quête:the wind

Favorite Recordings presents this new official album reissue of State of Emmergency by French band The Fizz: A real underrated, complete and intriguing album, originally released in 1986 as a private-press LP and quite hard to find in good conditions nowadays.

The Fizz is mostly the result of Patrick Jouanneau, a French musician, composer and producer who's still active today. He remembers: In the early 80's I had a recording studio allowing me to easily fulfil my desire to create songs. It was then that I began to compose and write songs, in French or in English in this case. State Of Emergency (spelling on the LP is a mistake), is born from a fierce will on my part, and the other four have followed, but it was not easy, the musicians, you have to get them out of bed! I have to say that Richard Larozé, the pianist, was a very strong guy with harmonies, and has somewhat changed my first version, much more oriented in Soul and R&B.'

And when asked about his main influences, Patrick says: It's always difficult for me to speak about influences, out of respect, and humility especially, but they nourished us and nourished this project, Stevie Wonder, Al Jarreau, Earth, Wind & Fire, and so on, were and still are important to me and this was the case for the entire FIZZ group.'

At the end, State of Emmergency by The Fizz is a very interesting and brilliant album with great inspiration in melodies and compositions. And who knows, listening to the title "A So Called Being", it could even have inspired a certain King of Pop'...

This holly grail album has been transformed into a 45s collection. Dynamite Cuts releases a high quality limited edition 1000 copies double pack 2x7' release which gives you 4 of those masterpieces from that album. two never before on 7' vinyl all of the most in-demand tracks.

Track A1 - windy C' This Amazing Track That Delivers A Funky Melodic Bass Groove And Great Arrangement - Full Length Version
Track B2 - puppet On A Chain' First Time On 7' This Under Rated Soul Track, Gets Me Every Time.
Track A1 - no More City, No More Country' This Track Has Been Edits To Fit For The First Time On 7', Another Funky Gem, Fav
Track B2 - hole In My Shoes' My Favorite Track From The Album. Killer Groove And Vocals So Happy It's A 7' Now For The First Time

Jimi Tenor's mind will travel where his body can't go. Living in isolation in east-Helsinki suburb he picks mushrooms and has exotic musical fantasiesin the calmness of the endless. He has made a quantum connection in Berlin with rhythm geniouses Ekow Alabi Savage and Max Weissenfeldt to create his latest tour de force "Order of Nothingness".

Mind travel is easy and music is a perfect way to illustate the possibilities. Using historical failed experimental keyboard Extravoice from Hammond organ company has opened the floodgates of Jimi's creative passages. Philophon studios in Berlin has a plethora of exotic instruments and they have been extensively used in making this album. JIMI likes to switch between wind instruments and keyboards to get a creative edge.

Is there any meaning in Mysteria Did Salvador Dali design the Chupa Chups logo Was Finland part of the Soviet Union Order of Nothingness might not aswer these question, but instead will confuse you a little bit more.

Music and Poetry of the Kesh is the documentation of an invented Pacific Coast peoples from a far distant time, and the soundtrack of famed science fiction author, Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home In the novel, the story of Stone Telling, a young woman of the Kesh, is woven within a larger anthropological folklore and fantasy. The ways of the Kesh were originally presented in 1985 as a five hundred plus page book accompanied with illustrations of instruments and tools, maps, a glossary of terms, recipes, poems, an alphabet (Le Guin's conlang, so she could write non-English lyrics), and with early editions, a cassette of field recordings' and indigenous song. Le Guin wanted to hear the people she'd imagined, she embarked on an elaborate process with her friend Todd Barton to invoke their spirit and tradition.

