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You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

‘Giants of All Sizes’ was recorded at Hamburg’s Clouds Hill Studio, The Dairy in Brixton, 604 Studios in Vancouver and Blueprint Studios in Salford with additional recording taking place at various band member’s home studios spread across Manchester. As with their previous four studio albums, ‘Giants’ was produced and mixed by Craig Potter. Guests across the album include Jesca Hoop, The Plumedores and South London newcomer Chilli Chilton.

Given such bleak, if ultimately redeemed, subject matter, it is also, perversely, the most relaxed record which elbow have made in some time. On ‘Giants of All Sizes’, each band member extended their usual process of working on demos alone and followed their vision to its conclusion rather than, as Craig Potter puts it, ‘taking the edges off things to find compromise’. In tandem with this, they returned to playing live in the studio, encouraged to experiment with the banks of analogue equipment at Clouds Hill in Northern Germany, giving songs a looser, more live feel. The result is the most starkly dynamic record from the band in recent times, “Sonically unabashed”, as Guy would have it. Whilst album closer ‘Weightless’ has the gossamer melodies and communal harmonies for which the band have latterly been known, this album echoes earlier elbow work at times whilst also breaking new ground.

‘White Noise White Heat’ is motorik, metal machine soul driven by a vocal that is rage incarnate, ‘Doldrums’ mixes John Carpenter with The Plastic Ono Band to brilliantly disturbing effect and ‘On Deronda Road’ hitches stark bass beats and glitches to an ad-hoc choir. ‘Empires’ delivers dark resignation via an insidious melody and ‘Seven Veils’ continues the subversion by inverting the perception of elbow as a band for lovers into a band for haters, a double-barrelled fuck-you song par excellence. ‘The Delayed 3:15’ marries mariarchi guitars to jazz dynamics, Morricone via Buddy Rich, and ‘My Trouble’ is a clockwork, analogue shuffle housing a delicate melody that builds over the course of the song into a fragile monolith to the power of love.

Lead track, ‘Dexter & Sinister’, released on 10” ahead of the album, encapsulates the whole. A seven-minute musical journey that blends deep bass grooves, sudden keyboard stabs, dislocated piano and guitar runs and soul stylings then abruptly shifts gear, parts the storm clouds and takes wing, flying towards the heat of the sun. It is the soundtrack for these ‘hope free, faith free, charity free days’, a denial of the divine and a reconciliation, two songs in one song, two emotions for one emotion, human, fragile and brilliant like the album which it opens.

“Instead of landscape sketches I wanted to go into more personal areas of my reality,” says Jim Ghedi of his third album In The Furrows Of Common Place. “To hold up certain aspects of society that were laying bare in front of me.”

Whilst Ghedi’s previous idiosyncratic take on folk has often been instrumental, exploring the natural world and his relationship to it through his music as seen on 2018's A Hymn For Ancient Land. His new album In The Furrow Of Common Place is a deeper plunge inside himself to offer up more of his voice to accompany his profoundly unique and moving compositions. “There were things I was seeing around me and being affected by in my daily life,” he says. “Socially and politically I saw defiance but also hopelessness. I wanted to be honest with the frustration and turmoil I was experiencing.”

The decision to include more of Ghedi’s vocals was a conscious one and driven by a need to say something. However, this isn’t a brash raging political polemic. As is now customary with Ghedi’s work, it is rich in nuance, history, poetry and allegory. Musically, the album is equally locked into this ongoing sense of evolution. Ghedi’s intricate yet deft guitar playing still twists and flows its way through the core, weaving in and out of gliding double bass, sweeping violin, gentle percussion and vocals that shift from tender solos to overlapping harmonies.

As with much of Ghedi’s work, there’s a rich connection between the past and the current. Musically, he continues to sit in a singular position of sounding distinctly contemporary yet also with a touch of traditional flair. This expands itself into the lyrical terrain here too. “I've been exploring contemporary issues and in that process discovering sources that correlate with similar issues in the past,” he says. “Which proves that these issues throughout history - environmental destruction, working class poverty etc - are ongoing.”

For all the socio-political and historical backdrop to the record it is not one that feels overwhelmed by it. Much like Ghedi’s work when it was largely instrumental - and some of it still is here - it flows and unfurls thoughtfully, with space still being utilised masterfully, creating room to pause and reflect. It’s another inimitable record from an artist that truly sounds like nobody else right now.

