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Futurismo proudly present a vital compilation born in the shadows of American punk; AMERICAN GRAVE Gothic Punk / Deathrock USA: 1978-1988, the third volume in their Altered Vision anthology series.

Drawing from darkest depths of the American spirit, American Grave is testament to a subculture spawned from late night savagery, graveyard hangouts and suburban isolation. Deathrock, post-punk, goth, whatever term you prefer, this compilation showcases the sounds and aesthetics of a tarnished golden era, an underground movement that took the DIY concepts of punk and the velocity of a burgeoning hardcore scene and immersed it in echoes, distortion, tribal rhythms and macabre vocals, thematically preying upon cult horror flicks, surrealism, and the manipulation of religious iconography. Whilst the UK had a counterpart scene many would hail as Goth, this was different, this was a truly American incarnation, a new breed of youth haunted by the ghosts of old blues, garage and glam, bleak theatrical imagery dressed up to evoke a response, smeared eyeliner, leather, bones…black. This was a backlash against a culture in decay, bucking against a puritanical oppression brought on by the archaic social standards set by their parents. It was aggression manifested as gloom, it was a ceremony, the celebration of death.

American Grave has been co-curated by Wesley Eisold (Cold Cave/American Nightmare/Heartworm Press) in collaboration with Futurismo head honcho Del Jae, to bring you a haunting tracklist ranging from the all important integral mainstays of the genre to those rarer and more elusive artists, including many recordings that have never been reissued before on any format. Featuring the music of Christian Death, T.S.O.L., The Cramps, Of A Mesh, The Gun Club, Twisted Roots, Kommunity FK, The Brainz, Theatre Of Ice, Burning Image, Fur Bible, PSI Com, Shadow Of Fear, Super Heroines, 45 Grave and more.

The music on this compilation is reinstated further from a visual perspective by an array of incredible images by famed punk photographer Edward Colver, and lovingly designed to the level you would expect from a Futurismo release.

2xLP on limited edition ‘Splintered Tomb’ coloured vinyl. It is housed in a gloss laminated outer sleeve with colour inner sleeves and contains a large fold-out poster with unseen photos by the great Edward Colver, words by Lisa Fancher and liner notes by Wesley Eisold of Cold Cave/American Nightmare.

“Paradigm of Tomorrow” is the representation (or sound) of concepts related to an innovative future and the radical changes brought about by technology in society that is, a way of thinking that redefines the present and opens up new possibilities. Published by Biometric-Audio (DE) Mastered by Paul Mac (UK) Lacquer cutting by Simon Exchange (UK) Release Management: Daniele Angelo (IT) Distribution: Triple Vision (NL) Artwork: Yuki Raw (DZ) A3 – She Spoke in a Detached Way Voice recorded by Hamza (Zahham) in Algiers (DZ) Mixed by Basic in collaboration with Punchlines Room (IT) Recorded at Neoromatik Studio (DE)

Forgotten electronic treasures by composer Ton de Leeuw rediscovered: first release in the Dutch Oscillation Series

Dutch Oscillation Series (DOS) proudly announces the release of a box set featuring the complete electronic works of Ton de Leeuw (1926–1996). This publication marks the first instalment in a new series that brings the history of Dutch electronic music to life for a broad audience. The official presentation will take place on Saturday, 12 September, during the Gaudeamus Festival for contemporary music in Utrecht.

Unique discoveries from the archive. For far too long, twentieth-century Dutch electronic music has remained hidden away in dim archives, only occasionally accessible under optimal conditions. Many compositions have not been heard for decades, perhaps after being presented to an audience only once. For this project, the original tapes were carefully traced in basements and archives, including the mysterious work Chronos, which was rediscovered in the collection of the Netherlands Music Institute (NMI). Even close collaborators of De Leeuw were unaware of the existence of Chronos. Another highlight of this release is the radiophonic oratorio Job (1956), which was awarded the Prix Italia radio prize by broadcaster Rai.

The recordings were digitised by experts at the Institute of Sonology and the Instituut voor Beeld en Geluid (Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision). The music was then meticulously restored and mastered in the studio of Jos Smolders (EARLabs), in accordance with modern standards, while strictly adhering to the composer’s original artistic intentions.

The edition includes eight works composed between 1956 and 1982. The collection is released as a deluxe LP and CD box set and is also available via streaming and as high-resolution downloads. For an optimal listening experience, originally four-channel works such as Elektronische Studie (Electronic Study) and Antiphonie (Antiphony) are available as special Dolby Atmos downloads, allowing listeners to experience at home the unique spatial sound world envisioned by Ton de Leeuw.

About Ton de LeeuwTon de Leeuw was one of the most influential Dutch composers of the twentieth century. A thinker with a distinctly cosmopolitan outlook, he immersed himself deeply in musical cultures from India, Japan, and Indonesia, among others. His work consistently sought to bridge Eastern and Western musical traditions and concepts.

In addition, De Leeuw enjoyed a distinguished academic career. He served for many years as senior lecturer and director at the Amsterdam Conservatory and was affiliated as a senior research fellow with the University of Amsterdam. His book Muziek van de twintigste eeuw (Music of the Twentieth Century) remains a standard reference work.

Coil’s 17-minute soundtrack for »How to Destroy Angels«, performed on January 19, 1984: ritual music ›for the accumulation of male sexual energy‹, structured around magickal and numerological concepts.

Throughout history man has made and used music for two distinct and separate purposes. In recent years, particularly since the advent of sound recording, the most popular use of music has been for entertainment - the temporary amusement and distraction of as large a number as possible. As a consequence, many people tend to overlook its more fundamental and ancient use as a tool for affecting man's body and spirit. The many varieties of religious music from around the world contain a vast quantity of clues to the way in which sound can affect the physical and mental state of the serious listener, yet many find their associations with religion itself too difficult a stigma to overlook in their appreciation of the sound and its potential, for its own sake.

On this record, hopefully the first in a series, we have tried to produce sound which has a real, practical and beneficial power in this modern Era. Specifically, it is intended as an accumulator of male sexual energy. Although we make neither claims nor rules for its use, we do suggest that for maximum potency it should only be played in circumstances that exclusively male and/or onanistic in nature. What these are is entirely up to you.

The execution of the piece was structured around concepts we felt would work for us - in this case magickal and numerological rather than conventionally musical in form. One image or symbol which we drew upon that may be useful to bear in mind is that of Mars, often indicated by the male symbol.

Should this music have any power, over and above the banal and transitory titillation achieved by most records available now, it is a positive and beneficial power to be used and controlled by the listener, as he desires.

Coil’s 17-minute soundtrack for »How to Destroy Angels«, performed on January 19, 1984: ritual music ›for the accumulation of male sexual energy‹, structured around magickal and numerological concepts.

Throughout history man has made and used music for two distinct and separate purposes. In recent years, particularly since the advent of sound recording, the most popular use of music has been for entertainment - the temporary amusement and distraction of as large a number as possible. As a consequence, many people tend to overlook its more fundamental and ancient use as a tool for affecting man's body and spirit. The many varieties of religious music from around the world contain a vast quantity of clues to the way in which sound can affect the physical and mental state of the serious listener, yet many find their associations with religion itself too difficult a stigma to overlook in their appreciation of the sound and its potential, for its own sake.

On this record, hopefully the first in a series, we have tried to produce sound which has a real, practical and beneficial power in this modern Era. Specifically, it is intended as an accumulator of male sexual energy. Although we make neither claims nor rules for its use, we do suggest that for maximum potency it should only be played in circumstances that exclusively male and/or onanistic in nature. What these are is entirely up to you.

The execution of the piece was structured around concepts we felt would work for us - in this case magickal and numerological rather than conventionally musical in form. One image or symbol which we drew upon that may be useful to bear in mind is that of Mars, often indicated by the male symbol.

Should this music have any power, over and above the banal and transitory titillation achieved by most records available now, it is a positive and beneficial power to be used and controlled by the listener, as he desires.

For her new and most radical album »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone«, Martina Bertoni used the electronic instrument at EMS Stockholm to create four pieces that are massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming—almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.

