Isle Of Men is the band led by guitarist Dirk Fryns, featuring Gunther Verspecht (Stash) and all-round keyboard maestro Tom Van der Schueren, Herman Temmerman (bass and production), Niels Delvaux (drums) and Sara De Smedt (backing vocals). They made an impressive debut in 2015 with the album ‘Voluntary Blindness’.
Here is what the press had to say at the time:
De Morgen ****: “Subtle night music that inhabits the same world as David Sylvian, The Blue Nile, Ray Lamontagne… an excellent debut.
Focus: *** “A fine Belgian debut with an album that willingly lets itself be enveloped by the quiet twilight of the night.
Het Nieuwsblad/GVA ***: “Refined, intimate songs carried by the deep voice of Gunter Verspecht”.
RifRaf: “An impressive nocturnal record for fans of, say, Talk Talk, Tindersticks, Nick Cave or Nick Drake. Welcome to the fragile world of Homo Melancholicus”.
Now, at last, there is an equally atmospheric and impressive follow-up with the album “The Soul Of Kindness”.
Cerca:t man
Venom wurde 1979 in Newcastle upon Tyne gegründet. Gegen Ende der New Wave of British Heavy Metal
erlangten sie Bekanntheit. Ihre ersten beiden Alben – „Welcome to Hell“ (1981) und „Black Metal“ (1982)
– gelten als prägend für Thrash Metal und Extreme Metal im Allgemeinen. Das zweite Album war so
einflussreich, dass sein Titel als Name für das Extreme-Metal-Subgenre Black Metal verwendet wurde. Von
Bands wie Metallica, Behemoth, Celtic Frost und Mayhem oft als wichtige Einflüsse genannt, zählen sie zu
den meistverehrten Bands ihrer Generation.
„Into Oblivion“ ist Venoms sechzehntes Studioalbum und präsentiert die langjährige Besetzung mit Cronos
(Bass/Gesang und Gründungsmitglied), Rage (Gitarre) und Dante (Schlagzeug). Es sind ihre ersten neuen
Aufnahmen seit „Storm The Gates“ aus dem Jahr 2018. Ihr neues Album umfasst dreizehn Songs im
typischen Venom-Stil: heavy, düster und eingängig. Es vereint ihren klassischen 80er-Jahre-Sound mit
einem moderneren, progressiveren Ansatz, ohne dabei jedoch die alte Energie und den unbändigen Elan
einzubüßen.
Sugar, 1992 von Bob Mould (Hüsker Dü) zusammen mit Bassist David Barbe und Schlagzeuger Malcolm
Travis gegründet, feierte mit ihrem gefeierten Debütalbum „Copper Blue“ schnell große Erfolge. Das
Album gilt als eines der prägendsten der 90er-Jahre, dank seiner Mischung aus eingängigen Melodien und
kraftvollem Gitarrenspiel. Die Nachfolgealben „Beaster“ und „File Under: Easy Listening“ festigten den
Ruf der Band, bevor sie sich 1995 auflöste. Dreißig Jahre später sind Sugar nun wieder vereint und kündigen
neue Konzerttermine an, darunter drei Abende in der New Yorker Webster Hall und zwei im Londoner Off
Kentish Town Forum. Anlässlich dieses Jubiläums veröffentlicht die Band zwei brandneue Songs – „House
of Dead Memories“ und „Long Live Love“ – die nun erstmals auf schwarzem 7-Inch-Vinyl erhältlich sind.
Fast zwei Jahrzehnte nach der Veröffentlichung des Originalalbums, das mit einem Grammy ausgezeichnet
wurde, lebt die Legende des Buena Vista Social Club mit „Lost and Found“ weiter, einer Sammlung bisher
unveröffentlichter Titel. Einige entstanden bei den legendären ersten Sessions in Havanna mit Produzent
Ry Cooder, andere während der darauffolgenden, außergewöhnlich produktiven Phase.