- Rare P-Funk album from 1983 - Funkadelic/Parliament All-Star Line-Up - First ever vinyl reissue - Comes with a repro of the original insert - 180g Black Vinyl Edition - Limited to 500 copies, comes with obi strip // Jerome "Bigfoot" Brailey is an American drummer who started performing in the early 1970s with several R&B groups from the likes of The Unifics, The Chambers Brothers and The Five Stairsteps where he developed his unique style and finesse on drums. Later in 1975 he joined George Clinton's P-Funk collective and has appeared on many of Parliament & Funkadelic's most popular recordings (some of which he also co-wrote). Brailey played on classic albums like `Mothership Connection' and `One Nation Under A Groove'. Samples from that body of work (and his drum arrangements) have since then appeared on hundreds of hip hop and contemporary R&B songs by renowned artists such as Kendrick Lamar and Childish Gambino. Jerome Brailey is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (inducted in 1997) and part of their `50 greatest drummers in the Hall' list (stating that his drum style kept Parliament-Funkadelic rooted in the old-school `James Brown-style funk')_next to this achievement, he was proclaimed by Rolling Stone as one of the `100 Greatest Drummers of All Time' for his steady kick drum, shifty hi-hat action and intricately unpredictable snare patterns. Brailey earned numerous Gold and Platinum records with the P-Funk Organization and has worked as a session drummer for many talented artists such as Herbie Hancock, Buddy Miles, Snoop Dogg and Pharoah Sanders. George Clinton's funk empire was not without its disagreements and Jerome Brailey's `Mutiny' project was a direct result of just such a disagreement (as well as one of the more notable offshoots of the P-Funk axis). Mutiny performed in a style not far removed from the classic P-Funk style and with a lot of emphasis on the dual lead guitar work, but what makes them unique compared to their contemporaries is that at times their recordings also emit a darker, more sinister feeling. Besides Brailey on drums (and on most of the lead vocals) Mutiny featured a funk-alumni line-up and released three amazing and collectible albums: `Mutiny On The Mammaship' (CBS, 1979), `Funk Plus The One' (Columbia, 1980) and `A Night Out With the Boys' (J. Romeo, 1983)_these were followed by two comeback albums: `Aftershock' (Rykodisc 1995) and `Funk Road' (Catbone, 2013). The `Mutiny' album we are proudly presenting you today (A Night Out With The Boys) is an underrated gem made by musicians who defined the funk scene of the '70s and '80s! Featuring an all-star line-up that includes Rodney Curtis (Fred Wesley, Maceo Parker), Michael Hampton (Funkadelic-Parliament, Deee-Lite), Kenni Hairston (Cameo) and Maceo Bond of Osiris/Afrika Bambaataa fame! `A Night Out With The Boys' has it all: Jerome's trademark drumbeats, funky bass grooves, driving riffs accented by stinging synth parts, slow spacey (and prominently featured) guitars, top-notch lead vocals and chants that recall Sly Stone's "Loose Booty". The whole album is a hot dance jam with crisp percussion_an extremely infectious, locked-in-the-pocket bass-heavy monster-funk-bomb that any serious self-respecting funk fanatic must have in his/her collection!

In a time where everyone from Whitney Houston to Frank Zappa have been re-created in hologram form, where Grimes recently suggested in an interview that “we were at the end of human art”; there could scarcely be a better time for genre-shifting Leeds-based six-piece Team Picture to bring forth the thrillingly expansive synth-pop opus of their debut album The Menace of Mechanical Music.

Inspired by an early 20th century essay under the same name by American marching band leader John Philip Sousa, Team Picture take a look at the automation of creativity on this, their first record with a fully settled line up. Themes centre around the value of creative identity in an automated age, the increasingly disposable nature of art and where that leaves its creators. At twelve songs split into a three-part suite; The Menace of Mechanical Music is emphatically maximalist.

Tracks like the breathy, twinkling Flowerpots, Electric Beds and Handsome Machines’ Icarus-like striving for the sun are an antidote to a music world awash with digital production manipulation and songs written to algorithm. In debating the loosening of the human grip on creativity, Team Picture have poured every last drop of emotion into the recording process.

The group’s now trademark three-way vocal delivery and blurring of textures takes on new structure and purpose. They’ve always had a self-awareness to themselves, too. Initially grouped in with the guitar psych crowd, thanks to their fledgling repeato-rock, they were quick to disassociate themselves from that on 2018's mini-album Recital. With The Menace of Mechanical Music, they expand their sound further still, pirouetting from the likes of Sleeptype Auction – which glimmers like a late 80’s 4AD artefact – through various FX-laden dreamscapes, to the squelchy post-punk of closer Quit Reading. Yet the group were as much influenced by the work of the Early Netherlandish painter Hieronymus Bosch, and his triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, as they were music touchstones ranging from Kate Bush, Cass McCombs and The Cure.

It’s Sousa words that resonate most deeply within the record however: “The fears of Sousa echo the fears of today's musician,” says Lewis of the late band leader’s 1907 text. “The re-appropriation of funds and support that the artist needs to survive, the gradual erosion of musicianship and self-improvement, that art will become disposable, and that our cultural identity will disappear.”

Recorded with producer Matt Peel (W.H Lung, Eagulls), half the group were unemployed during the session and a daily routine would see them undertake universal credit meetings and job interviews in the morning, before heading to the studio to work into the night. “It was an anxious process but an enjoyable one” says the band’s guitarist Josh Lewis. Indeed, beyond the increasingly golden gated idea of ‘making it’ as an artist, this new album is simply about surviving as one.
Sousa’s vision of a society that had deferred to automation, where babies were rocked to sleep by wheels and pulleys, and people no longer played piano with their own hands. Well over 100 years later and on the precipice of a technological shift never seen before, The Menace of Mechanical Music is the most human response that Team Picture could have given.

The debut album from writer and artist Holly Childs and artist Gediminas Žygus formerly known as J.G. Biberkopf.