For Music and Poetry of the Kesh, the words and lyrics are attributed to Le Guin as composed by Barton, an Oregon-based musician, composer and Buchla synthesist (the two worked together previously on public radio projects). But the cassette notes credit the sounds and voices to the world of the Kesh, making origins ambiguous. For instance, The River Song' description reads, The prominent rhythm instrument is the doubure binga, a set of nine brass bowls struck with cloth-covered wooden mallets, here played by Ready.' According to writer and long-time friend of LeGuin, Moe Bowstern (who pens the liners for the Freedom To Spend edition of Kesh), Barton built and then taught himself to play several instruments of Le Guin's design, among them the seven-foot horn known to the Kesh as the Houmbúta and the Wéosai Medoud Teyahi bone flute.' Barton's crafting of original instruments lends an other-worldly texture to the recordings of the Kesh, not unlike fellow builders Bobby Brown and Lonnie Holley. Bowstern notes, Other musician / makers have crafted their own Kesh instruments after encountering the earlier cassette recordings that accompanied some editions of the book.' Both Barton and Le Guin are sensitive to the sovereignty of indigenous Californians and were careful not to trample the traditions of the Tolowa people who lived in the valley long before the Kesh. You research deeply, and then you bring your own voice to the table,' said Barton. Within the Kesh culture, the numbers four and five shape the lives, society and rituals. Barton composed loosely around these numbers, patiently listening to the land of Napa Valley for signs and audio signals from the natural elements. Todd incorporated ambient sounds of the creek by Le Guin's house and a campfire they built together. The songs of Kesh are joyful, soothing and meditative, while the instrumental works drift far past the imaginary lands. Heron Dance' is an uplifting first track, featuring a Wéosai Medoud Teyahi (made from a deer or lamb thigh bone with a cattail reed) and the great Houmbúta (used for theatre and ceremony). A Music of the Eighth House' sends gossamer waves of the faintest sounds to float on the wind.' Like the languages invented in the vocal work of Anna Homler, Meredith Monk, and Elizabeth Fraser, the Kesh songs and poems play with the shape of voice.

The Music and Poetry of the Kesh cassette was meant to accompany and enhance the experience of reading Always Coming Home. Presented in this edition as a long-playing album, where only traces of the book linger (the jacket offers some of Le Guin's illustration, and a letterpressed bookmark featuring the the narrative modes of western civilization and the Kesh valley is included), the music alone breaking the silence of what might be. It can transport—offering a landscape for imagining a future homecoming. One in which we are balanced, peaceful, and tend to the earth and its creatures. A line from the Sun Dance poem reminds us, We are nothing much without one another.' Freedom To Spend gives new life to the recordings of the Kesh people in the first ever vinyl edition of Music and Poetry of the Kesh, out on LP, and digital formats on March 23, 2018. The LP will include a deluxe spot printed jacket with illustrations from Always Coming Home, a facsimile of the original lyric sheet, liner notes by Moe Bowstern, multi-format digital download code and a limited edition bookmark letter pressed by Stumptown Printers in Portland, OR.

This past Monday, January 22, Ursula passed from this realm to another leaving a life spent building and exploring other worlds while challenging social concepts of the real word she inhabited.

Freedom To Spend had been working under Ursula's enthusiastic endorsement and with Todd Barton, her musical collaborator on Kesh, to give the music that accompanied her 1985 epoch a new life. With the Le Guin family's encouragement to move forward with our planned release, we are humbled to play this small role in sharing Ursula's work.

As Pete Swanson, one third of Freedom To Spend, stated, Ursula's legacy is her work which transformed the world, and this is another piece of the universe that her imagination birthed becoming real.' Listen to A Teaching Poem / Heron Dance' below.

The remarkable thing about BELP's new album is its two-dimensional function. It works both on a loud and a quiet volume. Some tracks would go down well as a club track, like opener 'Travelling Thru Galaxies'. This track brings back memories of the best work released on the Hyperdub label, with it's fine combination of synths and irresistible, dubby beats. Elsewhere, 'Off Ending' might start off as 'dancehall-but-not-quite dancehall' track but when half way the synths kick in they change the feeling of the track to a more cerebral level.

BELP is the artist name of Sebastian Schnitzenbaumer. Born in Munich, he partially grew up on the Seychelles islands off the coast of East Africa. Educated in classical piano, those two gravitational poles, European and African influences, form the basis for his musical development. Currently he has close ties to the (dub) Sausage Studio in Hackney, London. In his hometown Munich, the Bavarian capital, BELP took a central role in a series of discussions and events aiming to improve the image and possibilities of Munich, which to his regret is a predominantly posh and hedonistic city where optimistic and uplifting music take central role.

