Cerca:the techniques

Following their critically acclaimed 2019 debut album Unfurl, Hidden Notes Records are happy to announce the release of the multi-award-nominated experimental/contemporary folk string duo Fran & Flora’s sophomore full-length album, Precious Collection. Released on Friday 12th April 2024, this album, produced by the duo themselves, explodes in myriad directions expressing the richness of the long-standing collaboration between Francesca Ter-Berg (cello/vocals/electronics) and Flora Curzon (violin/vocals/electronics). With Klezmer and Yiddish song as the predominant inspiration for the record, Precious Collection defies convention, featuring self-penned tunes and unique arrangements pushing their ground-breaking project beyond their virtuosic string playing. Drummers Ursula Russell (Snapped Ankles, Alabaster DePlume) and Simon Roth (Chris Potter, Alice Zawadzki, Adrian Dunbar) feature on the record on full kit and Ukrainian Poik (marching drum) respectively, and Francesca and Flora experiment with bowed cymbals, extended piano techniques, and samples of found sounds.The album was recorded in three different locations - Total Refreshment Centre (London), Big Jelly Studios (Ramsgate) and Great North Sound Society (Maine, USA). The music of Fran & Flora sits in two camps, both steeped in tradition, with material drawn directly from archival recordings, recovered manuscripts and years of study with traditional music masters, whilst simultaneously garnering a contemporary and avant-garde aesthetic, speaking to the more classical and experimental listener. Fran & Flora inject their source material with drones, loops, free improvisation and electronics to create a ‘border-defying’ (Mojo) sound. Their influences range across a wide spectrum of artists and composers from Silver Mt.Zion to Rhiannon Giddens, Lankum, Brìghde Chaimbeul, Colin Stetson, Adrienne Lenker, Shabaka Hutchings and Mica Levi. As string players Fran & Flora’s collaborations together and separately includes performing with the likes of Tom Skinner, Portico Quartet, Imogen Heap, Riz Ahmed, Sam Lee, Talvin Singh, Jocelyn Pook, Hannah Peel and The Vernon Spring. Within the global Klezmer community they have worked with Zoe Aqua, London Klezmer Quartet, Sashe Lurje, Craig Judelman, Merlin & Polina Shepherd and Frank London, and have taught at Klezmer music camps including at Klezfest London, contributing to ongoing research and revival work.

Utilising a mammoth bank of saxophone samples, Shmuel Hatchwellpresents his new alias hoyah with an engrossing album captured in tape and digital form on Bruk.

The process leading to Set + Setting started out with a need for limitations to provide some focus for long-serving sound engineer and producer Hatchwell. He set out the following guidelines to accompany the overarching idea of 'set + setting':

No 'beats'
Saxophones are the voice
Stay away from the computer for as long as possible

Hatchwell took a deep dive in search of every saxophone sample he could find, threw them all into his MPC and then proceeded to weave together a variety of pieces. The focus on a particular instrument brings cohesion to the album, but equally the limited sound inspired freedom to experiment with other techniques and tools. At times one or two sax voices sound naked and undisturbed, while elsewhere you might only hear jagged shards or distant ghosts as they pass through aggravated processing.

Beyond the sound itself, the name hoyah was born with the flippancy of the 21st Century and ratified by ancient tradition. After the music had been made, After the music had been made, Hatchwell plucked the name out of thin air as a play on the TikTok meme 'can I get a hoya,' and subsequently discovered on a dive into his Jewish heritage that in old Hebrew hoyah means, 'to be, become, come to pass, exist, happen, fall out.' This distinction between Jewish concepts and modern political conflations is important to Hatchwell, who finds himself consistently having to separate Judaism from the situation in the Middle East and its ongoing genocide.