Martina Bertoni returns to Karlrecords with »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone,« her most radical album yet. The foundation for the four electroacoustic pieces was laid during a residency at Stockholm’s legendary Elektronmusikstudion (EMS) that the Berlin-based cellist and composer used to explore the curious instrument, originally designed by Halldór Úlfarsson in 2008, as an algorithmic system in order to examine tunings and the mathematical relationships between Aiming to analyse and understand their interaction beyond the composer’s control, Bertoni sought to engage more deeply with the concepts of time, tuning, and, most importantly, control. Accordingly, her four »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone« seem both massive in scale and incredibly intimate, sonically restrained and emotionally overwhelming— almost ambient and always demanding your full attention.

While the halldorophone—famously used by Hildur Guðnadóttir for her »Joker« score—roughly resembles a cello and can be played like one, it is an electronic instrument. The vibration of its strings is being picked up, amplified, and then routed through a speaker. This creates a feedback loop that becomes increasingly complex depending on how much gain is added to individual strings. Úlfarsson gave Bertoni a carte blanche for how to handle the instrument, but she stresses that she relied on »minimal interventions—some string strumming and plucking« that set the interactions of different sounds and frequencies into motion. »I decided to not approach it like a cellist would,« she explains. »Instead I used it as a kind of generative organ by turning it into a feedback machine, with tuned feedback triggering more feedback depending on the tuning, which was based on tetraphonic scales that I could apply on the four main strings as well as the sympathetic group of strings.«

Bertoni recorded the material in the EMS studio, later composing and arranging the four complex pieces in her home in Berlin, after which they were mixed and mastered by Ciaran O’Shea. While this can be considered a compositional abstraction process, traces of her concrete work as a performer are firmly ingrained in the music. »The halldorophone doesn’t have a line output, just a double set of speakers, which is why I recorded all sounds with two microphones in the EMS studio,« she explains. »That’s why there’s plenty of breathing sounds here and there—label owner Thomas Herbst and I jokingly refer to the album as my ›chamber music record‹.« And indeed, there is a striking sense of intimacy to these four pieces throughout which individual sounds, harmonic frequencies, and even subtle rhythmic figures seem to move both on their own accord but also according to a underlying vision that steers their interplay.

Indeed, »Electroacoustic Works for Halldorophone« is an album built on and marked by contrasts. The soothing polylogue of single sounds in the higher register on opener »Omen in G« is counterpointed by massive bass drones, while the second piece, »Nominal in D,« plays a cunning game of repetition and difference by combining thick textures with all kinds of rhythmic elements. »Fades in C«—the longest of the four pieces, clocking in at 17 minutes—unlocks the emotional potentials of the sonic qualities of the halldorophone, sounding at once serene and anthemic, and »Organon in D« closes the album by underscoring how Bertoni’s unconventional approach allows her to seamlessly transform simple, quiet tones into complex, towering walls of sound.

Remastered limited edition double vinyl with double-sided screenprinted poster-cover (sleeve folds out to be one huge poster). A real collectors item!

When Off Off came out around June 1984, one couldn’t speak of an independent music scene in Portugal. Warm Records’ vague existence didn’t have any impact and Dansa do Som’s inaugural release appeared only in December. 10 years after the revolution, after two IMF interventions, a lot of political instability (not to say turmoil, in the first couple of years) and the natural excesses of a sudden burst of freedom, the Portuguese consumer had more choices but a generally poor standard of living. There was no entrepreneurial culture and serious second thoughts about investing private money in risky ventures.

After many complaints about the whole music scene (institutions, critics and record label executives, popular and classical music alike), something that would continue well beyond the end of the decade, Telectu decided to finance, record, produce, release and sell an album with complete independence from outside structures. Their karmic reward was profit. According to Vítor Rua, Off Off was the only album fully payed by the duo and the only one that really payed off. Not an easy accomplishment for a double LP housed in a large (also double-sided) screenprint with complicated cuts and folds. The artwork was conceived by António Palolo, a friend and multidisciplinary artist. It was based on a collage of heavily saturated and xeroxed polaroids framed in shocking pink and green. Palolo was considered the third member of Telectu, regularly producing slides, video and other visual support for their shows. The inspiration for the type of cover came from GRM’s Gramme series.

Off Off is divided in four distinct sides, each one corresponding to a “theme” or “function” related to Telectu’s manifold artistic interests and interactions. The titles are also gateways to influences and a small portion of Portuguese cultural life:

- Side 1 / “Diagonale” is dedicated to Egídio Álvaro, art critic and gallery director (he opened Diagonale in Paris). Performance art was arguably his main artistic concern over the years, so the music on this side is suggested for use by one or more performers in live or playback situations. The three tracks segue into each other, linked by a synth arpeggio much in the same way as Telectu’s previous “Belzebu” álbum (1983);

- Side 2 / “Anarké” is dedicated to the composer Filipe Pires, one of Jorge Lima Barreto’s recurring invocations when asked about worthwhile contemporary music in Portugal. It is subtitled “concert music”, proposing «a new form of listening». Three tracks also, and these are separated by “clap interludes”, which basically consisted in the following: JLB and VR each had a pair of headphones on, and they clapped their hands according to the rhythm of the music each one was listening. Both musicians were interacting with a different Steve Reich piece: Vítor with “Music for Mallet Instruments”, Jorge with “Six Pianos”. The result is disjointed clapping, an awkwardly deliberate celebration of their own music. Telectu applauded themselves.

- Side 3 / “Cornucópia” is subtitled “music for theatre” and dedicated to Luís Miguel Cintra and Luís Lima Barreto (JLB’s brother), both connected to the Cornucópia theatre company. The side consists of several short pieces previously used as interludes in the Cornucópia staging of “Mariana Espera Casamento” (1983). Field recordings, mood pieces, ambience and a numeric poem (“Soneto Soma 14x”, by E.M. de Melo e Castro) read by João Perry, a quite well-known stage actor. His voice is treated with a flanger effect;

- Side 4 / “Palolo” is “video music”. It’s a one-take mix recorded from cassette sources (Telectu studio experiences) and done live while watching António Palolo’s Om film (1978) projected on the living room wall. It’s a deep, immersive, quasi-mystical 20-minute piece perfectly suiting the meditative, abstract, fluid images created by Palolo by mixing paint and water inside a bathtub. One imagines the Cosmos, hardly suspecting the technique. The film is 90 minutes long, so the music on the LP is of course edited.

The six titles on sides 1 and 2 evoke demons, all of them with conflicting symbolism, since it varies from culture to culture, religion to religion. No explanation is given and Vítor Rua has no idea where this imagery comes from. During virtually the whole stretch of the 1980s, Jorge was the one in charge of titles and concepts, and Vítor didn’t bother too much even reading the liner notes :) In any case, when you synchronize the listening experience with the imagery, a powerful impression emerges, a feeling of being in the presence of these entities while placing yourself inside the sonic narrative.

Off Off is undoubtedly a seminal album in the history of electronic music, as much Heldon as Fripp & Eno, jazz and American minimalism, cosmic out-thereness, mantric miniatures. Telectu at the height of their powers, still very early on, delivering an album-manifesto advocating intermedia art and the fierce independence of Portuguese musicians «from the scum of capitalist music industry monopolies. It’s a path to follow, albeit one that requires enduring hardships and retaliation from music industry gangsters.» Despite a few journalists deemed «capable of being free», the media are «enslaved by the dominant and fascist imbecility of the speculators of light music.» Off Off is addressed to those journalists «and to an audience angry at the cultural misery imposed upon us ..., certain that this music will open new horizons of musical pleasure in the conception of Portuguese avant-garde music, and in the open consciousness of us all. OFF OFF repeats Freedom.»

Those two words are a direct lift from Alberto Arbasino’s 1968 book Off Off, the basis of which is a critical analysis of Theodor Adorno’s and Dwight MacDonald’s ideas concerning the stratification of culture in different levels (high, mid and low) and the pervasiveness of mass culture in the form of a culture industry. In very simplistic terms, and that is precisely the point that inspired Jorge, Arbasino argued that it was possible and desirable to effect a revolution from below, cultivating alternative circuits completely cut-off from what he termed the in-in reality. Telectu’s record was a deliberate demonstration that it could be done, displaying Freedom in the face of all the gatekeepers and other human obstacles.

Futurismo are proud to present the iconic 1982 debut album, Only Theatre of Pain, by gothic legends CHRISTIAN DEATH. Available on deluxe 2xLP, CD digipak.