In different guises Schnitzenbaumer works as a much needed antidote. Since 2013 he runs the Schamoni label, focusing on supporting local artists like Leroy and Protein. Its sublabel Jahmoni is responsible for recent works by international artists like Aaron Spectre and DJ Marcelle/Another Nice Mess.

BELP's music is dark, serious and layered. His love for dub and dancehall shines through in his broken beats. At the same time the synth layered tracks give the album an atmospheric feeling.

This also is what makes this album essential: it's refusal to be pigeonholed. The last track on side A, 'By Beauteous Softness', is an a cappella rendition of a 17th century Henry Purcell piece, beautifully sung by Alexander Schneider. This track is preceded by 'Transmission', which is a brilliant abstract work, sounding like wind closing on you from all sides. And you can sip a cocktail whilst listening to the jazzy 'Time And Again' (BELP once worked as a jazz pianist).

It's clear to hear BELP took a long time recording this album. Every note, synth, drum beat, is carefully placed. But what the album might lack on spontaneity it more than compensates this with its sheer musical beauty. This also reflects on the abstract sleeve, like 'Elephants' designed by BELP himself.

Enjoy this album on big speakers, as background music or simply on headphones. There will always be new sounds and layers to be discovered!

Two of Russian electronic music's rising stars, Phil Gerus and Alexander Lay-Far, invite you to join them at the Solitary High Social Club. While table service is provided, they'd much rather you throw caution to the wind and head to the dancefoor.
Before joining forces in the studio, both Moscow-based musicians have delivered a string of memorable solo productions. Lay-Far has previously released a wealth of material on such labels as Local Talk, City Fly, Lazy Days and 4Lux Black, while synthesizer fetishist Gerus has showcased his electrofunk and disco-fred cuts on Futureboogie Recordings, Sonar Kollektiv, Public Release
and Superior Elevation Records.
The fve tracks that make up Solitary High Social Club deliver a perfect marriage of the two producers' distinctive solo styles, combining the rich musicality of Lay-Far's house productions with the spacey, intergalactic electronics of Gerus's discoid adventures. In many ways, it's a marriage made in heaven - or in Lay-Far's celebrated In-Beat-Ween Studio, at least.
The duo's spacey and melodious musical fusion is arguably best exemplifed by lead cut City 2 City, Star 2 Star', a widescreen, mid-tempo disco epic rich in tactile Rhodes riffs, supernova synth solos, delay-laden drum beats, tumbling melody lines and heavy analogue bass. Fittingly, the track returns in Reprise' form - think sweeping, weightless ambient bliss - to round off the EP.
Elsewhere, the duo provides further proof of their combined musical talents.
Check, for example, the gentle drum machine electro beats, cascading new age melodies and sparkling, stretched-out synthesizer chords of the impeccably beautiful Am I Tripping', or the devilishly percussive, mind-altering brilliance of Love Life', where mutant electro bass, wide-eyed chords and alien melodies rise above a heavy, Afro-infuenced groove. As for Snowfakes On Her Lips', you'll struggle to fnd a more confdent and positive dancefoor workout all year. Blessed with killer piano parts, darting analogue synth-bass and a range of disco-tinged musical fourishes, it's by far and away the most celebratory moment on an already happy-go-lucky EP. It confrms, too, our initial hunch: at the Solitary High Social Club, life is always good.

A near-perfect record, White Magic was the lauded CD-only debut album by Sorcerer (Californian native Dan Judd, one half of Windsurf with Hatchback). Just in time for Spring/Summer, we present the first ever vinyl issue, released as a deluxe double LP.