Initiated in 2017, Hydrangea grew out of a series of performances emphasising conspiracies and the designer realities that they generate. Navigating a tangle of digitally induced subjectivities and relationships, Hydrangea sees Childs & Žygus amidst a continuously evaporating world in which narratives dissolve, leak, fold in on themselves and loop.

Childs & Žygus ask: As individuals are siloed online, can rifts in reality ever be reconciled? Is history a form of science fiction? And are narrators ever reliable? The process of creating Hydrangea was defined by the search for a form to bind fiction, poetry, and musical experience. Its narrative is influenced by technical instructions, lectures and whispered conversations, in which slippage and floating focus can create new meanings in the listener that weren’t intended by the speaker.

Aspects of physical and informational security including passwords, codes, locks and obstacles speak to the ways in which meaning or material can be locked, unlocked or instrumentalised for a range of potential outcomes. Hydrangea reflects on the Machiavellian strategies of political ideologists such as Steve Bannon, Aleksandr Dugin and Vladislav Surkov who have made use of contemporary and postmodern artistic strategies to design narrative uncertainty—covertly braiding together questionable truths, slippery narratives and bespoke reinterpretations of history for undisclosed political ends.

"Hydrangea’s Just the Password Though, Right?"

Childs & Žygus employ a musical language that layers their cumulative practices and experiences. The compositions are cinematic and spatial, working with the illustrative qualities of Disneyesque string melodies and taking cues from Maurice Ravel’s impressionistic piano works.

The work is also influenced by both artists’ lifelong experiences of rave culture, beginning for Žygus during childhood in newly independent Lithuania, spending time juggling Disney and happy hardcore cassettes on the family stereo, and for Childs as a preteen in Australia, tagging along with her sisters to doofs and warehouse parties. Initiated while the artists were both working between Amsterdam and Rotterdam in 2017, the work also draws on Dutch gabber music.

Hydrangea’s development has been influenced by collaboration with artists and filmmakers Metahaven, who created the album art.

Holly Childs is a writer and artist. Her research involves filtering stories of computation through frames of ecology, earth, memory, poetry, and light. She is the author of two books: No Limit (Hologram) and Danklands (Arcadia Missa); and has presented her work at ICA (London), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), Trust (Berlin), Elam School of Art (Auckland) and more.

Gediminas Žygus is an artist working within the fields of sound, documentary and performance. Their practice assembles a spectrum of influences deriving from architecture, ecology, ethnography, science studies, and media theory. As J.G. Biberkopf, their releases have found homes on Knives and Danse Noire. Žygus has performed at Barbican Centre (London), Berghain (Berlin), Sonic Acts (Amsterdam), and Centre Pompidou (Paris), among others. credits

Germany’s Jacob Groening is one of those hard to pin down artists working within the space of organic dance music. As a live performer and hybrid DJ, Jacob somehow manages to infuse everything from gypsy to jazz, blues to soul, with distinctly electronic elements. Never one to settle for anything less than unique, his gentle touch and international influences create music that is both sweet and powerful. This sound has already been felt across the likes of Bar 25, teyoyoke, Delicieuse Musique, and his own Kamai Music imprint, and now Jacob
provides the 4th instalment on Amsterdam’s The Gardens of Babylon eponymous label. Jacob’s Leslie Ep is a three-track excursion, Inspired by travels yet constructed in quarantine. It is a testament to the connective power of music through uncertain times, where some dancefloors may be empty, but hearts and minds remain full. Until we meet again, let Jacob’s playful and pulsating Ep satisfy those Communal urges with a journey through sound and culture. Starting this journey, its title track gently swells throughout with subtle chants and hypnotic percussion. Kabir then kicks things up a notch, Bouncing between its own pulsating rhythm and powerful chord progressions. Finally, Iguazu draws direct inspiration from Jacob’s travels through India during times before the world changed. With field audio and local musicians interjected throughout its explorative atmosphere, Iguazu is the perfect representation of Jacob’s distinct style: gentle, shifting, and cultural. If you know The Gardens of Babylon, you know Jacob Groening. His sets from The Dunes of Babylon and ADE’s The Seekers of Light have placed him firmly within family status. Now, with Leslie Ep Jacob Groening joins Geju with his own solo release on the label.

FILM Recordings will release the debut LP from Denial of Service.

The album follows up EP's Sensou (2015), and more recently Contour & Shape (2017) - but marks the producer's most expansive release on the label thus far by some margin. Clocking in at 15 tracks, the lengthy opus draws from the same palette found on previous work - drum machine driven, heavily mutated Electro and IDM sit alongside low slung Techno cuts and arpeggiated EBM references. As ever, the production is stunning - crisp and plosive, as much a record for the club as it is a tempered headphone experience; whilst the mood channels that same dank, claustrophobic energy found on previous missives.

