Sanders, Damo Suzuki, Yusef Lateef, Joe Lally (Fugazi), Naná Vasconcelos, Prefuse 73, Makoto Kawabata and more.

Counterchange presents 'Eigenlicht' by Portuguese-German multi-instrumentalist, producer and award-winning film composer John Gürtler.

Gently teetering between krautrock-influenced synth mantras and saxophone improvisations, down-tempo electronica, sound design experiments and moments of rich ambience, 'Eigenlicht' is a diverse album of electro-acoustic music. The 11 tracks were recorded between two studios and on location at Berlin's infamous Teufelsberg, the abandoned Cold War era US spy-radio and radar outpost named 'Field Station Berlin', surrounded by forest to the west of the city.

A document of Gürtler's development, many of the pieces here were first laid down in his bunker-like former basement studios at Drontheimer Straße in north Berlin, before he eventually elevated above ground - both physically and musically - building his current Paradox Paradise studio and becoming an established film music composer. In 2019 John won the European Film Academy Award for Best Score, for his soundtrack for Nora Fingscheidt's debut feature 'Systemsprenger' (System Crasher).

In recent years John collaborated on a number of projects with acclaimed German producer and composer Phillip Sollmann aka Efdemin, performing live and releasing the 'Gegen Die Zeit' EP on Sky Walking, a subsidiary of Dial records where he also remixed Efdemin's 'Parallaxis' under the moniker The Borderland State.

In part an ode to the Macbeth Systems M5 modular synthesizer, with its three oscillators, much of the album features the towering instrument, whose uniquely rich tone and rumbling, pure bass end characterises tracks like 'Eigenlicht', 'M5', 'Synthetics' and 'Five Voice'.

"The M5's built in spring reverb and huge sliders and faders - as opposed to all the tiny knobs on Eurorack synths - make it as playable as any acoustic instrument."

John's primary background is in acoustic music, coming from woodwind and keyboard instruments, improvisation and composition. The leap into working with computers and electronic instruments found him exploring ways to make synths and samplers sound as organic as possible.

Leipzig's Salomo - who caught attention with his contribution to the labels previous compilation is now releasing his full solo LP via VARY. 12 tracker that provides an organic transition from house to ambient - suitable for club play, your next pool party or as a birthday gift to your mother in law. Conscious of it's inspirations, the record is a slight nod in the direction of contemporary electronic music from London, Vancouver and Detroit that still strikes with integrity & originality.

Rotciv is the Brasilian born, Berlin based man behind Mister Mistery records. This prolific producer has been out there for quite a long time and you might remember "The Rimshooters", the long lasting collaboration with Massimiliano Pagliara himself. Now it is time for Rotciv to offer a piece of his synthesisers' craftsmanship to Funnuvojoere Records. This five tracker EP expresses Rotciv's skills with harmony and music progression. A1 AWAKENING starts off with a piano house arpeggio and slowly evolves into a trance acid-tinged explosive motive. Organic feeling drums develop giving it a disco touch that will put a smile on the crowded dance floor. A2 GOOD SPELL combines a pure cosmic style with a New Beat-like dissonance and uplifting vocals. B1 KNOW THE UNKNOWN keeps the experimentation levels high with distortions and an 8bit dialogue that drifts into a progressive-kind of sound. Deeper than the rest B2 puts on stage a dark landscape that reminds of a black and white vampire movie. B3 INTERMISSION follows up and gives the final ambient touch to this delightful EP.

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

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

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

On March 15th Erased Tapes presents the invigorating and powerful debut solo album Lines of Sight by Australian-born, Liverpool-based composer, saxophonist and founder of Immix Ensemble, Daniel Thorne. Deeply moving, full of otherworldly beauty and rapture, the album is alive, throbbing like a circulatory system, colourful and glowing. It literally dazzles - effectively capturing what the birth (or death) of a planet might sound like.

In Daniel's own words, 'Thematically, this music was inspired by birds-eye aerial images and the idea of perspective - how something incredibly complex like a river or the surface of the ocean is reduced to a simple line or shape when viewed from the heavens. The line between natural and man-made becomes increasingly blurred.'

Every strand is fresh, vital and purposeful. The description 'seamless' might suggest a smooth, bland fusion, but here elements overlap in intermittent, undulating layers of mesh. Avant-garde, noise, electronics, ecclesiastical, classical, a touch of jazz and traces of Wyatt-style contemporary folk come together, each occupying their own space while acquiescing with the whole.