Back in summer 2007, this majestic set gently nestled itself into the Balearic soundtrack-to-summer slot for many, making him a household name for Cosmic Disco heads alongside the likes of Lindstrom, Metro Area, Todd Terje, Mudd, Studio and Quiet Village. In the intervening years, exceptional producers have created vibrant variations on the dreamy, dubby, melodic nu-disco theme. Happily, the emergence of such luminaries as Jex Opolis, Harvey Sutherland, Suzanne Kraft, Tornado Wallace et al has only served to make the master - Sorcerer - sound ever more brilliant and vital.

Utilising his array of guitars, drum machines, synths, and trusty MPC, the loved-up Sorcerer sound inspires halcyon memories of warm days, endless sunsets and pure youthful abandon. Influenced by surf, 80s dance pop, acid-R&B, space jazz, krautrock, disco, dub, and am radio gold, his music maps a tour through a uniquely Californian lifestyle. Yet when music so vividly captures a vibe and a feeling, it can make writing about it appear almost redundant. Instead, to glean the full colour of what your turntable will soon gratefully radiate, we prescribe the generous soundclips presented here.

And, for a unique insight into the process behind the wonderful sounds conjured up, here's Sorcerer himself:

"White Magic is a reflection of personal freedom and discovery. Having been in bands for years, this was a chance to develop music that stood alone and for me to be in full control.

I was living alone and worked on jams whenever I could. I was highly inspired by a new openness to music as a pure inspiration, not being part of any scene. I tapped into the mixes I was hearing coming out the UK where deejays were playing "cosmic" sounds that were so strangely familiar.

I was picking up all kinds of $1 vinyl and throwing bits of it into my sampler almost randomly to see what would come out.

In my mind, I was making music to be played at my friend's Broker/Dealer Pop nights where they fused golden German techno sounds with the new disco emerging at the time. Also, I took vacations and reconnected with the Pacific Ocean where I spent so much time as a kid: it spilled out into the sounds.

Lastly, I forged a partnership with Hatchback (Sam Grawe) who was working on music in the same way. I learned so much about arrangement and the colors of music. We began recording together as Windsurf and released our own stuff. It all seems like a small glorious moment in time, so I am so excited to keep the legacy alive and I continue to work on my music with these spirits inside of me."

Lovingly remastered by the esteemed Simon Francis, cut reassuringly loud on to heavyweight double vinyl and presented in a deluxe gatefold jacket with freshly commissioned artwork throughout from original designer Rich Robinson, this limited edition of 500 copies is sure to fly.

Multi-instrumentalist, composer and producer Adam Gibbons (aka Lack of Afro) is back in some style with 'Back To The Day', a beautifully produced summer sizzler crammed full of infectious hooks, top musicianship and most importantly, vibe by the bucketload! Taking a nod from classic material by artists such as The Jackson 5, Earth Wind & Fire (and more recently Vulfpeck), 'Back To The Day' is Lack of Afro doing what he does best and then some - blending the old and new with big drums and heavy percussion to come up with a crossover classic that's entirely his own, whilst all the while developing his abilities as a songwriter.

Providing a dynamite vocal once again is regular collaborator Elliott Cole. Not just the voice of the track, he also plays guitars and bass, whilst ably backed up by some stellar musicians including George Cooper (Haggis Horns) on keys, Rory Simmons (Blur, Jamie Cullum) on trumpet, string and horn arrangements and Harry Harding (Yola Carter) holding down the backbeat on drums.

Keeping the dancefloor packed and turning the party vibes right up to 11, 'Take It Up A Notch' (featuring the brilliant Wax & Herbal T and taken from the critically acclaimed 'Back In Business EP') completes what is arguably one of the strongest single packages of the year!

Lack of Afro continues to go from strength to strength. 2016's 'Hello Baby' (released on his own label LOA Records) picked up a BBC 6 Music 'Album Of The Year' nomination & appeared in the Top 10 of the iTunes R&B / Soul chart in 21 countries worldwide. More recently, Adam's music continues to be used across all aspects of film & TV by networks such as ABC, Fox, NBC, Sony Pictures & the BBC whilst he also has released music on Universal & Warner Brothers Records.