Das Originalalbum des Buena Vista Social Club wurde 1996 von Ry Cooder und Nick Gold innerhalb von
sieben Tagen in Havanna für World Circuit Records aufgenommen. Es vereinte viele der großen Namen des
goldenen Zeitalters der kubanischen Musik der 1950er-Jahre, von denen einige für die Sessions aus dem
Ruhestand zurückgeholt wurden.
Das Album wurde überraschend zum internationalen Bestseller und zum erfolgreichsten Album in der
Geschichte der kubanischen Musik. Damals ahnte niemand, dass die Platte erst der Anfang eines musikalischen Phänomens sein würde. In den folgenden Jahren tourten die Buena-Vista-Veteranen vor begeistertem
Publikum um die Welt und waren Gegenstand eines gefeierten Spielfilms von Wim Wenders.
Es folgten weitere gefeierte Aufnahmen, darunter Soloalben der Sänger Ibrahim Ferrer und Omara Portuondo, des virtuosen Pianisten Rubén González und des Bassisten Cachaíto López sowie ein mitreißendes
Live-Album, aufgenommen bei einem triumphalen Konzert in der New Yorker Carnegie Hall.
Der Buena Vista Social Club war zu einem bekannten Namen geworden. „Über die Jahre wurden wir oft
gefragt, welches unveröffentlichte Material noch in den Archiven schlummert“, sagt Nick Gold von World
Circuit. „Wir kannten einige Schätze, Favoriten der Musiker, aber wir waren immer zu sehr mit dem
nächsten Projekt beschäftigt, um nachzusehen, was wir sonst noch hatten. Als wir endlich die Zeit dazu
fanden, waren wir erstaunt, wie viel wunderbare Musik es gab.“
Alle Studioaufnahmen für World Circuit entstanden im Egrem-Studio in Havanna während der produktiven
und kreativen Phase nach der Aufnahme des Originalalbums, die bis in die frühen 2000er-Jahre andauerte.
Angereichert mit Live-Aufnahmen aus derselben produktiven Phase, bietet das Material auf „Lost and
Found“ eine enorme und mitunter überraschende Vielfalt. Doch es gibt einen roten Faden, der von einem
Kernteam legendärer Musiker getragen wird, die einen Korpsgeist zum Ausdruck bringen, den jeder, der
jemals vom Buena Vista Social Club verzaubert war, wiedererkennen und genießen wird.
Album #1 der brandneuen Vinyl-Serie mit zukunftsweisenden Aufnahmen der musikalischen Avantgarde.
Luc Ferraris Presque Rien Nr. 1 und Société II zählen zu den radikalsten Werken der Avantgarde des
20. Jahrhunderts. Mit Presque Rien Nr. 1 leistete Ferrari Pionierarbeit bei der Verwendung von Umgebungsaufnahmen als vollständiges musikalisches Material – er nahm die Geräusche eines kroatischen Fischerdorfes im Morgengrauen auf. Ohne Manipulation markierte dies einen entscheidenden Wandel hin zum
klanglichen Minimalismus und beeinflusste Generationen von experimentellen Künstlern.
Im Gegensatz dazu verkörpert Société II, komponiert für Klavier, Schlagzeug und Ensemble, Ferraris politisch aufgeladene, theatralische Seite. Entstanden inmitten der sozialen Umwälzungen der späten 1960er
Jahre, inszeniert es eine feministische Allegorie, in der die Interpreten um die Vorherrschaft wetteifern und
dabei Struktur, Improvisation und Satire miteinander verbinden.
Gemastert und geschnitten von den originalen analogen ¼-Zoll-2-Spur-Masterbändern von Rainer Maillard und Sidney Claire Meyer in den Emil Berliner Studios.
Limitierte und nummerierte Auflage mit Original-Artwork und einem neu gestalteten, wunderschön gearbeiteten Sammler-Cover mit neuen Liner Notes von Bradford Bailey, gepresst auf 180-g-Vinyl.