Subtly calling to mind the understated cosiness of real-life sax players like Sam Gendel as well as the fragmented sample manipulation of Matmos and Tim Hecker's approach to processed noise, hoyah's debut album absolutely manifests an idea and musical practice as something new and intentional

Amsterdam's Alex Ranzino joins Phoq U Phonogrammen, the 26-year-old sublabel of U-TRAX, with the 'Ride Da Perc' EP. The Utrecht-based imprint welcomes the fast-rising producer following stints on underground labels such as Revenge Techniques and Clone, coming in hot on the heels of its own recent Phoq U release featuring Detroit's Rebecca Goldberg. Alex Ranzino kicks things off with the title track of his 'Ride Da Perc' EP, rocking punchy 909s and spacious, undulating strings. The Advent shows a different side to the track in his remix, still alien-like in nature but demonstrating a sense of dark, mysterious hypnotism through incessant groove and deep pulsating synth work. On the flip side of the 'Ride Da Perc' EP, Ranzino drops 'Acid Groove', a track that proves the age-old fact that b-sides should never be ignored. It's got pumping 303s and ceaseless rhythm, marked by a subtle but masterful house touch. Next up, 'Alienated' rolls on as the perfect warehouse party starter before 'Machine Geweld' closes out the EP as a real late-night mind-melter, already in heavy rotation in Alex's sets at Dutch institutions like BRET, WAS, Intercell and De School.

Zurich bass guitarist and composer Martina Berther is known for her delicious basslines in experimental rock outfits Ester Poly and AUL. On this solo debut, she conjures something utterly unique from her instrument.

'Bass Works' showcases Berther's talent and ingenuity across 12 startlingly varied one-take compositions. Taking root in improvisation, the collection unfolds like a playbook of strange and beautiful techniques.

Voided melodies, harmonics and surfaces that prickle and collapse in solitude and wonder; Berther's bass is a Geiger counter, etching the contours of abandoned landscapes and forgotten languages.

Recommended if you like the alien transmissions of Éliane Radigue, Mica Levi, Olivier Messiaen.

Miles Davis' boundlessly influential On the Corner was so far ahead of its time upon release in 1972, the jazz cognoscenti rejected its groundbreaking concoction as middling in nature. Yet time has a way of righting wrongs and shifting views by adding needed context and perspective to visionary ideas, music, and approaches — the likes of which fill Davis' boldest and most controversial — undertaking. Designed to bring the focus back on the groove and bottom-end frequencies, the funk-loaded On the Corner revolutionized jazz. It also set new standards for record production, presaging remixing and electronica by more than a decade. And the work has never sounded more thrilling thanks to this very special pressing.

Sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on MoFi SuperVinyl, Mobile Fidelity's numbered-edition 180g 33RPM SuperVinyl LP of On the Corner exposes the internal mechanisms, free-associated playing, and then-unmatched studio techniques in vivid fashion. The low end, crucial to every composition here, is both heard and felt, with locked-in bass lines and low-range percussion conveyed as taut, solid, and visceral passages. You can discern the multiple layers of rhythm Davis employed on complex tracks such as "Black Satin," as On the Corner stands as his first effort to use overdubbing and multiple tape machines. As a pioneer, Davis likely would’ve loved MoFi’s groundbreaking SuperVinyl profile that features the lowest-possible analogue noise floor as well as pristine transparency, dead-quiet surfaces, and superb groove definition.

New degrees of spaciousness and airiness — equally important to the musique concrete arrangements — give the impression Davis and Co.'s creations float in space. Instruments are portrayed in three-dimensional manners, rhythmic loops retain tonal purity, and horn solos skitter across an extra-wide soundstage that takes listeners into Columbia's Studio E. Mobile Fidelity's SuperVinyl LP captures Teo Macero's innovative production — and the trumpeter's cutting-edge aural collages — in definitive fashion.

Heavily inspired by Sly and the Family Stone, On the Corner portrays street vibes and remains Davis' Blackest-sounding record. The conscious attempt to connect with youthful audiences tapped into rock and funk is evident not only on the colorful cartoon cover art depicting hot-pants and zoot-suit revelers, but in the music's emphasis of recurring drum and bass grooves. Distinct from Davis' earlier fusion experiments, the record's long-misunderstood set dials back improvisation in favor of beats, loops, and atmospherics that generate trance-like effects. While Davis utilizes his band for core duties — Chick Corea and Herbie Hancock prominently figure — he also relies on an all-star cast of side-men for concentrated soloing and additional support.