As a body of work, the LP displays the distinctive touch of a production veteran. The transformative shifts in structure on opener A Fine, New Mother Now belie a kind of boldness found less often across the contemporary electronic music landscape; and the drum programming on IDM-leaning explorations Autoimmune & Supercell bear the hallmarks of a perfectionist with time on his hands and in full control of his art. Space and the placement of sonic components plays a huge role in the artist's work and the 3 Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch displays this canny knack for generating both textural, wide angle soundscapes whilst maintaining that wrought-iron edge to drums and percussive elements - even more fervent, noisy compositions like Dr Manahattan manage to keep hold of this remarkable balance. It's impressive stuff, a fine and well worked meeting point between artistic vision and engineering prowess.

An elongated discussion, no doubt - but worth hearing every word. Each twist and bend, however sharp, remains carefully placed and beautifully recorded. Dryer works Slither & Junkie Foxtrot towards the LP finish offer a less introspective, more hard hitting angle to the work, and by the time the listener arrives at dual closer the Daisy Chain - Adults - they're ready for its heady catharsis.

The debut album from Denial of Service is a trip, and the line between club space and home listening environment is decidedly blurred - an emotive exploration of true psychedelic Electronica, delivered direct from the source.

Conjunto Papa Upa returns with “Todo Parao” (“Total Shutdown”), another boundary pushing tropical smasher. Bringing you the ultimate (humourous) hymn to the pandemic over an exquisite blend of highly danceable Caribbean rhythms (zouk, cadence, kompás, guaracha) and classic synths. Backed by a deep sea dub on the flip, complete with resplendent cowbell(!), timbales and Wurlitzer solos. Another stepping stone that showcases yet another angle of the unique and radical production style of Alex Figueira. Drop this 45 at your next virtual party and watch everybody leave their computers in a desperate search of a dancing partner.

Conjunto Papa Upa is the Afro Caribbean centered solo project of Figueira, backed live bysome of the best musicians from Amsterdam’s Latin and free jazz scenes. Their debut LP was recently released on legendary American indie label Names You Can Trust. Figueira is also known for his percussive work on tropical psych power trio Fumaça Preta or his regular live incursions with Amsterdam’s turkish psych folk powerhouse, Altin Gun.

Having spent the whole night working on the melodic structure of the song, Figueira took a break to take advantage of the different time zones and check on his dad in Venezuela, and ask how the pandemic was unfolding there. His answer: “Todo Parao” (“Total Shutdown”). The same two words he had used multiple times before, this time pronounced in a hilarious Rum-infused way, giving Alex an unexpected flush of inspiration in the form of an instant infectious chorus. He excused himself and immediately got locked back in the studio. The result is this incredibly catchy tune, displaying the optimistic approach of a boyfriend to the chaos, uncertainty and worrying of his girlfriend about the pandemic, presenting her with his own lascivious lockdown plan for the two, declaring at a certain moment: “while everyone is lamenting, you and I are going to enjoy”.

In the musical side, rhythms from Haiti, Guadaloupe, Martinique, Puerto Rico and Cuba are unscrupulously mixed with the most diverse and strikking elements: strident cowbells that evoke the toughest salsa of 70's New York, harmonized guitars evidencing the inconfesable influence of 80’s heavy metal, a delicate Wurlitzer piano reminiscent of Black America’s greatest Soul ballads, Casio keyboards rescued from a child’s toy cabinet and a whole plethora of half-broken classic Synths, to create an equally irresistible and unclassifiable hybrid.

On the flip side, Part 2 opens with a prominent dose of the lead guitar that appeared briefly on the A side, working as a preamble to an instrumentalist frenzy that is not concerned about displaying technique. Its mere intention is to tell you the rest of the story without using words. A few bars into the song, the first gear shifts with a monumental solo given by the least probable of all “soloist” instruments: the cowbell (!). After it, a crispy Timbal crashes the party, making a statement out of its only appearance in the entire recording. Finally, the longed-for turn of the melodious Wurlitzer, who left everybody craving for more on the other side of the record, giving the modest keyboard skills of Figueira an imposing pentatonic virtue.

D Leria debuts on Avian.

Giuseppe Scaccia shows his range on a new six track EP, arriving late 2020.

Produced diligently across the last two years, the record showcases a range of styles. Tonally, the material is bound by a recognisable engineering palette – driven, but not to the point of corrosion, tight and focused in the low end with caustic, percussive synth patches driving much of the more dance floor material.

In the terms of the form, though – Scaccia draws for a disparate arrangement. Opener A Life On The Run clocks in at over 140bpm, with a demented lead synth line providing the action buoyed by a simplistic drum machine rhythm. Divergences offers a more immersive experience in terms of tempo – again letting the lead do the work, while shifting hats operate around the sonic periphery to break up the recording. On Il Giardino Degli Unicorni the artist utilises a single, staccato sequence, letting the sends do the bulk of the business with careful processing and live articulation helping to build the intensity. On the flip, pulsing workout Noises from The Room develops surreptitiously over its run time – fathoms deep kicks are submerged under a heated sequence and Red Flowers, an exercise in careful reduction reintroduces a little musicality to the record, before warping closer Tribalism places the listener back on the dance floor with a half-time rhythm driving the droning sound design.

A careful meeting point at which the multiple styles that underpin Scaccia’s D Leria project meet, Still Standing offers insight into how future work might manifest whilst remaining a valuable document on the current state of both left field Techno music and the artist’s own creative identity.