Hailed as a masterpiece of it’s genre, and considered by many as ground zero for Deathrock, Only Theatre of Pain is a seminal work of unholy power and pitch black emotion. Whilst this record may have it’s roots in punk - the origins of this true original version of Christian Death took place in Southern California during the early 80’s hardcore explosion - it cannot be overstated how important this record was in shaping the subsequent landscape. Emerging like an adrenaline shot into the heart of darkness, this unrestrained and mysterious recording still remains unclassifiable.

Featuring the late visionary Rozz Williams (then only in his teens) alongside punk luminary Rikk Agnew (guiding light in the Adolescents), James McGearty and George Belanger, Only Theatre of Pain’s musical exploration is adorned with psychosexual lyricism and an innate struggle with faith. Rozz’s vocals creep and possess, demonic and haunting, against the captivating, unmistakable guitar work of trailblazer Agnew. It’s a performance, but also a truth, perhaps Only Theatre of Pain is an art show, as much as it is an era defining record.
Aside from their spellbinding sound, it may have also been the lore of Christian Death that set them apart from other LA goth bands of the time. A near-nude Rozz Williams nailed to a cross at the Whiskey a Go Go may have played a part, but what it is apparent when you listen to the unhallowed musical stages on Only Theatre Of Pain is a depth of vision and orchestration that goes beyond the simple stance of brooding many of their contemporaries emulated, delving into the realms of pure unadulterated catharsis. The result is an eradefining statement that remains as unsettling, innovative, and resonant today as it was over four decades ago.

Only Theatre Of Pain is presented here in a new remastered deluxe pressing with a second disk containing early demo’s and rare material, further demonstrating why Christian Death stood alone in their sound and approach. This journey of religious depravity, recorded by the legendary producer Thom Wilson in a matter of days, harnesses the huge concepts of band projecting older than their years. Ahead of the curve in sonic artistry and visual aesthetics, this slab of sacrilegious American punk is nothing short of essential listening for the gothic inclined. A must for fans of The Misfits, Bauhaus and The Cramps.

This classic LP comes in deluxe super limited edition ‘California Hell’ coloured vinyl and contains a second disk of bonus material. It is packaged in a gloss laminated sleeve with metallic ink, containing printed inner sleeves, a large fold out poster, redux artwork featuring the photography of Edward Colver, and liner notes by Lisa Fancher of Frontier. Also available as CD digipak

Futurismo are proud to present DEVO’s NITROUS NIGHTMARE, Halloween Live ‘75. Never before released, or heard in it’s entirety, this legendary live performance is presented here in it’s full chaotic glory on limited edition 2xLP and 2xCD. The live release all hardcore Devo fans have been waiting for, Nitrous Nightmare demonstrates a band harnessing their artistic greatness in the purest of forms. This mythic performance captures Devo perfecting some of their most iconic concepts in the raw. Expertly restored, this live recording makes for a thrilling experience, it also captures Devo as a lightening rod for hostility. On Halloween 1975, Devo took the stage at the WHK Auditorium in Cleveland, in a supporting capacity for jazz legend Sun Ra, to perform for a raucous crowd dressed in the finest of Halloween cliché. Already riding high on Nitrous Oxide and booze supplied by the sponsoring radio station, this unaware horde was expecting to see a slick cover band churning out renditions of Bad Company hits, only to be subjected to an act of subversive performance art that would send the growingly aggravated crowd into eventual meltdown. Physical threats ensued, but Devo played on. Acting as a live companion release to Futurismo’s much lauded Art Devo, the tracklist featured here showcases the origins of de-evolution theory in a live setting. These songs would become some of their most famous material, with this recording believed to be the very first time ‘Jocko Homo’ was performed in front of a live audience; the full 12 minute version documented here is sure to please fans, even if it displeased the urban hippies and horror masked onlookers that evening. Whilst Devo may have felt they were trapped inside a negative energy vortex during that era, it is clear in retrospect that the band was using this energy to carve out the genesis of a sonic and visual art that has truly stood the test of time. The music performed that evening would mutate culture for decades to come, long after the denizens of the auditorium packed away their cheap vampire costumes and returned to their day jobs. Spanning 2xLP’s of unreleased live material, most of which has never been heard before, this wondrous performance draws purely from that integral early history. Mixed and mastered directly from recordings kept in the bands personal vaults, this live collection showcases why Devo was, and still is, one of the most important bands in American history. De-evolution is real. The art of DEVO is real. Here is the evidence. This 2xLP is housed in a gloss laminated wide spined sleeve. It has a tracklist that has been sourced directly from the archives, and contains colour inner sleeves and a fold-out containing archival imagery and liner notes by Gerald V Casale.

Cloud Machines is the extraordinary debut collaboration between M.C. Schmidt of legendary electronic duo Matmos and John Berndt, the Baltimore avant-garde institution and band leader behind High Zero Festival, the Red Room collective, Geodesic Gnome, and radical sonic concepts like Spectral Relay (a bespoke signal processing architecture) and Relabi (a conceptual genre defined by a Rorschach-blot pulse. These two iconoclasts have delivered something genuinely unexpected: an oddly sweet electronic opus that"s as immediately engaging as it is a series of delicious puzzles. When two of experimental music"s most irascible characters spend twelve years crafting an album, you don"t just get another release - it is an anthology of pocket universes. The record is a love letter to two of their strongest mutual influences of the 1980s - the delirious comic books of French auteur Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) and the beautiful miniatures of the SKY Records Cluster/Eno/Conny Plank collaborations. Cloud Machines honors the spirit of those ineffably "hermetic" creations by reinventing their legacy through the lens of decades of accumulated experimental practice and the duo"s singular creative personalities. The result feels simultaneously like rediscovering a lost classic from 1978 and receiving a transmission from an alternate, somehow better timeline in 2026. Yet unlike so much "difficult" experimental music, Cloud Machines maintains an uncanny and sneaky accessibility - each track a self-contained world, inviting and alien in equal measure.

Cloud Machines is the extraordinary debut collaboration between M.C. Schmidt of legendary electronic duo Matmos and John Berndt, the Baltimore avant-garde institution and band leader behind High Zero Festival, the Red Room collective, Geodesic Gnome, and radical sonic concepts like Spectral Relay (a bespoke signal processing architecture) and Relabi (a conceptual genre defined by a Rorschach-blot pulse. These two iconoclasts have delivered something genuinely unexpected: an oddly sweet electronic opus that"s as immediately engaging as it is a series of delicious puzzles. When two of experimental music"s most irascible characters spend twelve years crafting an album, you don"t just get another release - it is an anthology of pocket universes. The record is a love letter to two of their strongest mutual influences of the 1980s - the delirious comic books of French auteur Jean Giraud (AKA Moebius) and the beautiful miniatures of the SKY Records Cluster/Eno/Conny Plank collaborations. Cloud Machines honors the spirit of those ineffably "hermetic" creations by reinventing their legacy through the lens of decades of accumulated experimental practice and the duo"s singular creative personalities. The result feels simultaneously like rediscovering a lost classic from 1978 and receiving a transmission from an alternate, somehow better timeline in 2026. Yet unlike so much "difficult" experimental music, Cloud Machines maintains an uncanny and sneaky accessibility - each track a self-contained world, inviting and alien in equal measure.

Thirteen years later, building on everything they had learned about capturing the purest sound, Guttenberg returned to produce The Ultimate Demonstration Disc Volume 2. Designed to bridge the gap between technical terminology and the listening experience, this collection serves as a practical guide to the audiophile lexicon. On each track, Guttenberg "spells out" exactly what to listen for, providing clear musical examples of concepts like "transparency" and "soundstage depth." By using a custombuilt recording chain and avoiding dynamic range compressors, equalizers, or overdubbing, the album captures a "live" session exactly as the microphones heard it - resulting in a sound so neutral and natural that it can be used to reveal the subtle differences between high-end speakers, electronics, and cables.

'The Endless Dance' is the first collaborative album from Northern Irish producer and composer Hannah Peel and Chinese percussionist Beibei Wang. The record is grounded in the strength of ancient concepts, but comes alive with the joy and freedom of play as together, Peel and Wang travel through the 24 solar terms of the Chinese calendar with a cornucopia of sound in tow – synths and prepared piano alongside traditional and unconventional percussion.

The album is collaged together from recordings made over five days at legendary rural studio Real World, a setting which aligned with the duo’s inspiration from the natural world creating a permanent record of their shared musical landscape, informed by the flora and fauna that emerge and retreat through the seasons.