With rhythm providing the basic foundation, other notes fall into place, with their positioning steered by Macero and Davis' editing-room techniques. Looking to the manipulation-based work of Karlheinze Stockhausen and teaming with Stockhausen disciple Paul Buckmaster, Davis re-imagines what grooves constituted and could accomplish throughout On the Corner. The shapes of the songs become completely transformed as they progress. Faint melodies, spacey chords, chunky riffs, wah-wah fills, and repeated motifs bounce in and out of a sonic funhouse that wouldn't be out of place at a Harlem block party.

Exotic, intrepid, and filled with Davis' "jungle sound," On the Corner remains daringly hip more than four decades later.

"For his fourth full length album, we see the proficiency of instrumentalist and composer Prins Emanuel in full bloom as he turns head deep into the techniques he established on the preceding outing of Diagonal Musik. Here, he revisit what he refers to as a diagonal approach in composing; i.e. starting at one point and then moving to the farthest point in the process, as a way for him to connect the dots somewhere in the middle, or - like I previously described it for the liner notes of that album - “something akin to drawing only shadows and then finishing with the contours”.
And in the tradition of great sequels, this is a much larger and intricate production. While relying on the guitar as a formative backbone to many songs, the layering of brass and woodwinds houses these compositions in bold and sharply lit structures. Mallets and percussion adds an air of momentum but also grounds these tracks in earthy hues.
Thawed and gracious, Diagonal Musik II in essence creates a space that bridges the various paths of Prins Emanuel’s musical universe. At once post-minimalist and avant garde in nature while also peeking through the door at both IDM and folk music, the lingering sensation is that of a well balanced palate that doesn’t break under the presence of repetition. Enveloped in a fourth world approach to jazz and incorporating the more contemplative side of post punk or art pop, there is a story hidden in here that gives cause to the appropriation of these influences.
The inherent warmth of certain instruments play their part in this story. Emanuel often builds on the notion of ‘organic music’ but broadens the definition via subtle electronic enhancements that sit naturally alongside their acoustic counterparts. Take for instance the voice emulator sequence that opens “Kadens Tre” and is dashed on by guitar slides and flute drills to roll further down a hill of staccato percussion. A few tracks in, the lines are so blurred it becomes a natural state until the harsh and eerie sample loops of closing track “Östan Vind” finally breaks the spell. ”

'Pussy Plays Again' the follow up album to the original 1969 classic is finally here. The original 'Pussy Plays' album was released in 1969. That album had a psychedelic and freaky, fuzz n' wah-wah guitar with swirling keyboards and a classic '60s production loaded with all the studio effects of the era. Pussy Plays is undoubtedly also one of the most obscure and beautiful psychedelic albums of the 1960s.

So here at last, after 55 years, the follow-up album to that first hugely iconic British Psych album, 'Pussy Plays'. The original Pussy drummer Steve Townsend and ex-Iron Maiden guitarist Bob Sawyer, along with friends Paul Jackson and Rick Cullen, came together for the follow up album 'Pussy Plays Again'. The recording techniques were basic, the sound is lo-fi, and where this is less than puurrrfect, we believe the quality of the music itself and the imagination and creativity shine through.

Some artists embrace their success by repeating the steps that originally granted them fame. Billy Joel did the opposite, refusing to be contained by prescribed approaches or constrained by a given label. The follow-up to the breakthrough The Stranger, 52nd Street further expands on its predecessor's bold production techniques and inventive arrangements, incorporating more sophisticated textures as well as reflecting a jazz edge gleaned from New York City's thriving club scene.

A key piece of Mobile Fidelity's Billy Joel catalogue restoration series, 52nd Street is here sourced from the original master tapes and pressed on 45RPM 180g LP at RTI. The wider and deeper grooves – as well as the meticulous mastering – yield resplendent dynamics, broad soundstages, three-dimensional perspectives, and tonal balances absent from prior editions. This is how you want to experience the 1978 LP that captured the Grammy Award for Album of the Year.