'Several compositions are derived from ratios and processes, and are highly calculated, while others evolved in a much more organic way. I wanted to create music that blurred lines between acoustic and electronic, organic and synthetic, composition and improvisation.
I've long been a fan of studio-based composition, but have always found the infinite possibilities on offer daunting and, often, a stumbling block. To get around this I set myself a challenge of limiting myself to the physical instruments in my possession - a few different saxophones and a bass synth, with no more than four tracks to record them,' he adds.

Lines of Sight follows Thorne's work as artistic director of the acclaimed, collaboration-focussed group Immix Ensemble. Together with experimental electronic artist Vessel, he co-wrote Transition released on Erased Tapes in 2016, described by BBC Radio 6's Mary Anne Hobbs as 'a remarkable new piece of music'. More recently, he worked with acclaimed modular synth wizard Luke Abbott, to create a four-part suite, which was premiered live in June 2017. Immix Ensemble have also performed special live commissions with Kelly Lee Owens, Dialect, Jane Weaver and Bill Ryder-Jones, among others.

Prior to leaving Australia, Daniel was fortunate to work with some of the country's leading new music ensembles as both a composer and performer, receiving commissions from the TURA New Music Festival and the Australia Council, as well as being appointed as Composer in Residence at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts. In the UK he was the recipient of the prestigious Dankworth Prize for Jazz Composition, and also undertook a residency at Metal Liverpool, which provided him with the time and space to create Immix.

As the first track under Thorne's own name, 'Iroise' was recorded for the Erased Tapes 10th anniversary release 1+1=X, alongside works by Nils Frahm, Penguin Cafe, A Winged Victory For The Sullen and Rival Consoles. He also recently remixed Manu Delago, known as the live percussionist for Björk and Ólafur Arnalds. After a first solo performance at Sea Change Festival 2018, the new year will see Daniel tour across Europe, promoting the forthcoming release of Lines of Sight.

Picture disc LP housed in gatefold sleeve. Includes CD with bonus track.
With his second release for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground imprint after 2016's Soisong reissue, Ivan Pavlov pays tribute to the late Sentrax founder and prolific musician John Everall, who passed away in September 2014. Sourced from analogue material provided by the artist widely known for his output under the Tactile moniker for a collaboration that never came to fruition, the six tracks are an exercise in minimalism and subtlety singular even in Pavlov's impressive back catalogue. On COH plays EVERALL, Pavlov focuses on swirling arpeggios whose colourfulness is mirrored in the Ruth Stofer's artwork for the limited picture disk release. From the joyful, handclap-driven »2016« to the hectic gabber derivate »OVERBEAT«, the Russian producer explores a minimalistic yet organic palette of synthesizer sounds that stylistically reach from the hymnic poise of »WAVETRAP« to the playful and warm vibes of »ALONE (MINIMAL SELFIE)«. While it might sound almost pointillistic on first listen, COH plays EVERALL unfolds its multitude of layers slowly over time. With a feature of Coil's Jhonn Balance on the CD-only bonus track »Hunger Remix«, Pavlov adds yet another facet
to this evocative marriage of sonic purity and emotional rawness. Over a throbbing rhythm, the late poet's dry intonation serves as an eerie coda to this tender tribute to lost friends. As a dialogue between this world and the other, CoH's digital manipulation and Everall's analogue source material as well as stark minimalism and tonal richness, COH plays EVERALL captures two kindred spirits bidding each other farewell.

For a year, friends and producers Jean-Gabriel Becker and Susumu Muka have been meeting for collaborative recording sessions at Sounds And Sons studio in Shoreditch.

Susumu Mukai, originally from Kanagawa, Japan, has been involved in diverse projects such as Zongamin, Stalactite and Off World as producer and multi-instrumentalist. Mukai is also a member of bands including Fimber Bravo, Vanishing Twin and Floating Points. Jean-Gabriel Becker, originally from Paris, France, has been writing music under various names and in numerous projects, from Jeanga And George and Economy Wolf to Lux Prima to name only a few. He also composes extensively for films and television under his own name. The sessions for Eyes, their first EP together, unfolded as a musical dialogue between the duo - open-ended, discovering the sounds as they revealed themselves in an organic way. Although some influences can be heard, from acidhouse to krautrock, to jazz and psychedelia, the otherness of Eyes EP refuses to be categorised easily.