- 1: Dust Meridian
- 2: The Source
- 3: Mondo Buzzo
- 4: Dawn Passage
- 5: Return To Sky
Return to Sky is the follow-up to the band's classic Euporie Tide, which consolidated the band as a crucial underground force in the European psych scene and spread their unique brand of warm-toned stoner rock to a wider audience. The album is a condensed piece of acutely experimental, yet immensely engaging, instrumental rock. Each of the album’s five epics unfolds as a microcosm of the band’s genre-transcending psychedelia at large, yet adds something different to the whole.
The tracks on Return To Sky travel far and wide: heavy, detuned riffs are transformed into wide, pastoral soundscapes, and fluid minimalism warped into swirling crescendos and back again. Occasionally the band even manages to sound turbulent, fuzzed-out yet strangely peaceful at the very same time. Whereas so much of today’s psychedelic scene comes off as merely a tribute to a certain period of the past, Causa Sui has always been on a different mission. More than any other record in their catalog Return To Sky declares their roots in the avant rock of the late 1990s - where different eras and genres merged into something that resonated as much with the present as it celebrated the past. It also reveals the fact that members of the band has had their hands in many different projects since the band’s debut album in 2005: solo excursions into synthesizer music, collaborations with members of Sunburned Hand Of The Man and Tortoise as well as film soundtracks and improv sessions with krautrock legends Faust and Damo Suzuki. It has all worked a subtle influence on the kind of band they have become. On Return To Sky their sound is more earthy and heavy than other Causa Sui record, but it’s also a record that has absorbed everything from shoegaze and vintage Italian film music to spiritual jazz and afrobeat into its fabric. Causa Sui has never sounded deeper or more mesmerizing than on this set.
We are welcoming a fresh blood from the south of Italy: Delikwe
Words Create Vibrations is a solo EP recorded between 2023 and 2025, where techno and dub foundations merge seamlessly with ambient textures and breaky-step rhythms. Across five tracks, the record unfolds as a deeply atmospheric journey — hypnotic, spacious, and rhythmically dynamic. Sub-heavy frequencies meet shifting percussive structures, while layers of delay and texture generate a sense of depth that feels both physical and introspective. Each composition evolves patiently, acting as a meditation on resonance, movement, and the unseen architecture of vibration.
The A-side presents Delikwe’s original works in their purest form: immersive, restrained, and subtly transformative. Rooted in sound system culture yet open in structure, the tracks balance meditative stillness with rhythmic propulsion.
On the B-side, Australian producer Pugilist delivers a powerful reinterpretation. Known for his refined low-end pressure and deeply immersive productions, he reshapes the source material into a weightier, system-focused experience. His remix amplifies the sub frequencies and spatial depth while preserving the meditative core of the originals, creating a compelling dialogue between exploratory dub atmospheres and grounded sonic precision.
Words Create Vibrations stands as a sonic exploration where rhythm, space, and texture converge into a fully immersive listening experience — crafted for powerful sound systems, late-night sessions, and attentive minds alike.
[c] a3. Agna Street [Words Create Vibrations]
[d] b1. 6am [Ice Mix]
[e] b2. 6am [Pugilist Remix]
- 1: Morgue Whore
- 2: Krash Kourse In Psychopathology
- 3: Pathogenesis (Rebirth Through Disease)
- 4: Nekro-Erotik Art
- 5: The Forgotten Flesh
- 6: Breakfast At The Manchester Morgue
- 1: Primera Parada (Remaster 2026)
- 2: El Caballo Del Malo (Remaster 06)
- 3: Fortune's Show Of Our Last (Remaster 2026)
- 4: Times Of Disaster (Remaster 2026)
- 5: Primer Tren De La Mañana (Remaster 2026)
- 6: La Noche (Remaster 202)
- 7: La Espera (Remaster 2026)
- 8: Suburbian Empty Movie Theatre (Remaster 2026)
- 9: Principios De Agosto (Remaster 2026)
- 10: The Guilt (Remaster 2026)
- 11: Cuatro Estaciones (Remaster 2026)
- 12: High Of Defenses (Remaster 2026)
- 13: Last Fool Around (Remaster 2026)
- 14: Arde (Remaster 2026)
“Arde” is the creative peak of the Madrid-based experimental collective: 14 cinematic, hypnotic, and emotionally devastating songs that masterfully blend post-rock atmospheres, alt-folk introspection, traditional Spanish elements, and complex, often cathartic arrangements.