Both genre-defying, storied artists in their own right, Peel and Wang met while working on Manchester Collective’s 2023 album NEON and 'The Endless Dance' certainly represents a step-change from the duo’s shared classical backgrounds – but their knowledge and training is also the foundation of its freewheeling audacity, giving them the confidence to trust their instincts.

The album is produced by Mike Lindsay LUMP, Tunng, Guy Garvey, Jon Hopkins who, with free rein, brings added energy and creativity to the album, whilst Peel & Wang are also joined by Hyelim Kim on Daegeum, a Korean flute with “colourful overtones on every note”.

Track to track, 'The Endless Dance' is unpredictable and unexpected, which is in part due to the genuine curiosity and outside perspectives that each player brought to the sessions. “I am so familiar with Chinese heritage, but I don't see how it can present in electronics, for instance,” says Wang. “Hannah comes in with that direction, to imagine what the sounds could be together.” The characterful richness of the album stems from the commonalities they found in the sessions. “We both come from cultures where story is really important,” explains Peel. “The attention to detail comes from telling a story, and one note can set that off in a different direction.”

'The Endless Dance' is a major work from two accomplished, singular artists - but it’s also the sound of mutual curiosity and shared fun, or as Wang puts it: “Two women talking in totally different language that had a wonderful chat.”

Red Vinyl

Linea Aspera return with their second full-length LP, combining analogue production techniques with evocative emotional authenticity that ties themes of inherently human experience to cosmological concepts of physics and astronomy.

Orange is an unstill life, a bowlful of new White Fence concepts for guitar band, grown larger through thoughts, feelings/SONGS. Rock "n balladry play with genre in uncrowded space. Orange is KILLER POP thru clean lines of power, outlined with an emphatic/unalterable (minimalist) frame. Dark magik at its most bright! A trance-like chronology of consciousness/SONGS captained by producer Ty Segall in opalescent diamond tightness and ice fidelity.

Undun is the story of a man, Redford Stevens, dying in reverse, rewinding from the moment he became a statistic and hitting the points in his life where he's at his most self-aware. That he's a criminal who got caught up in the familiar street-hustle trappings that the modern media's documented countless times is a pivotal detail-- it's hit at an angle that seems to emphasize the futile inevitability of it all. His life could be any number of misdirected narratives that ends with a toe tag, and what details listeners learn about him are hazy, buried under archetypal turns of fate and decisive struggles. That this protagonist is a fictionalized composite of a handful of real people, filtered through a matter-of-fact narrative that splits character ambivalence with journalistic impartiality, only makes his lack of direction and the failure of any real closure stand out even more. "Lotta niggas go to prison," Dice Raw states on "Tip the Scale", "how many come out Malcolm X?"

So the Roots' latest album isn't a sprawling, rise-and-fall crime story, not a condemnation or a veneration of a man living outside the law, not a bullet-riddled grand guignol heavy on explicit details of soldiers getting cut down. It's a character study of a man whose existential crisis ends only with his death-- a death gone largely unspecified, the glamor and tragedy washed over with a doomed resignation. That's a hard thing to pull off, even for a band as given to deep-thinking concepts as the Roots are. And when your main lyrical catalyst is Black Thought-- a man more given to allusions than direct statements-- it's likely that it'll take a while for the full scope of Undun to really sink in.

If and when it does, it might strike listeners as a bit skeletal: omit the mood-setting instrumental bookends, including a brief, four-part orchestral suite that builds off Sufjan Stevens' "Redford (For Yia-Yia and Pappou)", and you've got maybe a half hour's worth of material. By ?uestlove's accounts, writing Redford's story introduced the headaches and challenges that come with scriptwriting into their songwriting, and what's left on Undun is the end result of frequent revisions and rewrites that attempt to reconcile character, theme, and continuity. If it comes at the expense of nuance, it's not always obvious: There's an easy-to-trace narrative line from Redford's acceptance of his fate ("Sleep") to his acknowledgement of how close it's approaching ("Make My"), back through declarations of aggravated toughness ("One Time"), and celebratory fatalism ("Kool On"), along ups and downs that juxtapose motivation ("Stomp") and helplessness ("Lighthouse"). When the vocal portion of the album ends with two of the bleakest sets of verses in the Roots discography, peaking with the estrangement of "I Remember" and the desperation of "Tip the Scale", Undun reveals itself as a story where a man's actual death isn't quite as tragic as the circumstances that pushed him to it.

Rather than yielding to despair in these troubled times and offering listeners a rope to hang themselves, Zimmermann (trombonist for Claude Nougaro, Manu Dibango, and Tony Allen) playfully grants them another option - a humorous sarcasm! He mocks the vain shelters of the powerful with the tune "My Little Sweet NZ Bunker", denounces the manufacture of one- track minds with "Les maximiseurs de PI", and escapism with the classic satirical Mose Allison's song "Stop This World (let me off" (translated and sung in French) In more tender moments, he reflects on the intimate consequences of this global unraveling.

Daniel Zimmerman's style, both as a composer and soloist, is that of a melodist above all else; disregarding concepts, he sings and seeks to go straight to the heart. He was voted 'Trombonist of the Year' by Jazz Magazine (Frances most influential jazz publication) in 2021, 2022, 2023 and 2024.

Emerging artist Beifer presents his highly anticipated debut album "constant.transition": an eclectic fusion of electronic music with strong influences from dubstep, garage and drum&bass, enriched with captivating jazz elements. This cross-genre work takes listeners on a journey through dark atmospheres and avant-garde soundscapes, brought to life by the artist's complex percussion layers and interesting chord structures.
With great experimentation and a desire to break new ground in electronic music, Beifer has created an album that captures the listener's attention with its unique textures and unconventional soundscapes. Each track is an exploration of musical possibilities, with Beifer masterfully blending a wide variety of genres while creating a cohesive and infectious atmosphere.

The album also features notable collaborations with renowned musicians. Wanja Slavin, Moritz Stahl (Ark Noir/Lyder) and vocalist Enji have collaborated with Beifer to add an additional dynamic and layered dimension to the album. Their unique talents and empathy blend seamlessly with Beifer's vision, opening up new worlds of sound for the listener. Beifer has managed to push the boundaries of electronic music and make an impressive artistic statement with his debut album.

"constant.transition" is the first release on the newly founded tunnel.visions label. Starting as a event-series, the three members of the electronic alternative experimental jazz band Ark Noir have made it their mission to present progressive, contemporary music that includes acoustic and electronic instruments, takes up compositional and improvisational concepts and thus breaks down the boundaries between academic and autodidactic practice.
Over the past year, Ark Noir has featured Beifer several times at concerts and brought the music of "constant.transition" to the stage with live instrumentation. The program was enthusiastically received by the audience.

Dr. John Chowning (b. 1934) is a pioneering computer musician, composer and professor who, in 1967, discovered the FM synthesis algorithm. This breakthrough in electronic music allowed for simple, yet rich timbres described as sounding "real." With this discovery, Chowning composed singular, dramatic electronic music and changed the timbre of music forever.

Chowning utilized the potential of computers to synthesize sounds according to programmed instructions. The composer's use of his own FM algorithms, digital synthesis with computers and the new compositional concepts offered by a programmable musical structure combine to create some of the most original and unique electronic music ever created.

The compositions on this LP were realized between 1966 and 1981 and the music on this LP, with the exception of Stria, was originally released on CD in Germany (Wergo, 1988). The version of Stria included here contains a section not included on the Wergo CD. Thus, this version of Stria is complete. This is the first time these purely digital recordings have been released on an analog medium. The original dynamics of these groundbreaking compositions have been preserved on this LP. As a result, listeners are advised to increase volume with caution.

In 1975, John Chowning founded the CCRMA - Center For Computer Research In Music and Acoustics at Stanford University. Through Stanford, Chowning licensed his groundbreaking algorithms to Yamaha resulting in numerous new instruments including the iconic DX series of keyboards. In 1972, his composition Tureens which is included on this LP, was the first to create the illusion of continuous 360-degree space using four speakers.

Technical Notes:

All pieces on this LP are originally quadrophonic. The illusion of moving sound sources is thus projected from the surrounding environment given by four loud-speakers on the stereo-basis.

STRIA was composed using Chowning’s own program to compile the musical structure into note-lists and MUSIC 10 (by D. Poole/Tovar) to generate the sounds in software-synthesis. The original quadrophonic version utilized 12 bits, two different sampling rates being used to accommodate the enormous amount of data on the magnetic disc-packs available at that time. The original sound-data was processed by sampling-rate conversion and digital mixes to achieve the stereo version presented on this LP.

