Buscar:think tank

Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new solo album by Eiko Ishibashi, her first for the label, following on from the duo recording Ichida alongside bassist Darin Gray. Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) was produced for the ‘Japan Supernatural’ exhibition at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney focusing on ghost stories and folklore from the Edo period onwards. As with The Dream My Bones Dream (Drag City, 2018), the album is a response to troubling questions about Japanese history, and the influence of the past upon the present, but finds Ishibashi shifting further away from her earlier piano-led songwriting and showing a deepening interest in electronics and audio collaging.

The two sidelong parts of Hyakki Yagyō feature layered synthesisers, acoustic instrumentation, recited verse and field recordings, at times densely mixed but always with a subtle interplay of changing elements. The influence of European and American forerunners as diverse as Alvin Curran, David Behrman and Strafe Für Rebellion can be traced, yet at the same time Ishibashi evokes the flute and string sounds associated with Japanese storytelling, and draws directly on the subversive literary tradition of Kyoka (‘mad poetry’) with a verse by the 15th-century poet Ikkyū Sōjun repeated throughout the album. Revisiting what has gone before, re-thinking what is possible musically, as a way of articulating what else might be possible in the future.

As Ishibashi’s liner notes make clear, the album reflects an attention to persistent dangers, myths and evasions in Japanese culture – as well as the lurking uncertainties that might threaten positive change. This would seem to be manifested in the emerging melodies soon met by dissonance, erratic collisions and near silence, as well as the eerie manipulation of the double-tracked vocals. Ishibashi’s underlying concerns ring true more widely of course. Hyakki Yagyō is a work of multiplicities, and mystery, a landscape where nothing is as it seems at first, and everything is vulnerable to sudden violent interruptions.

The album was produced with regular collaborators Jim O’Rourke (double bass) and Joe Talia (percussion), and features dancer and choreographer Ryuichi Fujimura performing Ikkyū’s satirical tanka. O’Rourke’s immersive mix creates a three-dimensional effect, with Ishibashi’s various sound sources enmeshing and interacting in captivating ways.

Pressed on coloured vinyl and presented in a deluxe package with an inner sleeve featuring and artist portrait and liner notes from Eiko Ishibashi. Cover and label design by Shuhei Abe.
Back cover design by Lasse Marhaug. Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke.

key selling points:

- Black Truffle is pleased to announce a new solo album by Eiko Ishibashi, her first since her acclaimed 2018 Drag City release The Dream My Bones Dream.

- This album finds Ishibashi shifting further away from her earlier piano-led songwriting and showing a deepening interest in electronics and audio collaging.

- Hyakki Yagyō (Night Parade of One Hundred Demons) was produced for the ‘Japan Supernatural’ exhibition at The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney focusing on ghost stories and folklore from the Edo period onwards and is a response to troubling questions about Japanese history, and the influence of the past upon the present.

- Produced with regular collaborators Jim O’Rourke (double bass) and Joe Talia (percussion), O’Rourke’s immersive mix creates a three-dimensional effect, with Ishibashi’s various sound sources enmeshing and interacting in captivating ways.

- The two sidelong parts of Hyakki Yagyō feature layered synthesisers, acoustic instrumentation, recited verse and field recordings, at times densely mixed but always with a subtle interplay of changing elements, hinting at an influence of European and American forerunners as diverse as Alvin Curran, David Behrman and Strafe Für Rebellion.

- Pressed on coloured vinyl and presented in a deluxe package with an inner sleeve featuring an artist portrait and liner notes from Eiko Ishibashi. Mixed and mastered by Jim O’Rourke.

ondon Records are to release Happy Mondays ‘The Early EPs’ on October 25, available digitally and as a 4 x 12” coloured vinyl box set. The release brings together the seminal Manchester band’s first four EPs – ‘Forty Five EP’ (1985), ‘Freaky Dancin/The Egg EP’ (1986), ‘Tart Tart EP’ (1987), and ‘24 Hour Party People’ (1987).

‘The Early EPs’, which have never before been available digitally, have been re-mastered from the original two-inch tapes held in the Factory/London Records archive. The artwork has been redrawn and digitised by original designers Central Station Design. The original Happy Mondays line-up will embark on a UK headline tour in late October, including London’s Roundhouse on October 31.

London Records will follow this release later this year with vinyl reissues of Happy Mondays first four albums - ‘Squirrel and G-man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)’, ‘Bummed’, ‘Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’ & ‘Yes Please!’ - later this year. None of these albums has been available on vinyl for over a decade.
‘The Early EPs’, which have never before been available digitally, have been re-mastered from the original two-inch tapes held in the Factory/London Records archive. The artwork has been redrawn and digitised by original designers Central Station Design. The original Happy Mondays line-up will embark on a UK headline tour later this month, including London’s Roundhouse on October 31.

London Records will follow this release later this year with vinyl reissues of Happy Mondays first four albums - ‘Squirrel and G-man Twenty Four Hour Party People Plastic Face Carnt Smile (White Out)’, ‘Bummed’, ‘Pills ’n’ Thrills and Bellyaches’ & ‘Yes Please!’ - later this year. None of these albums has been available on vinyl for several years.

Knock Knock - after three years of think tanking, digging records, talking gear and hosting events in and out of Leipzig, Clear Memory is showing up at your party, eating your hors d'œuvres, drinking up your champagne and convincing the DJ, it'd be better to play this Various Artist EP.