The album's UK connection is through Stuart David (Looper, Belle & Sebastian), who championed the band to Sub Pop, leading to their international breakthrough. On Metacritic, it holds a 77/100 score based on 6 reviews, with AllMusic praising its "spectacular balance of beauty and tension”. CMJ New Music Monthly highlighted it as "one of the brightest artistic lights in the diverse Iberian indie-pop scene".
Pitchfork awarded it a 9.3/10 in 2001—the highest score for any Spanish artist to date—describing it as “nothing short of elemental in its beauty”. The album also succeeded in France (PopLane, 2001), with strong coverage in Les Inrockuptibles, Magic!, Le Monde, and Libération. Migala shared stages with key acts like Smog (Bill Callahan), Mark Kozelek (Red House Painters), The Magnetic Fields, Damon & Naomi, and served as Will Oldham’s (Bonnie “Prince” Billy/Palace) backing band during his Spanish tour in 1998.
This new edition has been painstakingly remastered from the original Cubase projects (summer/fall 2000). Every track was exported individually and given a fresh, zero-compromise mastering. The result is a significantly clearer, more open, defined, and powerful sound — especially in the rhythmic foundation — while fully preserving the warm, organic lo-fi character of the original. An absolute must-have for indie, post-rock, alt-folk, and collector sections — a genuine classic that belongs in every serious record store and deserves rediscovery.
- 1: Obra De Misericordia Vii
- 2: La Promesa
- 3: La Nueva Sangre
- 4: La Sapiencia
- 5: Aquelarres Anónimos
- 6: Mi Panacea Y Yo
- 7: La Remisión De Todo
- 8: Francamente, Iracundo
- 9: En Los Días Cuerdos
- 10: El Acabose
- 11: Clemencia Y Luz I
- 12: Clemencia Y Luz Ii
- 13: La Esperanza Nos Está Matando
Ed Sánchez-Gómez is a Costa Rican-born artist now based in Evanston, Illinois (USA). After a complex relationship with classical guitar at the University of Costa Rica, travels through Europe and Argentina (where he absorbed South American folk), and improvisation studies in Chicago, he has forged a deeply personal sound. Born from profound grief and the global pandemic, “Obras de misericordia” is an intense, moving acoustic album that blends artisanal shoegaze with infinite noise-pop harmonies, Latin folk textures (charango, mandolin, hammered dulcimer) and the languid beauty of John Martyn, The Declining Winter and the Elephant 6 Collective. It explores sounds beyond the guitar — adding musical saw, piano, violin, viola and cello — creating landscapes that shift between introspection and catharsis. It is the most hi-fi lo-fi album you will ever hear. Recorded by Ed between January 2022 and March 2024 in Evanston, IL and Peru, IN; mixed by Abel Hernández (Migala, El Hijo) and mastered by Santiago Quizhpe (Pullpush Studio, Madrid).
Influences from UK shoegaze/post-rock pioneers like Hood, and Disco Inferno add layered, atmospheric depth, connecting to the genre's British revival scene.
An essential title for indie, shoegaze, folk-experimental and RSD sections: perfect for in-store play, window displays and collectors who love intimate, boundary-pushing acoustic records with deep emotional resonance and Latin roots.
- Psalm 2
- I'm Your Salvation
- In The Shadow
- Graveyard Blues
- Mun Pa
- Run On
- No Man's Land
- Would You Know? (Feat. Nytt Land)
- F.k
Out now via 7 Mater, in collaboration with The Circle Music for worldwide distribution, this special edition of Stolen Season Pt. I captures both the essence of the project and the spirit of the upcoming full-length Stolen Season Pt. I. This first pressing is destined to become a collector's item: numbered and limited to 250 black vinyl copies and 250 gold vinyl copies, each edition comes housed in a deluxe sleeve with an exclusive 30x30 insert that perfectly frames the visual world of the band. It is a striking presentation that mirrors the richness of the music contained within. The creative force behind From The Land is Anatoly Pakhalenko, best known as the frontman of the acclaimed dark folk ensemble Nytt Land.