SABELITH and TURENAS were synthesized originally using Smiths’ SCORE and MUSIC 10. However, their format was changed from direct sound-samples to a command stream for a special purpose computer, the System Concepts Digital Synthesizer, designed by Peter Samson, one of the first large-scale digital synthesizers for real-time sound processing - one was designed for CCRMA in the late seventies. For this recording the sounds were recorded directly from the synthesizer computing the samples in real-time.

PHONÈ was realized with the System Concepts Digital Synthesizer using again Chowning’s own program to create the note list.

The master tape of this LP was made directly from the computer system at CCRMA which generated and stored the sound data in digital format. No analog recording was involved at any stage of the production and editing process.

NYZ (David Burraston) presents this collection of generative music pieces carefully extracted from a PreenFM2 gifted to him by Aphex Twin. PRN2_M15t is being released at the same time as an LP titled Stria from Dr. John Chowning who invented the original FM synthesis algorithms which were sold to Yamaha and used in the creation of the DX series of keyboards. An interview with Chowning, conducted by David Burraston, will be published at the same time.

David Burraston is an award winning artist/scientist working in the areas of technology and electronic music, operating Noyzelab as an independent art/science music studio since 1981. Numerous research publications include a 2006 PhD thesis Generative Music & Cellular Automata, which developed and applied fundamental new concepts from generative music practice to a key problem in complex systems theory.

His experimental arts practice encompasses field recording, landscape-scale sound art, chaos/complexity, practice-based research, sound synthesis and electronic music. He performs, lectures, conducts workshops and creates art installations in Regional NSW and around the world. David also designs and builds sound synthesizers based on his theories of chaos/complexity science. He was recently interviewed by Bandcamp Daily and The Wire Magazine.

David has worked with many diverse collaborators such as Aphex Twin, Chris Watson, Doug Quin, Russell Haswell, Robin Fox, Oren Ambarchi, Sarah Last, Cat Hope, Garry Bradbury, William Barton, Alan Lamb, MIT Media Lab and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. In 2014 he independently published the legendary "SYROBONKERS!", the most technical and in-depth interview ever given by Aphex Twin.

In 1949 Miles Davis, Gerry Mulligan and Gil Evans - they'd never met before - gravitated together with the natural
affinity of kindred souls. Combined, they gave each other a spiritual boost that resulted in many all-night sessions of
earnest discussion, writing and playing-productive work on new musical ideas, new voicings, new concepts of jazz.
Their first appearance startled a delighted jazz public, and marked the birth of the cool. Today, these famous Miles
Davis instrumentals are as exciting as ever, and here are in all their glory.

Zürich-based musician Angelo Repetto returns with his new album Between Worlds: Interference, released on Subject to Restrictions Discs. The record is the result of a unique collaboration with Argentinian visual artist Clara Grabowiecki, extending their immersive live project Between Worlds into a sonic and tangible form.

«This album is a continuation of the deep conversations Clara and I had about concepts of perception that led us to question silence, time, transcendence, and the future», says Repetto. «It’s not about finding answers, but about opening spaces where sound, image, and emotion can flow freely.»

Between Worlds: Interference oscillates between hypnotic rhythms, kraut-inspired synth layers, and psychedelic atmospheres – hallmarks of Repetto’s style that listeners may recognize from earlier releases such as Sundown Explosion and Kamiokande. At its core it is an invitation into an open dimension where disciplines, experiences, and realities dissolve into one another. It is both a deeply personal statement and a collective journey into new perceptual spaces.

Logical Absurd is very proud to present the 20th Anniversary of the album "She And Me Fall Together In Free Death" by Nurse With Wound. "She and Me Fall Together in Free Death" is probably the most approachable, largely "musical" album that NWW has released since Rock N' Roll Station. It's also one of his strangest concepts, a marriage of trance inducing Krautrock grooves with a traditional jazz standard and some jarringly atonal musique concrete. Side A is the 20- minute title track: a slow-motion jam reminiscent of of one of Can's sidelong tracks on Tago Mago or the more avant-garde grooves of Tony Conrad and Faust's Outside the Dream Syndicate.

The propulsive Jaki Liebezeit drumbeat is the foundation for a long jam session with what sounds like a dijderidoo and layers of guitar feedback. It's a massive, heavy sound, the kind that Julian Cope would devote a whole chapter to in his "Kratrocksampler". Side B is one long piece with three distinct movements. Beginning with those familiar, World Serpent-trademark windchimes, the listener is quickly ushered into Staple- ton's singing debut (!) in a rendition of the oft-covered traditional jazz ballad "Black is the Color of My True Love's Hair" This was a favorite of the recently deceased Nina Simone, and also of the avant-jazz screamer Patty Waters. Nurse With Wound's version is backed by cello drones, repetitive guitar strums and tambourine, sounding very much like The Velvet Un- derground's "Venus in Furs".

It's such a treat to hear Steven Stapleton's multitracked vocals cover this classic song, and this eerie version rates as one of my favorites. This song and the title track prove to the naysayers that Nurse With Wound is equally adept at rock n' roll songcraft as he is at demented sound collages. The creepy jazz cover seques into "Chicken Con- cret (For Missy E)", a truly warped tape-edit job that juxtaposes chicken squawks and sythesized birdcalls with random bleeps, speaker hiccups and gongs.

Formerly one third of the much-loved trio Black Box Recorder, alongside The Auteurs’ Luke Haines and Jesus and Mary Chain guitarist John Moore, the British singer-songwriter Sarah Nixey has steadily gained acclaim as a solo artist who makes savvy, sophisticated and poised pop.

Delivering vocals with a detached elegance over opulent tracks, any perceived nonchalance in Nixey’s luxe, cut glass voice belies her empathy, where social commentary serves as protest, both explicit and implied. Like Billy Bragg deepfaked as prime Julie Andrews, this strange but effective juxtaposition radiates soft power. ‘Lies of the Land’ depicts a corrupt post-Brexit and Covid-19 world where inequality and division flourish. ‘England's On Fire’ delves into the nuanced concepts of patriotism and nationalism, and ‘Pleasure Bay’ narrates the story of a love affair with a deprived yet beautiful English seaside town, written after Nixey left London, drawn back to the Dorset coast.
More than just a political record though, Nixey was drawn to the poetic elements of living too, telling stories of life and death, love and loss, conflicts and symmetry, in an intimate and close-up way, as if whispering secrets to her listeners.

“Sea Fever explores the bittersweet beauty of human life amid a volatile world of changing seasons and brutal elements,” says Nixey. “These are songs of deep sorrow, remembrance, birth, and change, set against a backdrop of the sensuous natural world.”
‘Rolling Waves’ explores profound grief following her beloved grandmother's death, while ‘Spring Equinox’ celebrates the joy and awe of life after welcoming her first grandchild. ‘At the Edge of the Forest’ is a poignant story of someone losing their memory, and ‘On This Wide Night’ recounts the early hours return home of a teenage runaway.

Berlin-based Swiss vocalist Lucia Cadotsch returns with her celebrated Speak Low trio for their second album, released by We Jazz Records on 27 Nov. "Speak Low II" features Cadotsch on voice, Otis Sandsjö on tenor saxophone and Petter Eldh on double bass, and introduces guest artists Kit Downes on hammond organ and Lucy Railton on cello. "Speak Low II" picks up where their genre-bending and forward-looking debut album left off, introducing new shades into the band's sound and also diving even deeper into the songs they tackle. What makes Speak Low special is their approach to really get to the heart of each composition with seemingly minimal means, yet generating a sound which is both instantly recognisable and remarkably impactful.

"Speak Low II" comes almost five years after the band's lauded debut, and proves the depth of the band's approach right from the start. At the core of the trio's operation is an openness to their love of the music and to their surrounding scene(s). The album comes across as a unified collection of songs made truly theirs and found through listening to records and spending time with their musician friends, often on the road. The highly evolved band sound and the equality of the musicians shines through on the Speak Low sound, as the group uses their 100+ performances together as a vehicle for the development of their music.