Both tracks are taken from the new album 'Jack Of All Trades', released on LOA Records in May 2018 and supported by a live band UK tour in May & throughout various festivals throughout the summer.

Reissue of the very first Birds Of Passage album from 2010. Minimalistic Lo-Fi Shoegaze meets experimental pop with drone influences.

For someone who thinks it's difficult to describe music in general, it's even more difficult to describe the soundscapes of BIRDS OF PASSAGE. The influences of Alicia Merz - the girl behind BIRDS OF PASSAGE - are her memories, breathless-inspiring cold winds, the smell and atmosphere of a spring day, smoking cigarettes, sunshine and shadows. As a mixture of all these elements plus a minimalistic experimental instrumentation you as well can describe her music: sometimes shy, sometimes more energetic ( fantastic frown') but always intensely and extremly private. Listening to her debut record "Without The World" is like sharing one long day with Alicia and her thoughts in the diverse landscapes of her home country New Zealand.

Alicia doesn't need the orotund spectacle of a band to evoke emotions - with the help of different, in a minimalistic way, used instruments combined with field recordings, she doesn't create specific songs - she builds up a mood. There's no typical song structure, there's no melody to chase after - but there's a development which absorbs you and which makes you start to think about elements you block out in your everyday life.

The Safe Trip Organisation Has Been Broadcasting Their Musical Version Of A Traditional "numbers Station" On The Frequency 5079. Human Intelligence Suggests The Agent Behind Four Regular, Ear-pleasing Transmissions Is The Safe Trip Associate "artis".
.
Using A Specially Modified "one-time Pad", We Were Able To Decipher These Undercover Operatives. The Ethereal, Dreamy, Arpeggio-driven Throb Of "panthera Pardus", With Its Poignant Tone And Undulating Lead Lines, Was Clearly Meant As A Warning.. The Same Could Be Said Of "cetacea", Where Melancholic Synthesizer Sounds And Meandering Electronics Gently Wind Their Way Around Hybrid Electronic/acoustic Percussion.

Panic Set In Once We Deciphered "giganthopithecus", A Composition Littered With Frequent Increases In Percussive Intensity And A Mind-altering Melodic Refrain. Our Hunch That Artis Was Ordering Immediate Action By Agents Was Confirmed By "delphinae", Whose Colourful Melodic Fluidity, Futurist New Age Construction And Layered Wooden Drum Hits Deeply Affected Our Researchers. We Ordered Our Own Agents To Raid The Station, But Artis Had Long Since Scuttled Off Into The Hazy Morning Sunshine.

"It was the most beautiful summer of my life."

Memories — places, vacancies, allusions — are fundamental characters in Mary Lattimore's evocative craft. Inside her music, wordless narratives, indenite travelogues, and braided events skew into something enchantingly new. The Los Angeles-based harpist recorded her breakout 2016 album, At The Dam, during stops along a road trip across America, letting the serene landscapes of Joshua Tree and Marfa, Texas color her compositions. In 2017, she presented Collected Pieces, a tape compiling sounds from her past life in Philadelphia: odes to the east coast, burning motels, and beach town convenience stores. In 2018, from a restorative station — a redwood barn, nestled in the hills above San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge — emanates Hundreds of Days, her second full-length LP with Ghostly International. The record sojourns between silences and speech, between microcosmic daily scenes and macrocosmic universal understandings, between being alien in promising new places and feeling torn from old native havens. It's an expansive new chapter in Lattimore's story, and an expression of mystied gratitude. A study in how ordinary components helix together to create an extraordinary world.

Awarded a residency at the Headlands Center for the Arts, Lattimore spent two summer months living with 15 fellow artists — writers, playwrights, musicians, poets, painters, activists, curators — in a cluster of old Victorian military buildings on the Northern Pacic Coast. Days offered solitude, Lattimore set up in a spacious barn, able to arrange her instruments at will. Nights welcomed new perspectives. "Hanging out with a lot of accomplished artists with poetic ways of looking at the world was really inspiring. My heart was in a bit of a tangle after leaving Philadelphia. I was holding onto things instead of moving forward. My time there was a nostalgia detox, a way to press reset in a healthy way. Also breathing in the freshest air in America, straight off of the ocean, felt good."