Conceived in 2025, this new project serves as an alter ego for Pakhalenko, allowing him to explore the darker edges of country, blues, and folk traditions while weaving them into a world described as "a black and white landscape, tired of all this s**t that's going on around and gradually sinking into an endless sleep". Together with Aleksandr Rosliakov, Pakhalenko composed Stolen Season Pt. I between January and May 2025 at Nytt Land Studio, handling recording, mixing, and production duties himself. The result is an album that resonates with uncompromising artistic vision and raw emotional depth. From The Land 's universe draws inspiration from the haunting literary realms of H.P. Lovecraft and Edgar Allan Poe, as well as the surreal, unsettling imagery of David Lynch. This heady mixture of influences creates a soundscape that is equally cinematic and visceral, where ritual meets ruin, and folk traditions dissolve into the smoke of blues and country noir.
- Opnun
- Gattir Allar
- Bu Er Betra
- Ar Skal Risa
- Frysta
- Pagalt Og Hugalt
- Veit-A Hinn
- Pat Er Pa Reynt
- Fyrsta Vindur
- Ravnfjord
For the first time, this landmark album of ritualistic dark folk and shamanic soundscapes is pressed into Double LP, and the result is a breathtaking artifact that transcends the boundary between music and mysticism. Presented in a deluxe edition LP with a lavish 30x30 insert, brought to life by Rune Serpent Europa, this release is a kind of talisman. The packaging itself feels like a gateway: ornate, otherworldly, and perfectly attuned to the spirit of Havamal , where Nordic tradition, animistic ritual, and primal sound converge in a timeless invocation. Spinning Havamal on vinyl unleashes the full incantatory power of NYTT LAND 's music. The analog warmth deepens the resonance of the throat-sung mantras and the droning instrumentation, pulling the listener into a world that is equal parts ancient ritual, frozen landscape, and whispered prophecy.
Every track becomes a rune carved in sound, vibrating with hidden meaning, echoing the eternal cycles of life, death, and rebirth. There is a romance in this edition that goes beyond mere presentation. The act of lowering the needle becomes an invocation, a summoning of ancestral voices and forgotten gods. The record itself feels alive, as though the spirits of the sagas reside within its grooves. Each listen is a ritual, each flip of the vinyl a turning of the cosmic wheel. With Havamal now available on LP, collectors and devotees of dark folk finally hold in their hands a relic worthy of the album's mythic aura. This is music to be inhabited, to be carried into dreams and into shadows, to be used as a key that unlocks the hidden chambers of the soul. A triumph of art, craft, and spirit, this vinyl edition is destined to become a coveted treasure.
- The Beats Of Distant Thunder
- Whispers Among Dawn
- Sun Shower
- Diffraction
- Linear System
- Calculus Of Our Souls
Masterful composer- improviser DoYeon Kim is an unparalleled practitioner of the Korean gayageum (a silk-string zither), and is also in possession of a purposeful vocal intensity. This is her debut album as a bandleader, featuring fellow master musicians Tyshawn Sorey (drums), Mat Maneri (viola), Henry Fraser (bass). Armed with an unlikely traditional instrument, flanked by three extraordinary improvisers, radiating a brash, acoustic strategy that simultaneously invokes folk universalism and a No Wave battle- stance, the Brooklyn- based virtuoso will drop a volcanic sonic statement with grand humanist goals on May 1. Kim mingles Korean lullabies, fervent interactions between drums and strings, and pure instrumental expressions of musical self. At times, she sounds like she can halt armies. Wellspring is a call for society to come together.