"The first album was filled with pretty famous songs, but that was actually not at all intentional" explains Cadotsch. "Those were just my favourite songs of the previous 10 years and we started working on making them ours, musically. We were playing around with concepts for the second album, but soon realised that we just needed to find the right songs and adapt them organically, which comes through in how we interact with the songs and each other. This time around, we wanted to dig deeper and made finished arrangements of around 20 tracks, half of which we ditched in the process. The ones that made the cut have been through a lot and they just felt right for us."

In a way, the Speak Low approach could be described as archaeological. Three music lovers connecting with songs found at various sources, readily throwing away any ideas that don't seem natural to them, and hanging on tight to the ones that do.

Turns out there is a concept to "Speak Low II". It's the band itself, their shared musical development and their love of music.

"Speak Low II" will be available on We Jazz Records on vinyl (PURPLE and BLACK editions), CD and digitally. The vinyl versions come with a heavy duty tip-on sleeve and a printed inner sleeve. CD in digisleeve with no breaking plastic parts.

“There's a clarity here that feels hard-won. Honing ideas first explored with his Organic Music series, Tiago Sousa unlocks the final puzzle pieces on Sustained Tones Vol 1. This music is enchanted, the way each layer moves in conjunction with the others: complex structures that feel less constructed than discovered, like stumbling upon ancient mechanisms still whirring beneath the earth. "Readily Reliance" opens as an effervescent sea, waves gilded in neon creating an enveloping sense of eternal motion. Bright organ timbres throw silhouettes and cast Sousa as the deft puppeteer keeping everything moving with an effortless precision. These evolving shapes suspend listeners somewhere between the physical and the cosmic, held in place by nothing but intention and sound.

Drones build rippling foundations in other places, using slower tempos to construct immersive, off-kilter sound worlds where minimalism becomes emotive, almost poignant. The fluctuating tones have a gossamer sheen, creating this interesting sonic dichotomy: a solid surface with fragile rotations beneath. It's music that commands attention; it is so much more than simply aural furniture. Sousa writes these beautiful sequences that are all interconnected, intricate sonic architecture that pulls us further into some kind of unknowable ether.

On the piano pieces, "Smooth Flow Into It" and "Swirling Mist and Thin Dust," Sousa shines sunlight through all the cracks. Washes of melody are effervescent, clouds clearing to reveal the day has not gone. Not yet. Positioned in the middle of Sustained Tones Vol 1, these pieces ground the album in something transcendent yet still earthen: moments of breath inside all that cosmic drift. Darkness finds its way through on "Restlessness," where Sousa smears sinuous electronics into a ghostly sonic mesh that seeps through the skin. It feels like a slow inhale, time suspended long enough to take note of where we are and how we feel before moving forward. Expressive, almost sparkling synth arrangements return to send us back into reality on closer "Becoming a Landscape." Its title hints at larger concepts at play throughout this album, where lines between our physical beings and the wider environment are blurred. The tones that echo throughout these six pieces mirror the echoes inside our bodies, from heartbeats and voices to something quieter, something much smaller and more elemental. By immersing us inside these mesmerising, beautiful soundscapes, Sousa immerses us within ourselves.’’

Brad Rose, 2025

Peter Rehberg is known for his pioneering electronic work with computer software which over time evolved into a modular set up alongside running MEGO and then Editions Mego labels.

Rehberg was a prolific collaborator, with other musicians and with contemporary dance and theatre productions, most notably with French artist and choreographer, Gisèle Vienne with whom he created a series of soundtracks from Showroomdummies, released under the name DACM in 2002 (Showroomdummies MEGO 056), to Crowd in 2017. A collection of Rehberg’s solo works for Vienne was released in 2008 (Work for GV 2004-2008 EMEGO 092). The outfit KTL, with Stephen O’Malley, was initiated by Gisèle Vienne for her work Kindertotenlieder and subsequently made a series of soundtracks for Vienne’s works branching off into a prolific series of live shows. The work Rehberg did for theatre and performance teased out aspects of his practice one may not have encountered in his own solo work as PITA or that of collaborations with other musicians.

Editions Mego is proud to present a previously unreleased theatre soundtrack made for Icelandic choreographer Margrét Sara Guðjónsdóttir, whom Rehberg had a decade long collaboration with until his untimely passing in 2021. The original composition for Liminal States was created by Rehberg for the performance Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli in 2018 and then revisited as a catalyst for the concepts behind Liminal States. This work is based on an ongoing artistic research conducted by the choreographer into altered states of perception through phenomenological embodiment. It is the last in a trilogy dealing with the notion of larger forces that act on us beyond our conscious mind. The trilogy consists of Pervasive Magnetic Stimuli (2018), Boundless Ominous Fields (2024) and now Liminal States (2024).

Rehberg's score for Liminal States is a vast canvas of spectral ambience at once tangible and unfathomable in its constantly shapeshifting lysergic dread. The results are a psychological journey through the mental effects of sound on space and subsequently the mind. The first part presents cascading waves of shimmering electronics laying the groundwork for the second part where the psychological illusion splinters into all manner of sonic effects taking the listener on a deep mental voyage. If references are witnessed the late period long form hallucinatory works of Coil, such as Time Machines and Constant shallowness leads to evil, are amongst a similar mind message delivered here. Unlike any other release in Rehberg’s output Liminal States is a single long form work which, despite the form, retains Rehberg’s idiosyncratic sound vision.

Guðjónsdóttir and Rehberg’s collaboration blurs that relationship into a greater force which truly enables the theme of liminal states to unfold in a brave new fashion. Rich in timbre and sonic invention this is powerful work easily holding its own outside of the intended performance whilst still complimenting the missions statement entirely. This profound collaboration has the cumulative effect where the concept and soundtrack are one and may be one of the strongest works in the entire Rehberg canon.

EMEX is the emergent project of Modular Expansion. The "né.on" project expresses a contemporary retrofuturism that is based on current but simultaneously changing concepts of "the future". Retrofuturism embodies two overlapping trends that can be summarized as the future as seen from the past and the past as seen from the future.

Frontman Chris Reifert was already a well-known force on the underground through his time as drummer with Florida's highly respected death metal combo Death. After playing drums on the band's debut album, the much acclaimed 'Scream Bloody Gore', Chris moved back west to the more open climate of San Francisco & formed Autopsy. The band released the demo 'Critical Madness' in 1988 & it wasn't long before Peaceville Records snapped them up in a deal initially spanning 4 albums.

The partnership kicked off in April 1989 with their debut album 'Severed Survival'; a brutal explosion of heavy riffs, tight drumming & a screaming vocal, rounded off with concepts of death, disease & diabolica. This was swiftly followed up with the equally genre-defining 'Mental Funeral' opus in 1991. Released in the autumn of 1995, Autopsy's then fourth & final album before splitting, 'Shitfun', was a glorious scatological gross out & exercise in the limits of extremity & a fitting end to one of the finest bands of a Doomed generation before their return from the grave in 2009 which has continued to go from strength to strength to the current day. This thirtieth anniversary vinyl pressing of 'Shitfun' is presented on bowel- busting limited brown marble- effect vinyl, including the original cover art & printed inner sleeve.

In 2019, a brutal epileptic seizure changed my life - the first of more to come. I was forced into solitude, and in that quiet, music became my lifeline. In the following years, I poured everything I had into creating between you and me: a raw, DIY album that is a distillation of my lived experience during this time. The album explores emotional authenticity, freedom of expression, and acceptance: not as abstract concepts, but through visceral experiences that have fundamentally reshaped my art and my sense of self. As a listener, I invite you to explore your vulnerability by joining me in mine. This album is truly between you and me.

Ozzy Jones is a Dutch-Australian interdisciplinary artist whose music blends electronica with indie. Drawing from personal struggles and raw emotion after his seizures started, his debut album between you and me explores vulnerability, male identity, and authentic self-expression. Rooted in Amsterdam's vibrant creative scene, Ozzy's work fuses sound, visuals, and storytelling to create a deeply immersive and honest artistic experience.

Patami isn't a judo mat, an animal defense association or a kind of sausage. Patami is a concept unique to each individual and, above all, unique to singer Stanislas. Patami is a friend to all children. He's at their service, but he's also their king. For the audience, it's whatever they want it to be, as long as it's comforting! Patami is Astéréotypie's third album, an extraordinary musical adventure featuring post- punk, noise and electro sounds. There are also some lovely melodies. Patami will shake your heart with the myths, memories, concepts and rants of the four star MCs: Claire, Stan, Yohann and Aurélien, the greatest songwriters of the moment (a few guests are also expected)! In short, Patami is like nothing you've ever heard before, and what's more, it's a real comfort. Their previous record, Aucun mec ne ressemble à Brad Pitt dans la Drôme, released in the spring of 2022, was warmly received by the public and achieved great critical success. Since then, Astéréotypie has been playing headline shows and festivals all over France. The band's singularity has left its mark. After 10 years of existence, the collective has finally found its audience.