Teaming again with producer Phil Ramone, Joel capitalizes on his momentum, churning out another direct-sounding affair replete with captivating melodic devices, showmanship accents, and penetrating lyrics. The singer's concision and focus is evident via the tune's lengths, with only "Until the Night" breaking the six-minute mark. Hit singles "Big Shot" and "My Life" rattle forth with an urgency and intensity that Joel had not previously demonstrated, the combination of passionate deliveries, snide overtones, and insistent grooves setting the table for what follows.

Broadening his palette, and drawing from New York's thriving jazz club scene and the city's late-70s grit, Joel splashes Latin and jazz colours on several pieces, employing veterans such as Dave Grusin and Freddie Hubbard to contribute along with a cast that includes a team of background vocalists and horn players. Everything is tastefully appointed, and yet the vocalist's trademark Broadway gaze and knack for the grand gesture coincide with the straight-ahead swagger.

52nd Street is one of the main reasons why Joel has always been championed for consistency. Everything here, from the production to the stand-up songs, helped redefine mainstream pop-rock. Decades later, it's finally available in fidelity that nears that of the Columbia Records' master tapes produced right on 52nd Street.

Random Color Vinyl. Beach Fossils' sophomore album, Clash the Truth, is modern post-punk triumph that's left a lasting impression on the music scene it was born out of. After releasing their self titled debut and the beloved EP, What a Pleasure, songwriter and composer Dustin Payseur began recording dissonant and introspective demos reflecting on his southern upbringing and young adulthood in New York. The tracks that would eventually make up Clash the Truth involved Payseur taking his songwriting in a new direction, employing jagged instrumentals, existential lyrics, and socially conscious subject matter. The darker themes of Clash the Truth still come out vibrant through bright guitar tones, locomotive drumming, and Payseur's inventive home recording techniques. Referencing the sounds of Factory Records releases, New York's no wave scene, and 90's avant-pop, Beach Fossils expanded their sound past the perimeters of bedroom dream pop. The album is now being reissued for the first time on Payseur and his partner Katie Garcia's own label, Bayonet Records, including a limited edition clear pink vinyl pressing.

Debut album by Korean psychedelic fuzz masters and the perfect introduction to Sanullim’s unique world.

Formed in the early 70s by the three Kim brothers while they were still in University, Sanullim managed to release their first album in 1977 despite censorship, misunderstanding from their record company and rudimentary recording techniques problems. Fuelled by piercing psychedelic fuzz guitars, Farfisa styled garage organ, keyboards and sweet melodies, the created a very unique sound, unheard in Korea at the time. Including some of their most iconic songs like “Already Now” and “"Likely Late Summer" (famous for its inclusion on the “Love, Peace & Poetry” series.

*Original artwork in hard cardboard sleeve
*Sourced from the original masters
*Insert with liner notes by Hugh Dellar (Shindig!) and rare photos / memorabilia

“Their debut album featured a blistering fuzz guitar sound that bleeds in and out of the mix as well as what sounds like a tinny Farfisa set behind the sweetest of pop vocal melodies, and the nine tracks stretch out into strangely hypnotic diversions. It’s easy to grasp how psych and garage heads coming to these tracks cold would find much to dig here, and also simple to see how the recordings could be mistaken for something cut many years earlier” – Hugh Dellar (Shindig!)

Debut album by Korean psychedelic fuzz masters and the perfect introduction to Sanullim’s unique world.

Formed in the early 70s by the three Kim brothers while they were still in University, Sanullim managed to release their first album in 1977 despite censorship, misunderstanding from their record company and rudimentary recording techniques problems. Fuelled by piercing psychedelic fuzz guitars, Farfisa styled garage organ, keyboards and sweet melodies, the created a very unique sound, unheard in Korea at the time. Including some of their most iconic songs like “Already Now” and “"Likely Late Summer" (famous for its inclusion on the “Love, Peace & Poetry” series.

*Original artwork in hard cardboard sleeve
*Sourced from the original masters
*Insert with liner notes by Hugh Dellar (Shindig!) and rare photos / memorabilia

“Their debut album featured a blistering fuzz guitar sound that bleeds in and out of the mix as well as what sounds like a tinny Farfisa set behind the sweetest of pop vocal melodies, and the nine tracks stretch out into strangely hypnotic diversions. It’s easy to grasp how psych and garage heads coming to these tracks cold would find much to dig here, and also simple to see how the recordings could be mistaken for something cut many years earlier” – Hugh Dellar (Shindig!)