Nadia Khan returns on Scissor and Thread for another sublime mini LP, Port Ana. Based in North Carolina, Khan first drew a lot of attention via a cassette release on Where To Now? Records in 2015.
Her sophomore statement was the beautiful In Gleam released in 2018 on Francis Harris’ Brooklyn-based label, which set the tone for these five tracks of meditative music. The title track Port Ana opens the journey - a gentle, droning soundscape with effortlessly bewitching glints of melody. Conversation follows on, drawing on loops and textures to create the background for a deep, pulsing kick drum. The sounds shift and evolve, leaving a hazy sense of movement to drift away to. Next up is Objects In Form which presents a fragile chord progression that barely holds itself together, surrounded by shifting pads and swathes of reverb. Rain Again is presented here in two versions. The original combines ethereal sounds, weightless and adrift, while the Lawrence remix firmly grounds the track with a hypnotic, deep groove. The Dial boss provides another remix for the digital release that further plays with the textures of the original to create something that works both for an open minded dancefloor and as a home listening experience.

Unbegrenzt is the third in an ongoing series of archival records of the unheard music of Swedish composer Catherine Christer Hennix, co-released by Blank Forms Editions and Empty Editions. It follows Selected Early Keyboard Works and Selections from 100 Models of Hegikan Roku (named the #1 archival release of 2019 by The Wire), in addition to a two-volume collection of Hennix’s writing titled Poësy Matters and Other Matters.

Recorded in February of 1974 and featuring Catherine Christer Hennix (recitation, percussion, and electronics) and Hans Isgren (bowed gong), Hennix’s realization of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s “Unbegrenzt” (German for “unlimited”) from Aus den Sieben Tagen is an elaboration both rigorous and radically different from the canonical 1969 recording issued by Shandar. The collection of 15 text pieces written in Paris during May of 1968, Aus den Sieben Tagen, denies its performers notated direction and instead provides poetic cues that hinge upon Stockhausen’s conception of “intuitive music,” a Eurocentric perspective on improvisation antithetical to the vernacular forms Hennix had engaged with as a young drummer performing in Stockholm jazz clubs with musicians like Bill Barron, Cam Brown, Hans Isgren, Lalle Svenson, Allan Vajda, Bo Wärmell, and many others. While both Hennix and Isgren saw the formal prospect of Aus den Sieben Tagen as a productive development of and beyond La Monte Young’s event scores, she here steadfastly counters his rationalization of intuition with the Principle of Sufficient Reason. (Cf. Brouwer’s Lattice.) Eschewing the busy, conservatory-addled lapses into idiomatic citation of Stockhausen’s 1969 recording, Hennix’s alternative realization of the “Unbegrenzt” score’s instructions to “play a sound with the certainty that you have an infinite amount of time and space” is based on her concept of Infinitary Compositions, the trademark of her ensemble The Deontic Miracle which, at one time, considered adding Stockhausen, La Monte Young and Terry Jennings scores to its repertoire. Taking a mature, minimal iteration of Stockhausen’s compositional method of “moment-forming” to heart, her version’s dark, controlled feedback and amplified bowed gong subtly shift through an immanent sequence of formative moments, step by step. Its bubbling computer noise, percussion, and repeated ominous transient sounds of temple blocks over the bowed gong terminate with the integrated recitation of exotic text fragments from Hevajra Tantra which faithfully take Stockhausen’s score into deeper vistas of the unconscious and a more devastating opening to the unlimited time and space of a dreaming mind.

Audio restoration and mastering by Stephan Mathieu, with an essay by Bill Dietz.

Catherine Christer Hennix (b. 1948) started her creative life playing drums with her older brother Peter, growing up in Sweden where she heard jazz luminaries, such as John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Dexter Gordon, Archie Shepp, and Cecil Taylor perform from 1960 to 1967. Directly after high school, Hennix went to work at Stockholm’s pioneering Elektronmusikstudion (EMS), where she developed early tape music, incorporating computer generated speech done at the Royal Technological University (KTH), where she was an undergraduate student. After traveling to New York In 1968, she met artists Dick Higgins and Alison Knowles who invited her to stay at the Something Else Press Town House where she had the opportunity to meet, among others, composers John Cage, James Tenney, and Phil Corner. During the following years she developed fruitful collaborative relationships with many composers in the burgeoning American avant-garde, including, most significantly, Henry Flynt and La Monte Young. Young introduced Hennix to Hindustani raga master Pandit Pran Nath and she would later study intensively under him as his first European disciple. While Hennix continued to make music performing alongside Arthur Russell, Marc Johnson, Henry Flynt, and Arthur Rhames, she also served as a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science at SUNY New Paltz and as a visiting Professor of Logic (at Marvin Minsky’s invitation) at MIT’s Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. In recent years Hennix has led the just-intonation ensemble the Chora(s)san Time-Court Mirage, which has featured musicians Amelia Cuni, Amirtha Kidambi, Chiyoku Szlavnics, Hilary Jeffrey, Amir El-Saffar, Benjamin Duboc and Rozemarie Heggen. She currently resides in Istanbul, Turkey pursuing studies in classical Arabic and Turkish makam.