Throughout the shifting locales there is one consistent companion Lattimore engages: a 47-string Lyon and Healy harp. The instrument wires directly into her psyche. Pitchfork's Marc Masters posits, "she can practically talk through it at this point, she's created a language." The space and stillness of the Headlands afforded Lattimore freedom to her expand her vocabulary, to stretch out and experiment with layers of keyboard, guitar, theremin, and grand piano. Lattimore's voice sweeps beneath the plucks and washes of opener It Feels Like Floating,' enraptured by the winding current, and reappearing in the second minute of the immense "Never Saw Him Again." The track elevates towards a shimmering apex of static and percussion before organ drone yields to signature halcyon utters. As with much of Lattimore's work, the track titles are telling, "Baltic Birch" is a somber windswept march that sways gracefully out of step, a remembrance of a recent trip to Latvia where she was struck by the abandoned resort towns along the Baltic Sea. Hello From The Edge of The Earth' is an earnest reection of Lattimore's love of the natural world, recognizing the thresholds of varying terrains.

The album's fth track borrows its name from Lattimore's favorite line in Denis Johnson's short story Emergency' from Jesus' Son. A character, lost in a blizzard, reassesses a disjointed universe, a clash between curtains of snow and angels descending out of a brilliant blue summer: it isn't an apocalypse, it is a drive-in movie, with stars hovering above the lot, off the screen, in the throes of the Midwestern storm. This mix-up is disorienting and existentially tragic, Lattimore's darkly strummed piece is a melancholic parallel, mimicking Johnson's elegant suture attaching two remarkably discontinuous spaces.

Micro-revelations, not quite as bright as torn skies but nonetheless enlightening, were everyday occurrences during Lattimore's residency. Living small days with small tasks — feeling little dramas within the arcadian universe of a national park — rendered her the sense that disjointed spaces can be interconnected no matter the enormity that divides them. It's in this elastic scale of perception that something as simultaneously simple and intricate as Hundreds of Days can ourish.

- Second solo album for Ghostly, past releases on Thrill Jockey
- Recently toured w/ Sharon Van Etten, Jarvis Cocker, Kurt Vile, Steve Gunn, Julia Holter, Iceage
- Mary Lattimore has been featured on Pitchfork, NPR, The Wire Magazine, and more

Pattern Repeat ready the next release on their self-titled label with two solid cuts of techno this May.

The project which was started back in 2009 by the two Danish producers, Dennis Bøg better known as Resoe, owner of Baum Records and its off shoot Baum Limited Picture Edition, and Kenneth Christiansen owner of Echocord Records. Each of their releases move into different realms of Techno,and have gained support from the upper echelons of dance music, from the likes of Rodhad, Levon Vincent, and Dario Zenker.

A crawling filtered synth opens '009A', murky kick drums and syncopated high-hats join it, to create a long winding warehouse melody, these are then exchanged for the hazy sounds of white noise of '009B' packed with cold eerie drones, that are met by charged hums that fizz away and bring the release to a close.

2018 repress of the debut full length LP from Spencer Doran and Ryan Carlile's Visible Cloaks project. Initially recorded in 2013 and issued on cassette by Sun Ark in 2014 (as Cloaks), this first offering uses conceptual processes to weave many of the same threads as their later work; synthetic FM tones, tuned mallet percussion, and electronically modulated voice, all arranged in a gossamer web, spun with neon electronics. On this release the duo set off on the sonic journey they are still on today, refracting their influences through East West feedback loops, augmenting traditions with technology. Remastered 45rpm DMM version with additional surprises!

Faitiche releases the album Improvisations And Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 on vinyl for the first time. For the original 2002 CD on Soup-Disk and Sub Rosa (Audiosphere), Jan Jelinek and the Japanese trio Computer Soup (Satoru Hori - trumpet, Osamu Okubo - toys & electronics, Kei Ikeda - toys & electronics) presented eight tracks all recorded one afternoon in the trio's living room in Tokyo. They are excerpts from a joint group improvisation that subsequently underwent rudimentary editing, on which Jelinek and Computer Soup worked separately.