The first Clear Memory Record contains five tracks by our members who chose anonymity and integrity over the hollow promises of fame and fortune. Five tracks equally of robo-romantic dystopias, cold electronics, rousing anthems and dead-on floorfillers.

Suitable for hard working DJs, craving collectors and home listeners alike. Join the pack - this is just the beginning.

Fresh on Francis Harris' Kingdoms imprint comes Rasmus Juncker's 'Ophold' - six tracks of sublime atmospheres and textures. The Danish musician, sound composer and DJ fits perfectly with the label's aesthetic, joining the dots between ambient, leftfield electronica and modern classical.

Juncker has a background in studying jazz drumming and has been playing improvised music within the jazz domain for many years. He also started to DJ at the age of 14 and was introduced to the world of electronic music production at the same time.

When Rasmus started to think about his debut album he spent several months trying to find his own way to combine his favourite musical influences, improvisation, electronics and classical music. 'Almost a year later', Juncker says, "I went to a sensory deprivation floating tank in Copenhagen while researching for another performance and while I was lying there, floating in the water, deprived from most of my senses, I got the idea to do something drastic in my musical process. Philosophers like Immanuel Kant describe this deprived state as a mental 'Cesura', which became some sort of guideline for the album."

So Juncker decided to start working on the album by leaving the process as well as the final result completely open. 'I wanted to create sounds and music that I had no idea what they would sound like, but would feel like a mental 'Cesura', an 'Ophold' (in Danish)' he states.

He invited musicians, one after the other, to his studio. "I had an electronic musician to improvise patterns and new interesting sounds based on my experience in the deprivation tank. I chose some of the takes and some weeks later I invited a jazz guitarist to listen and improvise on top of what he heard. Then a classical string quartet and a double bass player came to my studio months later, and finally I recorded myself on percussion and drums.

Throughout the recording process I've been experimenting with special microphones in various setups, used noises from the recordings and the room became absolutely essential for the pieces." Juncker states.

"The material I used was all first take improvision which I arranged, layered and edited into compositions. The final pieces were mixed by Andreas Pallisgaard with the same improvised and experimental approach of the recording and the production. None of the musician met each other, but their sounds developed into something completely fantastic I think. The presence of the acoustic instruments and the depth and complexity of the synthesized layers gave some kind of an indescribable sounding music from another galaxy.

Track by track:

'Norddrum' starts proceedings - ethereal, grainy sounds merge and disassociate, as a distant rhythm gradually finds its way to the fore.

The second track, 'Sora' , clocking in at under 2 minutes, is an interlude full of strings, pads, and percussive hits, rich in feeling. This strong sense of sound design and seemingly disparate sounds woven together into a whole carries through into 'Eksotisk Tirsdag' - the strings, plucked instruments and electronics harking back to 4th world adventurers like Jon Hassel and Brian Eno.

'Cyklus' dives into drone textures, pulsing and modulating to create an unearthly soundtrack.

'Havekunst' is another 2 minutes interlude, this time bringing a fully charged rhythmic barrage to the front.

'Cesura', the final track is in essence the EP's centerpiece - a sprawling 8 minute journey that traverses tense, fibrous sections and on into pulsing modular passages, before opening up into glorious moments of wonder and brightness. It's a hugely bold yet fragile endeavour, in line with the whole release.

Danny McLewin (Psychemagik) and Jamie Cruisey have a new label of original signed artists called SPIRITS. The first release is from Mexican hotness 'Lokier' of She Made Monster and 'Jason Greer' aka 'The Machine', one of the Californian undergrounds best kept secrets. They met in 2015 at a festival in London and after spending a few days together, became musically obsessed with each other. That summer, as Jason bounced around Europe, he stayed with Lokier in Barcelona for some weeks and after long night walks, some tapas and absinthe bars they came up with their first EP together.

A1 "White Room's" slo-mo headnod film score, kick starts the EP, brooding synths buzzing with electric cocaine gloss, their oscillators fluttering like cyborg butterflies around the pulsating strobelight beat. Creepy.
A2 "Stained Glass" hits tough straight out the gate with subterranean bubbling acid bass and charges headlong into deep psychedelic territory with a goth-inspired guitar, reverb on 11, turning the track into a next-level robo-Giallo monster!

B1 "Pearly Hate" begins as if a menacing swarm of bionic rave bees is slowly surrounding you, the tension of their impending drone amping up steadily as your brain thinks: Do I run This midtempo Carpenter-esque jam is atmospheric putty in the hands of sleazoned DJ's and sounds like the beginning of a long, strange trip.
B2 "Red Floor" is a chugging, barely restrained dark disco beast, flagrantly wearing its Weatherall and Neu Beat-ing heart on its tattered sleeve, elliptical melodies keeping you from your sanity with a solid drop for the dancefloor - another one for DJ's who ride it rough.

Thus completes the first release for new label SPIRITS. Four tracks exploring another corner of otherworldly analogue hedonism for extra-dimensional travel. Keep your ear on "Red Floor", as its potential for dancefloor uplift is proven and Machine-ready! Stay jacked in for more missives soon...

Ivan Smagghe:
"When your best Mexican chola low-rider meets our favourite Californian mechanic, you get a proper slice of (Lokier and) Machine funk. This is grease electronics, black leather under the very dark sun of 'Pearly Hate' or in the bright isolation tank of 'White Room''