“Easy rider, come and take me higher”. When the world seemingly crumbles around, music can provide an escape few other mediums can. For their debut self-titled LP, Velour effortlessly levitate you above the madness below, each track taking a new turn, cruising over hazy flecked skylines, bustling walkways and bleary eyed bedlam. A trajectory that takes in all of jazz’s vibrancies, blending elements of neo soul, broken beat and hip hop coupled with a much-needed sense of hope across nine deep, soul-searching tracks released via WOLF Music Recordings.

A style and sound taking influence from genres and moods, environments and experiences, Essen-based Velour stretch their legs for this, their first full length album. From the off, they nestle you under their wing with the rustling sax washes of opener ‘CLP’ before diving into an epic slo-mo burner, swooping down into the chaos as singer, Eva Czaya, wistfully narrates the scenes beneath.

Unafraid to shift pace within songs, the likes of ‘Pose’, sauntering from soulful summer groove into woozy late night affair, and ‘Tom's Garage’, that progresses from roadside recounting to grungy basement blowout, finished with a sample of jazz-tinged dusty beats, show that accomplished and adept heads rest on the shoulders of these relative newcomers.

WOLF Music mainstay Mr Fries continues to head up production for Velour, his trademark touch capturing the intimacy of Velour’s sound presenting it in a way that’s considered yet raw - nothing feeling rushed, nor cluttered. A separation and space that gives each element the room it deserves to breathe, with short interludes and skits providing the perfect bridge between tracks, guiding you through smokey jazz bars and twilight whisperings.

Moving through the album, Czaya at points wanders in a serene spoken dialogue, at others letting her voice loose, but always with an ethereal demeanour that comes off with natural ease. One of many highlights, ‘Anthony Davis’ shows off this celestial prowess whilst perfectly embodying Velour’s dream-like escapism. A pent up release of creativity, as moody bass tones mix with deft keys, rolling snares sit behind swirling saxophones.

The journey ends with ‘Luminate’, a transcendent closer laced with space-echoed vocals that reverberate around over-driven Rhodes and feverish drums. Cymbals crash, as modulated synths rise, building and building before easing you off into the night and on your way to a parallel universe.

As a body of work, ‘Velour’ is a shining example of the freedom, energy and enthusiasm of the new school of jazz that’s been captivating minds the world over. An instant on repeat staple - let go, feel the flow, it’s what we need in a time like this.

Automatic Tasty (Jonny Dillon) has been away from Central Processing Unit for five years now, releasing on labels such as AC Records and Furthur Electronix in the intervening time. However, new EP The Future Is Not What It Used To Be shows that the chemistry between label and artist is still in good nick by offering up four tracks of contemplative electro-boogie.

While the preceding CPU/Automatic Tasty drop may be 2015's The Life Parochial, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be actually has more in common with Sentimentalist's Choice, Automatic Tasty's CPU debut which came out back in 2013. This is not due to a huge stylistic shift - all three records bring together classic electro, techno and boogie sounds to create charming and melodious tracks - but more to do with the tone of the record. You see, while The Life Parochial was a squelchy machine-funk delight, The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a more pensive affair befitting its title.

This isn't to say that The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is a muted EP. Far from it - this record contains some of the most gorgeous electro joints you'll hear all year. The vibe is established on its eponymous opening jam, a vocoder-laced production pitched somewhere between the more ruminative tunes on Posthuman's 2018 LP Mutant City Acid and contemporary boogie acts such as Funkineven/Steven Julien and Galaxians. The track is made by the beautiful, bittersweet timbre of its synths, and these are maintained on following number 'Romance In The Old Country'. Given the offbeat skip in its groove and sunset-glow ruefulness of the keys, 'Romance In The Old Country' is a cut which invokes the instrumentals of Jessy Lanza LPs - and even (whisper it) a little Sade.

The Future Is Not What It Used To Be is an EP of evocative track titles, but there may be none more accurate than first B-side 'Rising Sun'. Here, Automatic Tasty tweaks the wistfulness of the A-side cuts into something more uplifting. While a thoughtful quality remains in 'Rising Sun's soft synths and skittering 808s, the track is driven by the exuberant energy of the 'Woo! Yeah!' drum break to become the sort of tune you drop as dawn begins to break over the rave. 'Rising Sun's afterglow falls over the closing track 'Adventures In The World Of Becoming', a steady IDM-electro pulse that channels the spirit of Aphex Twin's seminal Selected Ambient Works 85-92.

'The future is not what it used to be - no past, no memory'. With this robo-voiced intonation, Automatic Tasty returns to Sheffield's Central Processing Unit with four moving, poignant machine-funk tracks.

Repress

Carthago: Rare Tunisian Disco Including Unreleased Instrumentals And Eight Page Booklet When we first decided to start Habibi Funk, a label dedicated to re-releasing "funky" Arabic music from the 1960s to 1980s, a band called Dalton was the first release we worked on. Dalton was a band from the Tunisian capital of Tunis and they played a unique mix of soul & funk with an Arabic DNA. We licensed the release from the band's composer Fawzi Chekili, and when we spoke to him on the phone in preparation of the release he mentioned another band he was part of, called Carthago. Our work with Habibi Funk is like a big treasure hunt. There are too many great bands that fully vanished into obscurity and didn't leave any traces in the digital sphere yet. We are so used to the internet providing all informations we might be looking for, but Carthago was one of those bands where the internet largely failed to provide any infos despite the fact that Carthago created some incredible music in the form of an highly infectious Tunisian take on disco music. Luckily most of the members of the 1970s musical scene of Tunis are still around to tell their story.