An’archives presents Kagome Kagome, the first collaboration between France’s Delphine Dora and Japan’s Ayami Suzuki. Curious listeners might know Dora from the string of lovely, idiosyncratic albums she’s released over the past two decades, most recently for labels like Modern Love, Morc and Recital; she’s also worked with the likes of Michel Henritzi and Sophie Cooper. Suzuki’s performances, predominantly for voice, place her within a tradition of Japanese improvised music – see the music she’s made with artists such as Takashi Masubuchi, TOMO and Leo Okagawa – but her approach also takes in folk song, ambience and claustrophobic drone.

On Kagome Kagome, Dora and Suzuki play to their many strengths: a gentle, free-willed folksiness; long, aerated drone constructs; ghostly, time-warping explorations for voice. They met on Dora’s May 2024 tour of Japan, though they’d been in touch beforehand, with Dora proposing the collaboration to Suzuki, developed around “concepts of ‘otherworldliness’ and ‘impermanence’,” the latter says, “and explored the relationship between ‘the invisible’ and sound in Japanese culture – a common interest we share.”

They recorded across several days that month, with the sessions for Kagome Kagome taking place in Kanumi, in Tochigi prefecture, at a space named Center. “I was particularly looking forward to seeing Delphine encounter the vintage 104-year-old harmonium from Nippon Gakki Seizo Co. that had just been repaired at Center,” Suzuki recalls. “It was as if the harmonium had been waiting for Delphine to draw sound from it. I felt it was a beautiful relationship where they could guide each other.”

Indeed, there’s something channelled about the music that Dora and Suzuki made together in the session that constitutes Kagome Kagome. Dora’s harmonium might be the spine of the album, but Suzuki’s free- floating voice, and gaseous, muddied banks of electronics, wrap around the wheezing, ancient tonality of the harmonium beautifully – they, too, sound as though they were just waiting to be willed out of the daytime air. Their voices nestle together beautifully – “when we sang together in a tunnel,” Suzuki says, “there were times when we sang the exact same melody without planning. It happened so naturally that the boundaries between us became blurred.”

And that title? It’s drawn from a Japanese children’s song, and the song titles themselves constitute the song’s lyrics, in alternating Japanese (Romanized) and French language. Urban legend connects the song “Kagome Kagome” to the Nikko Toshogu Shrine, nearby Center, that Suzuki and Dora visited while they were in Kanumi. “The mysterious lyrics of ‘Kagome Kagome’ and its puzzle-like connection to Nikko Toshogu were a perfect fit for this mysterious album,” Suzuki reflects, “which I think has its own kind of puzzle-like elements.”

A deep album of prayer and magic, of divination and ritual, Kagome Kagome’s sense of serious play, its rich beauty, feels somehow dislocated from our time. If you’ve ever enjoyed the music of Nico, Kendra Smith, Charalambides, or other channelers of ghostly mystery, its eerie otherness will, somehow, feel oddly familiar.

Esoteric Warfare is the fifth full-length studio album by Norwegian black metal band Mayhem. It was released by Season of Mist on 6 June 2014 in Europe and Asia, and on 10 June 2014 in North America. It is the band's first album with Teloch on guitar since Blasphemer's departure from the band in 2008. As with the previous album, the lyrics focus less on the classically Satanic themes of the band's early work, instead referring to occult and conspiracy theory concepts such as psychic powers, mind control and alien tampering with human evolution. (For instance, the song "Corpse of Care" appears to be a direct allusion to Bohemian Grove and the Cremation of Care ceremony performed there.)

Buh Records presents "El tiempo quiere cantar" ("Time Wants to Sing") the debut album by Pacha Wakay Munan, a duo formed by Peruvian musicians and researchers Dimitri Manga Chávez and Ricardo López Alcas. This album explores the sonic possibilities of pre-Hispanic instruments in a contemporary musical context. Through their performance, they explore their tonal possibilities, the interaction between their frequencies, and their ability to generate new dialogues. The work of Pacha Wakay Munan aligns with the tradition of sound explorers such as the Peruvians Arturo Ruiz del Pozo and Luis David Aguilar or the Colombians Yaki Kandru. The album's repertoire consists of pieces that explore diverse sonorities and musical concepts. "Pacha Wakay Munanqa" introduces the timbral variety of the instruments used. "El Taki Onkoy" draws inspiration from historical accounts and the meaning of its name ("Sick Song"), based on a Culina chant documented by Rodolfo Holzmann. It features vocals by the experienced singer Ximena Menéndez. "Mundo Posible" is a reinterpretation of an improvisation session with musicologist Chalena Vásquez Rodríguez, where the piano dialogues with ceramic antaras. Other pieces delve into the sonic construction of these instruments in relation to their cultural contexts. "Machu Tara" explores the concept of tara, a rough and vibrant sound quality found in certain Andean musical traditions. "Túpac Huaca" references the Huaca Aliaga in Lima, creating a sound palette where pututos, whistling vessels, and quenas converge. "Agua, Cuarzo y Viento" introduces quartz sikus and bowls tuned to different frequencies, evoking the interaction between natural elements and resonant vibrations. In the piece "Qinray Tema", Camilo Angeles plays the metal transverse flute, creating a contrast with the pre-Hispanic ceramic flutes and pelican bone flutes.

Resolution Alley is the musical vision of Jason Wilson, a musician and composer hailing from Maryland. The music combines 80's pop and rock melodies with progressive rock concepts, creating a unique but strangely nostalgic sound. Jason performs extensively throughout the Baltimore / Washington, DC area. From the smallest clubs to the Kennedy Center, Jason has shared the stage with some of the biggest names of stage, screen and music. Resolution Alley combines the influence of a career in rock and theater into a distinctive creation. Resolution Alley is getting ready to release their brand-new album Pieces of Never which contains the catchy first single "The B-Side" and follow up "You Are". Jason Wilson has crafted a wonderful release with just the right amount of balance between Rock and Prog which is sure to capture the ears of folks who like something familiar yet new. So if you like your music with big hooks and interesting arrangements and instrumentation then Resolution Alley has cooked up just what you ordered with Pieces of Never.

Salamanda is the collaborative alias of South Korean producer/DJ duo, and close friends, Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda). Together they create avant-garde electronic music inspired by minimalist concepts, harmonious rhythms and the work of American composer Steve Reich.

Across the eight tracks of Sphere, their debut for Small Méasures, the pair conjure spherical worlds inspired by bubbles, refracting light and planet earth. Soundscapes laden with percussive elements ebb and flow as arpeggiated stanzas cede to misty synths and shimmering plates, conjuring images of solitary temples sat in vast open plateaus.

“For Sphere, we came up with an abstract concept and image to explore more diversity and encourage imagination. Each track is related to different kinds of sphere we found or imagined. From the big round planet embracing every creature to dancing little bubbles underwater, fragments of ideas floating around, exploding tomatoes, and movement of lights flashing and tickling the eyes…

Or the tracks can be about completely different types of spheres in other people's perspective. We hope Sphere can unleash the imagination and take you on a delightful journey of music.’’

Ghetto Cycle is the soundtrack of Charlie P’s life, set to music by O.B.F.

Meeting up with Charlie P and Rico from O.B.F in a studio is like diving into a particle accelerator operating at full speed. Lively, hyperactive, hardworking, Southend’s MC and the greatest warrior of French sound systems just can’t stay put.

Their creativity works continuously: riddims, melodies, lyrics, clip concepts and other fantasies spurt out at top speed. These common traits allow them to produce explosive collaborations, both on stage and in the studio.

After the success of the singles “Dub Controler” and “Sixteen Tons of Pressure”, the launch of an album became self-evident. Coming from a modest background in a remote London suburb, Charlie P has been through a lot before understanding that his passion for music could be a vehicle for emancipation. It is this life trajectory, punctuated by difficulties, pitfalls, hard work, encounters and challenges that he tells through the tracks of “Ghetto Cycle”.

Conceived as a concentrate of joint influences, this album gathers tracks in the purest digital dub vein, but also reggae, dance or downright grime. A new stage in the development of their collaboration.