How the Seoul, South Korea- born 34- year- old came to be the centuries- old zither's leading (only?) practitioner of contemporary improvised music, reflects an expansive embrace of her own culture, her place in modern society, and her ascending recognition of music's liberatory power. DoYeon Kim 's teachers at Seoul National University recognized that her roving musical mind - less interested in ancient repertoire than in speaking to the modern world - needed challenges. America beckoned, with the New England Conservatory offering a non- ethnomusicological pathway via its Contemporary Improvisation department. It set off a process of analysing, absorbing, digesting, and, most of all, listening. Under the guidance of NEC instructor and legendary guitarist Joe Morris, in came the methodologies of Ornette, Braxton and Derek Bailey, to name a few.
Katerina is an old friend from the early trips to Helsinki, a Finnish Bulgarian queen of the dance, having commanded the wood floors of Kaiku since its inception. Her debut EP with the ESP Institute, 'Natural High' is something special if we may humbly brag. It is the electronic embodiment of our annual journey around the sun, with its release landing just in time for this year’s Summer solstice. Over 4 tracks, the narrative shifts are technically subtle but emotionally palpable, presenting moods that swing both warm and cold but maintain a delicate balance start to finish, a confidence that speaks of true experience and understanding the dynamics of dancefloor moods. Our typical verbose track-by-track dissection feels unnecessary as Katerina’s work here is most legible as a whole. 'Natural High' is a cozy and honest offering, a soft-edged cerebral antidote to the daily falsehoods perpetrated by mankind, and a reminder that in the end, we are all just children of Gaia. Run Free!
- A1: Boom Sound
- A2: Sound Family
- A3: Credentials
- A4: Youths Of Today
- A5: Likkle Bass
- A6: Pest
- B1: Own Way
- B2: Phone
- B3: Dutty Bizz
- B4: Gather Round
- B6: Guileless
- B6: Respect
1st Album from the Lisbon Portugal duo Jah version - featuring the amazing vocals of Zacky Man. This is future sounding fine contemporary roots flavoured dub from hard steppe beats to heavy roots one-drop styles - made by Jah Version but mixed by Vibronics in his Dub Cupboard Studio in the UK. Played by OBF, Iration Steppas and all the top Dub Soundsystems around the world.
- A1: Ocean Side
- A2: Shadow Surfer
- A3: Blind Curve
- A4: Summer Eyes
- A5: Futari No Night Dive
- B1: Seishun No Ijiwaru
- B2: Evening Break
- B3: So Many Dreams
- B4: I Will
WRWTFWW Records is very excited to announce the first release from its new City Pop Series with Japanese singer, actress, entertainer, scholar and all-around legend Momoko Kikuchi’s sun-drenched classic Ocean Side album, available now as a limited-edition transparent vinyl LP in a heavyweight sleeve with obi.
A cult classic among Japanese music collectors, Ocean Side was originally released in 1984 by mythical label VAP and features lush compositions and arrangements by J-Pop icon Tetsuji Hayashi (Mariya Takeuchi, Miki Matsubara, Omega Tribe, Junichi Inagaki, Urusei Yatsura anime, soundtrack…). Momoko Kikuchi’s city pop gem is a flawless mix of heartwarming beachside funk, breezy grooves, and silky-smooth vocals - the feel-good music we all need in our life right now.
The 9-track summer-is-forever adventure notably includes the ultra-funky megahit “Blind Curve”, the fan-favorite title song, and the insanely romantic ballad “Futari No Night Drive”. A vibrant reflection of summer in 1980s Japan, Ocean Side masterfully balances nostalgia and elegance, and provides part of the origin story for revered modern music genres such as chillwave, and future funk, and vaporwave.
The official reissue licensed from VAP, Inc. is sourced from the original masters with an audiophile-cut by Sidney Meyer at Emil Berliner Studios.
WRWTFWW’s City Pop Series and its Lopetz/Büro Destruct-designed logo also includes jazz-fusion-AOR-mellow-funk treasure Safari (1984), a limited capsule collection of merch, and much more to come in the near future.
Between flesh and silicon. “Under My Skin” (2026) is the first album by IADI, released by Neo Life. A record like few
others, highly conceptual, cover art included. Its essence lies in the folds of the increasingly ambiguous relationship
between man and machine, where the former designs the latter and, perhaps without fully realizing it, is gradually
destined to adapt and be reprogrammed by it. Each track of “Under My Skin” is, in fact, a sort of interface, connector, or
any other imaginative point of contact between two creative phases, amid emotional impulses and binary calculations.