Jelinek met the three musicians at his first concert in Japan in 2001, at Tokyo's Yellow club, where Computer Soup performed as the support act. Delighted by their free improvisation on pocket-sized electronic toys, trumpet and oscillators, he arranged to meet Hori, Okubo and Ikeda a few days later for a session at their apartment. The resulting three-hour recording, made on their living room floor, formed the basis for Improvisations and Edits. A few days later, Jelinek returned to Berlin. Over the following months, they separately chose passages from the recording that were then edited and assembled into an album.

Formed in Tokyo in 1996 as a quintet (including Shusaku Hariya and Daisuke Oishi), Computer Soup began by performing with acoustic instruments on the streets of Shibuya. Ikeda und Okubo soon switched instruments, and from then on the group's minimalistic but densely woven sound was defined by electronic toys, oscillators and Satoru Hori's trumpet. Their first album was released in 1997 on the Japanese label Soup Disk. Eight further releases followed.

From the reviews of Improvisations and Edits, Tokyo 26.09.2001 in 2003:

"The mind-blowing first track Straight Life is perhaps the best example of what the album has to offer. Jelinek's trademark smears and washes occupy the midrange, like ghosted images of Joe Zawinul's electric piano floating quietly in the wind. DSP jazz modes are set against a walking bassline (possibly computer generated) and a gently tooted trumpet complete with Harmon mute, a dead ringer for Miles Davis' Prestige-era ballads. The effect is something like a three-dimensional film, with different realities on each layer, images of what jazz was manage to interact with a real-time demonstration of all it could be."
pitchfork, 2003

"Improvisations and Edits is a warm and mellow Ambient release with beautiful glitch fragments, static noise bursts and real trumpet intersections. However, there are times where it is the exact opposite, mainly effect-laden, overdriven and bouncy with a lack of melodies and focus, so be aware of these specific tracks."
ambientexotica, 2003

"Often deliciously dreamy and hazy, Improvisations and Edits is like listening to an exceptional instrumental jazz performance while half-conscious or under some sort of chemical influence. Computerised blips and bleeps, loops and treatments and murky sonic skips curl up around desolate horn notes and scattered instrumental noises that culminate in elegant music."
exclaim.ca, 2003

"Hi again!

It's been a couple years, but I've put together a new record, this time with my neighbor Stu and a few other friends. Stu's been tuning the piano Linda and I were using for our Lejsovka & Freund and Trouble Books recordings, and I've always enjoyed the test scales and vignettes he would run through checking his work.

I floated the idea to collaborate on a sort of 70s/80s ECM kinda vibe, and soon started bringing my laptop and a couple microphones over to his house to collect his improvisations and have him add to pieces I had started. Other friends from the neighborhood dropped by to add parts here and there as well.

The recordings were made primarily in the summers of 2016 & 2017 (with a break in-between to mourn the triumph of neo-fascism as well as the passing of beloved pets). Ultimately I tried to follow the feel of those summer nights and the tranquility they offered. Open air or at least open windows, drifting along, you know"

-KF, Spring 2018.

Aqueduct Ensemble is a collaboration between Ohio based artist Keith Freund - who has previously released music as part of both Lejsovka & Freund and Trouble Books - and his neighbour Stu, who is a piano tuner and professional pianist. Their debut album together, "Improvisations On An Apricot" is the second release from label Last Resort, and follows G.S Schray's "Gabriel" (2017) - the sleeves for which were both designed by Keith, who does does all the art direction for the label. Beginning life in 2013 as an NTS radio show of the same name, Last Resort is run by Tom Cathcart from his home in London.