Alanis Morissette Delivers the Equivalent of a Spiritual Awakening on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie:
Introspective Themes and Compassionate Emotions on Eastern-Tinged Album Have Grown More Relevant
1998 Smash Plays with Enhanced Detail, Rich Textures, and Sharp Focus on Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM 2LP Set:
First-Ever Audiophile Edition Strictly Limited to 3,000 Numbered Copies
1/2" / 30 IPS analogue master to DSD 256 to analogue console to lathe

Alanis Morissette refuses to adhere to convention on Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. While most artists follow-up their breakthrough with an album that closely parallels the approaches that helped make them famous, the maverick singer-songwriter stayed true to herself and drew inspiration from travel to India before she began the recording sessions. As much as the preceding Jagged Little Pill put her on the global radar, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie confirmed her role as a vital generational voice — and proved her blockbuster success was no fluke. Having set a mark for most sales of an LP in its debut week by a female artist, the 1998 smash remains a pop-rock staple.

Sourced from the original master tapes, strictly limited to 3,000 numbered copies, housed in a Stoughton jacket, and pressed at Fidelity Record Pressing, Mobile Fidelity’s 180g 33RPM 2LP set of Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie presents the triple-platinum LP in audiophile sound for the first time. Benefitting from defined grooves that befit the album’s nearly 72-minute length, this pressing plays with enhanced detail, refined clarity, sharper focus, and broader dynamics than prior versions.

Those traits are key given Morissette’s use of more textured and atmospheric soundscapes, not to mention her evolution into a more nuanced and controlled singer. Similarly, the scale and reach of David Campbell’s string arrangements come across as orchestrations should. Ditto the synth-based architecture shaped by producer and principal Morissette collaborator Glen Ballard. All in all, Mobile Fidelity’s collectible edition simply delivers more information via transparent means.

Notable for its balance, sophistication, and richness, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie at heart finds Morissette pausing, taking a breath, and learning how to navigate life in a healthy manner after enduring one of the most exhausting and rocket-to-fame stretches any musician ever experienced. It’s the sonic equivalent of a spiritual awakening, a call to betterment, a brave assessment of the self and humanity as a whole. As such, the tunes on her second international (and fourth Canadian) release teem with gratitude, compassion, love, empathy — emotions that lend themselves to the largely mellow, contoured scope and Eastern-tinged melodies of the songs themselves.

“How ‘bout how good it feels to finally forgive you,” Morissette sings on the lead single “Thank U.” “How ‘bout grieving it all one at a time.” Those sentiments, and the vocalist’s embrace of concepts such as divinity and acceptance, not only provide a foundation on which Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie rests. They also reflect the personal maturation she gained from her embrace of Buddhist culture in India and a mindset bent toward notions of reconciliation, peace, and sensuality that were nearly absent in popular music in the late ‘90s.

Those themes continue on “That I Would Be Good,” a confident reflection that takes stock of one’s mental, physical, and emotional state in the face of both changing and unpleasant circumstances — and concludes with Morissette performing a flute solo, further exposing the raw intimacy of the introspective tune. She channels relatable simplicity and joy on “So Pure,” with her invocations of “dance” and “freestyle” speaking to the freedom of expression that courses throughout Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie. And perhaps no song finds Morissette showcasing her refreshed attitude toward life and opening up more than the relationship-themed “Unsent,” whose unconventional structures and lack of a chorus only add to its directness.

Akin to many albums that were ahead of their time, and despite the critical and commercial accolades afforded it upon release, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie attracted new appreciation and perspective as it got older. Issued during an era where its ideas of serenity, absolution, tranquility, and contentment seemed largely alien, the record — akin to the ways its predecessor foreshadowed a movement — now functions as a visionary beacon that foretells of way to maintain sanity, dignity, and goodness amid a contemporary landscape filled with constant distractions, polarizing views, and incessant calls to purchase, promote, and produce without questioning the what-for purpose.

Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie dares to ask the questions and, at its best, supplies meaningful answers and alternatives that lead to longed-for enlightenment, healing, and laughter. For these reasons alone, it’s a record that never goes out of style.

Iori Wakasa, one of the leading lights of the Tokyo club scene is set to release his second 12” from his own label, “BOTANICA” which he established to express his own primal sensibilities.

The Concept of the Label:
Tokyo-based DJ/producer, Iori Wakasa launched BOTANICA to assert that his label’s activities in itself is art and a palette for his creative, self-expression. It is also based on 2 main concepts: To integrate the sensibilities of both "nature" and “artificial and human activities" and to “contribute music that presents a scenery from the listener's point of view”.

For Iori, his label is an interface of some sort and is also a symbol of his own personal musical expectations.

Iori produced these 2 new tracks during the recent pandemic when the world was under severe restrictions. While taking into account and focusing on both 'his current outlook' and returning to “the roots of his own production aesthetic', he strived to produce something that would substitute it and as a result, created these two new tracks and the artwork that are presented in the label's second release, 'The Party Is Here EP’.

In this EP, he also attempts to express the sentiment that 'the experience that music provides to people is invaluably infinite' and that 'if you truly want to go out and party, it will happen, then and there!’.

About the tracks:
For the track, ’Bedroom Disco’, Iori tries to express his memories of 'a virtual night of partying’ that he experienced during Covid and created this track while being ‘in a state of wanting to break free from oppression’ and reminiscing about a party in a bedroom at night.

He also wanted to express the idea that no matter what situation or environment you are in, you can go to anywhere you want if you really want to and with that sentiment, he wanted to express a scenerio that transcends it and at the same time, he also wanted to convey his feelings of nostalgia for the past, rebellion against the environment and his feelings of desire.

For this track, Iori did not use any sampled voices or field recordings and created it by layering pure sonic imagery repeatedly folded and desolved which triggered the creation of new developments while imagining the thought that “a party actually begins when you step out” and the swaying of emotions that take place from it.

’Tropica' is a track that Iori produced by heavily mixing a utopian feel that people have inside of them with his own sensuality and is designed to ‘guide you to a tropical seaside', regardless of what the listener may have experienced in the past.
Unlike 'Bedroom Disco', this track uses a variety of samples and envisages "many elements intertwining with each other, working together to create this sound structure”. And it also expresses that equal opportunity exists for anyone who wants to visit an imaginary tropical land as well as the hope that even a brief break of the mind can be created by yourself and those close to you, if one pursues it.

About the artwork:
The cover of this new EP, the concept text 'Is your window open?', and the label's logo was designed by illustrator, HILOSHI SHINOZAKI who also worked on the first release, BOTANICA EP. For over 10 years, he has been a regular visitor of Hawaii, where he tries to cultivate his "true way of life” in his art.

And, artwork for the cover and label design of the EP is complemented by the label design and art direction of the record by hiro, a graphic designer who has been his partner and best friend since the first Botanica EP.
hiro expresses Bedroom Disco track's shifting compositional changes and its complex series of sound waves by creating an intricately multi-layered design that is a perfect representation of the way he sees it.
Also initially inspired by the fluctuations of waves, islands, sun, rays, sky and time, the artwork of Tropica also found inspiration from a drawing that made by Iori’s daughter who drew a picture of a scenery when she listened to the track. So through this design, one of the label’s concept of “the label’s activities is in itself art” was realised via the surprising contribution coming from his own family.

All Demilich demo material plus recordings from 2006 in a snappy double LP package. Compiled together with the band, this is the ultimate Demilich demo compilation. In the late days of the early life of death metal in the early nineties, the death metal "community" had strayed from an appreciation of the majestic possibilities of sound, and were making a mundane product instead. They wanted the most "brutal" sound so the largest crowd could hear it, consider themselves "extreme," and go back to work with a hangover. This made the music escape its tiny audience, but killed off exploration as well. In addition, it was defensive and under-confident, feeling its chops lagged behind the rock, blues and jazz genres. Stagnation struck even as the genre accelerated. Enter the dark horse, Demilich. These inventive Finns reintroduced amazement at the possibilities of music. Where most people look at a forest and see wood for sale, a death metal fan after Demilich sees an intricate organism in itself, with the smallest details corresponding to the broadest concepts. The labyrinthine riffs of Demilich corresponded to a worldview that saw the connection between details as a design, and a design as conferring a purpose to life, cycling between birth and death as it spelled out the cryptic intricacies of ancient mysteries.