The sonic architecture oscillates between analog warmth and algorithmic coldness, constructing landscapes in which
pulsating synthesizers and mechanical rhythms seem to question each other. There's no linear narrative, but rather a
progressive immersion in a zone of near-friction, where the comfort of technology coexists with more than a faint
musical uneasiness, like a background noise that never ceases to remind you who's truly in charge. In “Under My Skin”,
the machine is neither an enemy nor a simple instrument: it's a real presence, intimate, even tactile, amplifying desires,
fears, and dreams of dawns beyond the digital realm. Intelligent dance music. Less noise, more sensations. Electronic,
but profoundly human.
The final result, then, is a music project that speaks to the present, yet sounds like an X-ray of the future, capturing that
fragile moment when humanity and technology stop observing each other from afar and begin to merge, track after
track. It's no coincidence that IADI's album opens with “Impulse”, an immediate expression of an electrical impulse, for
both humans and machines, which is also the language of the nervous system, as fast as it is vital—pure energy and
rhythm, a track as intense as it is irregular. And after this introduction, it's the turn of the equally erratic “Axon”, whose
title describes the neuron that transmits the signal over distance, telling the listener to sit back and relax for a new
journey through the notes toward the more melodic “Cortex”. The cerebral cortex, the ultimate seat of thought and
memory, becomes the source from which the musical flow of the first part of the work is drawn.
Then, suddenly, an automatic, or instinctive, response to the constant succession of impulses: “Reflex”, or zerotemperature techno, with a fragmented pace, featuring vocal samples, breaks, and restarts. In the producer's
imagination, the subsequent, and conversely placid, “Neuron” represents the emotional core of the second part of the
work, providing a kind of respite from the seething vibrations. While the neuron is the basic unit of the nervous system,
the synapse is the functional connection point between one neuron and another effector cell, essential for the
transmission of nerve impulses and communication in the nervous system, enabling functions such as learning and
movement. Likewise, a track like “Synapse” once again illuminates the path traced by IADI. The more experimental and
streamlined “Static” instead suggests true ordered chaos. “Dreamstate” is the conclusion suspended in the void, relating
to that dreamlike state between waking and sleeping, where consciousness fades toward infinity and visions begin. Pure
fading into the subconscious. Eternal return to where it all began. Dancing is a form of consciousness. Every beat is a
question. IADI, however, holds all the answers you need.
In the late 2000s a sprawling catalog of what is now genre-defining music was emanating from an unlikely place. Cleveland, Ohio has a broad reputation for many things, but in the aughts, psyche-expanding Kosmische wasn’t necessarily Cleveland’s calling card… until Emeralds. The trio of John Elliott, Steve Hauschildt, and Mark McGuire had released a profusion of limited-run cassettes, CD-Rs, and vinyl titles that had been passed around basement shows and then migrated to niche music communities online, creating a unique kind of murmur, even in the height of the DIY blog era. Three kids from the rust belt were crafting a distinctive and truly far-out strain of music on their own terms in the Midwest. They were flipping lids in wood-paneled basements and circulating around the underground with soaring sounds stylistically indebted to deep German electronic music pioneers and released with the ethos and twisted fervor of renegade Midwestern noise freaks. After several releases garnered a die-hard fandom in niche circles of internet/music culture, and then catching the attention of the late Peter Rehberg, the renowned artist and curator of the Editions Mego label, an expectation was set that the next Emeralds record was going to be a big one. And in 2010, Does it Look Like I’m Here? was it.
mp3s of this album; they can finally get a fresh copy on vinyl. Does It Look Like I’m Here? became a hallmark that would carve a path for an entire scene. Ghostly International is thrilled to reissue the album, remastered by Heba Kadry, including 7 bonus tracks exclusive to the digital album and CD. The limited edition 2xLP includes extensive liner notes by Chris Madak (Bee Mask).




