HJirok is a mythical figure, conceived as a fictional character by Iranian-born Kurdish singer and artist Hani Mojahedy. Together with versatile music producer And Toma of Mouse On Mars, she combined a variety of sounds collected during their joint travels to Iraqi Kurdistan and elsewhere with heavily processed recordings of Sufi drum rhythms and setar melodies. The result is a driving, dubbed-out, and deeply intricate soundscape that perfectly sets the stage for Mojahedy's extended, unconventional vocal techniques and polyglot lyrics. Both informed by tradition and rigorously forward-looking, »Hjirok« (with a lowercase J) is at once a profoundly personal album and a universal utopian promise. As a ghost from the past, HJirok draws on Mojtahedy's memories to mould a new future out of them.

The foundation for »Hjirok« was laid in the city of Erbil in the Kurdish part of Iraq. During one of their stays in the region, Mojahedy and Toma recorded the three percussionists Hadi Alizadeh, Jawad Salkhordeh and Serdar Saydan as well as setar player Ali Choolaei from Motahedy's backing band while they were playingthe rhythms and notes that she had grown up with in the house of her grandfather in the Iranian city of Sanandaj. Her memories of that place revolve around hypnotic Sufi music, dervishes in deep trance, and ecstatic singing. Much like this music seemed to open a portal to other dimensions, the inhabitants of the house lived in a sort of alternative reality: It provided them with a hideaway from political circumstances. Following the Iranian revolution in 1979, a Kurdish rebellion ensued but was met with the utmost brutality by the new regime, which resulted in the death of thousands.

It is no coincidence that the music on »Hirok« would draw on rhythmic patterns that were passed on from one generation to the next for hundreds of years. »The project is rooted in the figures of the Sufi dervishes and thus a culture that precedes today's political, social, cultural, and religious systems,« explains Mohtahedy. »The Sufi sound travelled around the entire world. I like to think of it as a dialogue between peoples-one based on the rhythms of the drums and the sound of their voices.« Toma adds that by electronically transforming the recordings and enriching them with field recordings from both rural and urban spaces, they were able to use the stories told by the drums and the setar to create an entirely new narrative.

The story told by these eight pieces is hence a deeply personal, but also inherently political one. Moitahedy herself left Iran in 2004 and relocated to Berlin in 2010. Having continued to use her art as a platform to tirelessly advocate for the rights of the Kurdish people and women under oppressive regimes, she has not been allowed to return to her country of origin ever since. »Hani is singing for equality and there are people who are afraid of that-her femininity, her strength.« Toma says. Much like earlier Hirok sound installations addressed human-made climate change and other systemic ills, also »Hjirok« can hardly be disconnected from far-reaching struggles for liberation and equality.

This is also true on a thematic and even linguistic level. »The lyrics are about a promise,« Mojahedy says, citing Kurdish writer Ebdulla Pesêw as an inspiration. »At their core, these are about that day on which violence and fear become a thing of the past; what they tell you is ot not give up, to keep hoping,« she adds. The promise embedded in them is an emancipatory one. These contents are mirrored on a linguistic level: The lyrics were written in both Kurdish and Farsi, blurring the lines between the two languages and thus, Kurdish and Persian cultures.

Mojahedy, or rather HJirok, conveys these philosophical themes with elegance. Herversatile vocal performance is only loosely basedo n established styles. »Of course everything started with traditional rhythms, but we kept pushing things further and further, so Idid the same with my voice,« Mojahedy explains. »There were no boundaries.« The same can be said of the field recordings that she and Toma used. Whether it's conversations between members of the Pesmerge, the Kurdish armed forces, having a chat in meadow full of bunnies or the humming and buzzing of metropolises like Tehran: »Hirok« paints a sonic picture that is quite literally autopian one; that of a non-place in which different soundscapes, cultures and ways of life coexist peacefully.