Carthago was founded in the late 1970s as a fusion of Dalton and a second band called Marhaba Band. Both bands frequently played at hotels and night clubs in Tunis and Sousse. They had similar musical influences and despite the fact that they were competition for the most part, they came up with the idea to join forces for a new band. Musically Carthago kept on walking on the musical path of Dalton and Marhaba but incorporated disco music, a new style that was making its way to North Africa from Europe and North America. The band had quite some success on local radio and played a number of big shows with thousands of people showing up. The band's concerts were a mixture of their own compositions as well as cover versions of the hits of the time from Stevie Wonder to Chicago. At the end of the 70s they went to Paris to record their only, self titled album. For our reissue we picked out two of our favorite tracks: "Hanen" and the outstanding disco version of the Dalton track "Alech" which has proved to work on every dance floor we played over the last two years.

When I came to Tunis for the first time after the Dalton reissue I met Fawzi in person. He still lives in Tunis and still works as a full time musician though his focus has shifted more towards Jazz over the years. Luckily he did not only keep a spotless copy of the Carthago album but he also kept the master tape of the instrumental versions of the album which to this day were unreleased. Being able to add exclusive content to a reissue is something that is rare and we feel highly privileged to be able to do so. Futher more we are so happy that we will be able to add something new to the bands legacy not only musically but also visually: One day I realized that most of the releases from Tunisia I liked, be it from Dalton, Carthago or Marhaba Band had the same photographer credit.Hassen Turki started taking photos at a young age and when he was 18 he started going to the gigs of the bands of the time that were playing in the Marhaba Hotel which was managed by his father at the time. He became friends with the bands and ended up being the person to be asked when it came to shooting the photos for the covers of the records. After some research I managed to get in touch with Hassen and met him in his hometown Sousse. Luckily he kept most of the negatives of the photos he took so we're more than happy to be able to share these unseen photos with whoever is interested.

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date —and potentially the apex of his recent discography.Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalmaexudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of “joy, terror, and the elegiac” as a centering inspiration –or, phrased more bluntly, “that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling.”



As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalistRobert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer MSYLMA, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.



McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music.He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to anuminousequilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds.These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shroudedbeautysummoned in catacombs and crumbling cathedrals.



Despite its depths, Agalmais also an album of immediacy and emotion. Celestial laments of and for times of unrest and suffering. McDowall characterizes his initial intention for this music as an to attempt to convey experiences he felt incapable of putting into words: “To try and approach sublimity, or at least acknowledge it in some way.”Agalmamore than acknowledges the ineffable –it embodies it.

Black Truffle is proud to announce the first vinyl reissue of Rafael Toral’s Aeriola Frequency, originally released by Perdition Plastics in 1998. Toral made his name in the world of mid-90’s experimental electronics with two releases, Sound Mind Sound Body (1994) and Wave Field (1995), both now recognised as classics and reissued on vinyl by Drag City, which saw him exploring the potential of electric guitar and pedals to immerse the listener in seemingly endless waves of sustained tones. On Wave Field, inspired by the striking resonance effects he experienced during a Buzzcocks gig with bad acoustics, he achieved a synthesis—often imitated but never bettered—of rock guitar, Ambient, and the acoustic exploration of Alvin Lucier, a kind of "liquid, abstract flux of rock sound".

On Aeriola Frequency, Toral continued the explorations of Wave Field but dropped the guitar, creating a series of extended pieces using only a simple feedback loop designed to work with pure electronic resonance. The result is far more delicate than Wave Field, a steady but unstable flow of filtered tones that continually reorder themselves into new forms. On both the LP’s sides, the tones, like growing plants, imperceptibly shift from drifting freely in ambient space to weaving strangely natural melodic patterns, as the loops unfold and the resonance gently outlines recurring rhythmic shapes.

The overall effect is strikingly organic, as David Toop noted in the liner notes included in the original release (and reprinted in this reissue): “A crystal garden, the sound grows in reeds and streams, blown like spider web strands, glittering and invisible, pulsing with translucent colour, bubbling and imploding, fraying and powdering.”
A classic of the non-academic approach to electronics that flourished in the 1990s— and a big influence at the time on Black Truffle head honcho Oren Ambarchi—Aeriola Frequency ushers listeners into an endlessly fascinating world of gliding tones and shifting details that they might never want to leave.

- Recorded at Noise Precision, Portugal, December 1997 and April 1998. Remastered by Rafael Toral in 2020.
- Liner notes by David Toop and Rafael Toral.