«Prelude» EP is the inceptive release of Oxmose, which marks the first entry in an ongoing catalogue, and the beginning of a journey with various artists. At its heart, the «Prelude» EP is a dialogue between two composers, a conversation that traces the line between abstract, electronic experimentalism and gliterring interpretive jazz. Parisian producer Shcaa takes control of Side A with 'Core', a near 20 minutes exploration into sound, which skirts the fringes of avant-garde minimalism and experimental rhythms. The song's acute cadence lays a dense and atmospheric foundation for the EP. - Side B sees Romanian artist Traian - Chereches offer-up an absorbing - counterpoint to Shcaa's opener on 'Cage'. The energy of Chereches' rebuttal fuses organic and interpretive sounds into a deft jazz reinterpretation, revealing a wide and surprising cinematic ambience. Mastered by Rashad Becker from Dubplates & Mastering Berlin, « Prelude » will be released on limited edition 12'', 180g heavyweight vinyl - with an outer sleeve featuring handmade artwork created by graphic designer Alice Voinea. The organic materials used in her work, emphasizing the interchange of the record, adding a further layer of continuity, one that streches between the artist, the music and the listener. - Written by Tom Fenwick

James K is a stranger to obviousness. Over the past few years the New York native has quietly honed her sound and peculiar aesthetic. Equally organic and electronic, her sound is a combination of odd dreams, industrial beats and vocals, both incomprehensible and appealing, with a thick layer of glitter on top of it. James K is a concentrated dose of emotion mixed with sorrowful iciness, which in turn ties together ripped, broken, morphed and enchanted samples. James K stands for a fusion of visual and sonic elements, deeply rooted in conscious art practice and downright freak-out. James K creates a mythology of her own.
'PET,' her first LP due out in early 2016, will be a co-release with Dial and her own label, She Rocks! A special edition of the album with added bonus tracks and interludes with be released on cassette through Canadian label 1080p.
In James K's words: 'The underlying desire of 'PET' divides into two parts: an escape into ethereality and a mischievous denial of my own experience. It narrates my search for honest expression by means of the premature denial- a childish excursion into a world of monstrosity and innocence.
PET reflects my mental state during its production - as a person, I was owned, objectified and hurt by other, and that wound I then unwillingly internalized. I turned to my music as a way to dissect these thoughts. The product became my possession, or 'pet.' In retrospective, this process gives me strength over myself; love—knowledge and wisdom enacted. The arrangement of the music and the PET itself relates to my endless struggle, namely, my attempts to reclaim myself.'
Her 'Sokit' 7' is a double track single for her album, which she released last Spring. James K is featured on the recent compilation released by Dial Records for their 15-year anniversary, and a mini LP of her noise pop project SETH (along with producer Gobby), was also recently released by label 1080p in June, in cassette and digital form. She rocks.

It's been a terrific year for KOMPAKT boss MICHAEL MAYER, who released his sophomore album 'MANTASY' (KOMCD100/KOM250) - the eagerly awaited follow-up to his seminal album debut 'TOUCH' (KOMCD36/KOM107). 2013 is shaping up to be equally busy, with an ongoing worldwide DJ tour, the label's 20th birthday and now the first EP of 'MANTASY' remixes. 'MANTASY REMIXE 1' is the first entry in a series of three, featuring a stellar cast sure to push any dance floor over the edge.


Up and coming producer and core family member of the Cómeme family - PHILIPP GORBACHEV is no stranger to Kompakt, and he delivers a slashing rework of adrenaline-fuelled synth fest 'VOIGT KAMPFF TEST'. This Berlin based Russian has had a tremendous career launch thanks to his excellent solo debut 'IN THE DELTA' (CÓMEME 012) and as a partner in crime releasing singles as a member of ISAAC JOHAN and THE DISTRICT UNION. Pulling out all the stops for this remix, 2013 promises to push him as a major club force to be reckoned with.

Another star in the making, Cologne's BARNT had an equally strong run in the last months with in-demand releases on Magazine, Cómeme and Mule Musiq: his track GEFFEN (from - The Power Of Now', CÓMEME 013) is easily one of the most recognized club singles of this year. He also tackles 'VOIGT KAMPFF TEST', dialing things back a bit, but only to reinforce the air of sheer magnitude that oozes from every single note. Delving deeper into his trademark Kraut Techno approach, Barnt replaces the original's thrills with creeping tension and reaches a new understanding of what the prime time should sound like.

THE MOLE is well-known for his heavily sampled, organic loopiness having a special place reserved in nearly every DJ's record crate, but this beat-driven. remix of Mayer's beatless masterpiece 'BAUMHAUS' sees the producer refining his approach, as he takes the original's evocative expertise to new heights of grooviness. It's not just a case of 'let's put a beat in there and we're done', but a fundamental rework eliciting hidden properties and finding a new perspective on an already perfect slice of music. A personal favorite of many Kompakt aficionados, 'Baumhaus' finally gets the club treatment it so clearly deserves.