What the album conjures up from Mojahedy's memory is not only a very specific place during a unique time in history as experienced by a single person. It is also ametaphorical home open to anyone who wishes to enter - promise of a better, more egalitarian future for everyone. Hence, HJirok will bring it on tour, presenting the material as an audio-visual live show that makes use of the photo and video material that Mojahedy and Toma have collected during their travels through Kurdistan.ja

One of New Zealand’s fastest-rising electronic producers, Sanoi aka Jonas Fischer announces the release of his new album, ‘Echoes Of Home’. Rooted in melodic house and techno, the album is a journey through electronic music, one that is as at home on the dancefloor as it is on headphones.  Having previously released on labels such as Bar 25, Stil Vor Talent, Beat & Path, Magician On Duty, Sounds Of Sin and Tube & Berger’s Zehn Records, Loop are proud to present Sanoi’s second full-length. The New Zealand-based, German-born producer has crafted deeply personal electronic music that pushes the boundaries of creativity, skill and production techniques, while influenced by organic deep house and electronic techno from Berlin.  Created at his home in Auckland, and road tested across countless live performances across New Zealand and Australia over the past two years, ‘Echoes Of Home’ sees Sanoi’s songwriting step up to another level. Constantly developing as an artist and finding expression through music are some of the key factors that drive him, whether it be in the studio or behind the decks. His deeply danceable, meticulous though mischievous DJ sets see him move seamlessly across warm, melodic, groove-driven techno and beyond.  Featuring vocals by Beacon Bloom on ‘Silver’.

It all started with a crashed computer and it certainly didn’t end there. »Cinnte le Dia« is the third collaborative album by Hanno Leichtmann and Valerio Tricoli, their first entry into Ni Vu Ni Connu’s duo series that focuses on Berlin’s Echtzeitmusik scene and beyond. Having already released two joint records on the now-defunct Entr'acte label, the two musicians wanted to document a 2018 concert in Berlin, but technology failed them. Undeterred, the sound artist and percussionist and the electroacoustic composer went to the former’s Static Music Studio to record six of the eight tracks on this record straight to tape, with two additional ones being recorded during a performance at Eupen’s Meakusma festival in 2019.

After 2016’s »The Future of Discipline« saw the duo enter the studio for a one-take session with added synth-bass overdubs and 2018’s »La Casa delle Chimere« documented a live gig in Kyiv, »Cinnte le Dia« presents a synthesis of the two approaches. Mixing the album together and adding overdubs—Leichtmann with his synth-bass again, Tricoli with his trusted Revox B77—the duo combined the special energy of their performance in front of a live audience with the intimate atmosphere of a studio session between two exceptional improvisers and composers. The pieces are accordingly marked by their sonic density, but also a rhythmic intricacy that makes the album as a whole negotiate its place in music history between bass-heavy, dubbed-out club music and electroacoustic as well as musique concrète techniques.

Leichtmann worked with a mix of acoustic percussion routed through a modified looper and a granular live sampler as well as electronic drums consisting of three modular sampleplayers, a Syncussion drum synth and a bass drum module. Depending on the current set-up, the two fed this input through Tricoli’s B77 either individually or collectively to further manipulate single elements or the entire sound. What might look complicated on a tech rider sounds intuitive on record: these are two versatile musicians engaging in a play of difference and repetition, acting and reacting to each other in real-time, but also creating additional layers by inserting new elements after the fact. In a very literal way, »Cinnte le Dia« is the duo’s most refined album, yet at the same time a testament to the uncanny energy they unleash during their improvisations. It’s solemn and moody, spontaneous and driving at once. Of course a computer couldn’t handle that.

Post-Punk (Originally Called New Musick) Is A Broad Musical Genre That Emerged In 1977 In The Wake Of Punk Rock. Post-Punk Musicians Moved Away From Punk's Traditional Elements And Raw Simplicity, Adopting Instead A Broader, More Experimental Approach That Included A Variety Of Avant-Garde Sensibilities And Non-Rock Influences. Inspired By Punk's Energy And DIY Ethos, But Determined To Break With Rock Clichés, Artists Experimented With Styles Such As Funk, Electronic Music, Jazz And Dance Music; Dub And Disco Production Techniques; And Ideas From Art And Politics, Including Critical Theory, Modernist Art, Film And Literature.