‘Evolve’ is the first full length album from composer, music producer and violinist Vito Gatto, a concept album that guides the listener on a one-way journey through the various phases of an imaginary evolutionary process. Gatto graduated in Violin from the Milan Conservatory of Music, his research starts from the unconventional application of a classical background into both making music in the studio, and live performances. For this work, Vito decided to put himself in a restricted composing and technical environment; all the arpeggiated sounds on the album are made from one single violin note that Vito sampled. He transforms the same note throughout the entire album, using the different treatment of this micro sample and the arpeggiator programming as the construction of a mutating and evolving structure. The album is Instinctively executed, almost improvised, and elements like distorted bass lines, hardcore inspired percussions, whistles and alienating string melodies represent unexpected alterations. Vito decided to keep these instinctive additions clean from excessive control as a representation of the beauty of the unpredictable. The album track list is an expression of evolutionary phases. From the minimalistic piano piece ‘Decomposition’ to ‘Quiete’ which expresses the state of calm after a shift has occurred, ‘Nostalgia’ and ‘Stasi’ represent a hazy trance like state. Vito challenges the listener to ask questions like ’am I in the right place? Is this who I set out to become? Do I have to keep evolving, or should I try to regress?’ ‘Evolve’ creates continuous connections between traditional and experimental music, creating dialogue between classical instruments and industrial techno, ambient, noise and de-constructed sounds. The Album will be released in both digital and vinyl formats via NeMu, a fresh new label founded by Vito Gatto himself. The label will focus on experimental projects based on the exchange between acoustic, concrete and electronic sources. The Artwork is part of ‘Jewels’, a series of ceramic sculptures by Benni Bosetto, courtesy of the artist and ADA Project, Rome

VENT’s 21st release, a remix EP edition of 120 copies all hand numbered with a risograph printed cover, sees the collaborative works of 2019’s Kına LP by MAYa & Tolga Baklacioglu (VENT017) being reinterpreted through the lens of four prolific remixers. Each has brought their own perspectives and experiences to the table, challenging and redefining the original versions in their own way. Palestinian producer Muqata’a, for instance, has taken the track “Jyoti”, a track dedicated to Jyoti Sing, who was gang raped and murdered in India, reconstructing it so as to emphasize the continuous violence against women, whereas Martial Canterel has universalized the notions of yearning for a homeland in his remix. As a release featuring a broad range of bold and uncompromising remixes in different styles, the themes of nostalgia and yearning helps each remix highlight the qualities of the others. As keys to decrypt each remix more carefully, the artists have provided their brief comments, below:

Silent Servant (legendary dj/producer):

"I tried to give this remix a different approach than what has been my usual. Something based on perceived nostalgia but mixed in a modern way. I wanted it to feel like a lost RMX for the Hacienda from 1984 but hit in a modern club standard.”

Martial Canterel (cult poster boy for 21st century minimal synth):

"In approaching the work of my very dear and old friend, Maya, and her collaborator, Tolga Baklacioglu I wanted to situate differently the atmosphere and longing, to word it entirely otherwise. I wanted to dramatize this yearning for home and homeland, what the Welsh call Hiraeth. I want to place her plaintive strivings for home and tranquility in a festival of upbeat rhythms and releases."

Muqata’a (Palestinian beatmaker):

"It was very interesting remixing this powerful piece, working with the concept and different elements of the track, 'Jyoti', creating a more loop-based structure in an attempt to represent repeated violence against women."

Decimus (uncompromising esoteric artist):

"What I find amazing about the original version of this track is how colossally monolithic it is. It shifts and morphs over its 13 minutes but it never relents in its intensity and density. It feels epic and gigantic. I chose it to remix because I saw it as a challenge to carve something quieter and perhaps more narrative, in form, out of it while trying to stay true to the intensity of the original."

(Record Store Day 2020)

Mannequin Records is proud to celebrate 40th years of Nocturnal Emissions with more reissues setup for 2020.

"Tissue of Lies" is the Nocturnal Emissions first album, released on the band's own Sterile Records label as EMISS001 in 1980. "Tissue Of Lies"
shows you Nocturnal Emissions Industrial roots, from noisy collages to classic power noise, reminding the early Throbbing Gristle and Cabaret Voltaire, Faust ('Tapes' period) or Conrad Schitzler's 'Schwarz'.

The Nocturnal Emissions project, masterminded by Nigel Ayers, has been on the cutting edge of new music since the 1970s. Nigel Ayers has been described as a Guerrilla Sign Ontologist, cutting-up and pasting the contents of the human psyche. With a background in avant-garde art, his work has grown from audio visual installations through underground video works which changed the shape of British television.

In the early eighties Nocturnal Emissions hit London with a barrage of seminal funk; pioneering the use of sound samplers, multi-cultural
collage and electronic noise. They became a shape shifting chameleon lightening the darkness of post-industrial music, combining extremist performance art and video displays with apocalyptic beat music. Nocturnal Emissions have since been credited as a catalyst for a
generation or two of sound workers.

However, at the height of their success, the Emissions decided to shun the crass commercialism that had developed around them, and to develop their work as a secret alchemy. Nigel Ayers has continued to work with a strong underground of cult support, avoiding music industry fashions, and following his own creative path he concentrated on creating a strong sense of a wilderness identity through sound.

Limited edition of 600 copies, on solid white vinyl.