Transversales Disques present a reissue of Bernard Baschet and Michel Deneuve's 4 Espaces Sonores, originally released in 1982. Rare 1979 recording of Bernard Baschet performing on his Sound Sculptures.The Baschet brothers are known worldwide as creators of Sound Sculptures, fantastic shapes of moulded metal and glass, which combine the visual arts with music.François Baschet had always been fascinated by acoustics, by the relationships between the shape and material of an intrument and the beauty of its sound.Bernard Baschet was passionately interested in contemporary music and firmly believed that such instruments were the proper tools for modern music, for they offered to the artist and performer a personal means of expression denied by electronic devices.Together the brothers began to design and produce Sound Sculptures, which could also be regarded as musical instruments.Circa 1965, Bernard worked alongside Pierre Schaeffer as a member of the GRM (Musical Research Group) on the elaboration of what was to become Schaeffer's "Traité des objets musicaux" (Treatise on Musical Objects).The Baschet brothers also created structures and instruments of all sizes, including bell towers, windmills and fountains, using the natural elements of wind and water to make music. Bernard Baschet was especially proud of his pedagogical work amongst deprived and handicapped children, with the instrumentaium made up of fourteen pieces.

"Emotional Rescue begins the first in a series of reissues looking at the music of guitarist Carl Weingarten and his Multiphase Records label, starting at his highly sought after collaborate album with Walter Whitney, Dreaming In Colors. With an early interest in photography and Super 8 film leading to a degree in cinema production, Weingarten's other, self-taught, love was the slide guitar. Taking its blues roots and merging them with his visual arts background created a unique "painting in sound" style of playing. While looking to break into the film industry he began writing and recording his own film scores and other music for modern dance companies. From this, he founded Multiphase Records in St Louis in 1980. By the time of Dreaming In Colors, the label had released a series of cassettes and vinyl albums offering abstract, experimental, jazz-fusion, new wave and increasingly, new age compositions. Throughout this period the work of engineer, keyboardist and programmer, Walter Whitney was often present and by the 1985 release of Dreaming In Colors the duo had collaborated for a number of years and released several projects together, most notably as members of the Delay Tactics band. Recorded during off days from the Delay Tactics sessions, the album came together at Whitney's Subterranean Sound studio with a focus away from the bands guitar driven instrumentals to explore a multilayered approach to synthesis, blending textures with Whitney's original samples and sound design, while Weingarten's guitar moved from shining solo moments to complimenting the overall oeuvre, all with heavy washes of delay. This ecumenical approach led to the creation of this compelling album. A masterful conceptual whole that is linked by rich melodies and a concise playing style, heavy on substance while never forgoing the uplifting vibrations. "

The new Alec Empire Album, now out on vinyl with Cargo ! An excellent product (sound is wide open large and strong) the new aspect of Alec Empire is his Lou reed/Iggy Popy & New Order way of singing. The result is a perfect fusion... Welcome to the Breakcore Croonerz !

Optimo Music is thrilled to release the new album from Jacob Yates. Not only is he one of our all-time favourite artists from Glasgow, but he is one of our favourite artists from anywhere. Criminally unknown except to a few who have been long transfixed by his recordings and performances, we hope this release will open a few more ears to his wondrous musical world.

The Hare, The Moon, The Drone' is the third album from Jacob Yates. This recording finds the band exploring dark hawthorn hedged lanes, moors and suburban, new build estates. There's something more earthy about the songs but the menace and darkness remains. Musically there is a big shift on this album, a field recording of a folk band from a dark, pine filled glen. The opener, The Car sets the scene for the rural side of the album, dank and stone cold. The tracks then shift through the woods, people turn into animals, we pass a sunlit glade, do you hear a love song Cassie Ezeji closes the side sweetly lamenting in Gaelic as the snow falls.

Side two is a more urban affair opening with despair in a bedroom in Belgium, we visit a faith healer and drop in on your lonely mother. Lovatt recounts the story of a karaoke addicted murderer before we finally go home to our new build just outside of town where the pylons tower over Michael and his sister Rachel. It's a journey you can go on, looking out of the window of the bus, glimpses of lives glide by, cards on seats promise to help you. Ding! It's time to get off.