These Communities Have Produced Independent Record Labels, Visual Art, Multimedia Performances And Fanzines. These Three Compilations Are By No Means 'Best Of' Or Collections Of Chart Hits. They Are Compilations That Endeavour (And We Think They Do Well) To Take A Wide-Ranging Look At The UK And American Post-Punk Scene In The Years From 1978 To 1984, But Here Almost Everything Stops In 1981, Giving Space To Bands And Artists That Almost Always Didn't Make It Beyond The 45 Rpm Mark. A Representation Of The True 'Outside Of Everything' Of The Era.

Following on from debut album 'For Years' and previous Hemlock releases 'October/Macondo' and 'Shaded/Antipolo' we are proud to present the new release from Airhead.

'Lightness' marks a subtle yet precise shift into new sonic territory, beating at a higher tempo and releasing from much of the dominant of sub bass that propelled his earlier work. The refracted take on drum and bass was conceived while staring out over Laurel Canyon and realising the desire to float away. Once grounded, Rob set about trying to capture that feeling by removing all weight from the drums and letting the melodies drift through. Harmonically this is his most advanced record, drawing inspiration from studying and adapting some of the techniques from Joe Pass, Barry Harris, Ted Greene and Mick Goodrick to work for other instruments.

The overall sound is analog and highly dynamic, featuring tightly packed layers of guitar recordings and effects treatments. Clips of ethereal sounding experiments with synthetic voice software can be heard on 'Still Waiting For U' and 'Ghosts in CS' punctuating the sweetness with an air of uncertainty. The symphonic closing piece 'Unbearable Lightness' is a collaboration with American contemporary classical composer Nico Muhly.

Airhead operates uniquely within electronic music, as a session musician he regularly performs at iconic venues to huge crowds yet is still relatively unknown as a producer outside of UK underground circles. Lightness is his most bold and individual release to date and is destined to reach a wider audience.

If there ever was a monicker apt for describing an artist’s behavior, that is Ghost Lemurs. Manifesting spottily in compilations and limited edition tapes, then returning to the shadows without much fanfare, the project has indeed demonstrated a ghostly behavior and a nature as puzzling as the animal it takes its name from. Wombs And Alien Spirits represents now their most public outing, one in which the duo of visual artist / producer Kareem Lofty and Daniele Guerrini (better known as Heith and as Haunter’s co-founder) are happy to showcase all the discoveries in a process of musical and spiritual research begun in 2019. Described by the artists themselves as an experiment in mediterranean psi-trance, the album makes use of an incredibly diverse number of traditions, sonic sources and techniques of musical experimentation, keeping its psychedelic intentions central to the whole creative endeavor. Moments of meditative relaxation are brought to unsettling new levels by cavernous basses and spaced out drones, while tight polyrhythms bring beautiful granular melodies to a sidereal ceremonial dance. As beautiful and captivating as it is, Wombs And Alien Spirits remains as chimeric and unrestrained as any previous effort by the two artists. It’s a type of folk music devoid of a specific homeland, but resulting from the authors’ heritages, simultaneously divided and united by the mediterranean sea, injected with all the trajectories of their personal journeys. It ends up sounding profoundly human and uncannily inhuman, tapping into the undiscovered alien element at the beginning of the experience of life. Genre: Electronic / Experimental Listen:

Complete with 10" vinyl record and booklet presenting Laurianne Bixhain's photographic work and text by Chloe Chignell.

Presented at the Mudam (Museum of Modern Art of Luxembourg) and initiated by a photographic exploration by Laurianne Bixhain, the work "The day begins with a loud boom" interrogates the manner and extent to which we are defined by our relationship to the physical environment, and the cultural import of the techniques of production. Its imagery follows the trajectories of the materials subjected to the processes of diamond cutting and automotive glassware fabrication, and presents the traces of human intervention of which those materials are both the object and the repository.

The interplay of its imagery, music and text constitutes a theatrical whole: both the staging of the text and the sonorities create an architectural space within which each constituent object is deployed. That spatiality is shared and complemented by the text’s sonorous and performative qualities. Likewise, the elements of texture and abstraction in the imagery invoke our sense of touch, as a means of material and spatial appreciation.

The succeeding reiterations of the ostinato the day begins with are treated graphically by its progressive effacement, evoking the tension in assembly line work between repetition and linearity, accumulation and exhaustion, trace and erasure. Such attrition is equally conveyed by the harsh, impassive, and architectural qualities of both the images and the music which accompany the text. The latter notably deploys a range of insidious effects, from the marriage of dissonance and unsettling rhythm evocative of the competing cycles of multiple industrial machines, to sensual and reassuring sonorities which are contaminated by their contrast with the harsh acoustic aesthetic elsewhere.

Blending sounds of early 70s Funk & Soul, Latin-Jazz, and Afrobeat, Mestizo Beat kicks the year off with a heavy dose of new material. First up is “She’s A Rose b/w Lotsapapa,” their next 45, offering two sides of masterful instrumental soul music written & produced by The Magaña Brothers out of their hillside studio, Spc 166 in Topanga, CA. Side A’s “She’s A Rose” takes us back to the golden years of the Blaxploitation film genre and the soundtracks we have grown to love. This song was inspired by the compositional and orchestral arrangements from the greats, such as Curtis Mayfield’s “Superbad,” Johnnie Pate’s “Shaft in Africa,” and Bobby Womack’s “Across 110 Street.” Featuring Tim Felten of Surefire Soul Ensemble on keys, with horns written and arranged by Jesse Audelo, Mestizo Beat takes the listener on an evolving journey, exploring the mood and cinematic elements of flute, saxophone, and wha’d-out guitar, topped off with a funky drum and percussion break. On the flip, “Lotsapapa” rounds out the B-Side, blending the musical styles of Latin and Nigerian disco-funk into a track that’s perfect for the dancefloor and those late nights out. Written about Bernard “Lotsapapa” Crowe, a notorious drug dealer who survived an attempted murder by Charles Manson, this side is sure to get the body moving with the afro-disco rhythms and chant vocals, dubbed out around a tightly arranged horn section written and arranged by Jesse Audelo and Jason Cressey. “Lotsapapa” features guests Steve Haney from Jungle Fire on Percussion and Cressey of the True Loves on trombone.

With each side highlighting the various talents of the ensemble, Mestizo Beat always stays true to their sound and recording techniques. Both tracks are mixed by Sergio Rios at Killion Sound and are featured on the forthcoming LP, Jaraguá, coming mid-2024.

For the five members of Punchlove - multi-instrumentalists Jillian Olesen, Ethan Williams, Joey Machina, Ian Lange-McPherson, and visual artist Viz Wel - moving into a maze of a house in Brooklyn together was the transition that created the album they had been writing their whole lives. Quietly evolving from a bedroom project to a headlining live phenom, Punchlove has geared up a densely layered bed of emotionally serrated pain-pop songs that coalesce around a digitally-stimulated, emotional brand of modern neoshoegaze. Channels, out March 1st on Kanine Records, is an album of deeply prepared sounds, sharply honed instrumentals, and a band performing them that knows each other all the way through. Having met studying music technology in college, multiple members of Punchlove work mixing live bands at prominent NYC venues and in the studio. Using that expertise, the inhouse production, mixing, and recording is a palpable highlight; mastered by 2000s shoegaze stalwart Kurt Feldman (The Depreciation Guild), the record melds DIY recording and experimental sonic visions with studio quality. Punchlove is dedicated to pushing the envelope of experimental sonic practices in live performances, where they can be seen performing with real-time audio reactive analog visuals, executing real-time sampling and looping, self-mixing onstage, running radios and tape loops through effects, improvising, and playing guitar with everything from double bass bows to vibrators. In their home recording environment, experimentation is at the core of their creative process, where they integrate self-programmed digital signal processing systems, psychoacoustic phenomena, tailored feedback, elements of 3D audio, immersive field recording soundscapes, early electronic instruments, and experimental recording and mixing techniques into the greater backdrop of pop songwriting. FOR FANS OF: Radiohead, Wednesday, Hum, DIIV, my bloody valentine, The Smashing Pumpkins, bdrmm, A Place to Bury Strangers