Cerca:together alone

Since 2000 Mapstation has been the moniker for the solo work of TAL Label founder Stefan Schneider. Schneider has won international acclaim as a founding member of KREIDLER and to rococo rot as well as through unique collaborational works with artists such as Joachim Roedelius (Cluster/Harmonia), Bill Wells, Katharina Grosse, Dieter Moebius (Cluster/Harmonia) Sofia Jernberg or Jochen Irmler (Faust). There has not been a new Mapstation release since 2009's THE AFRICA CHAMBER which had former FELA KUTI member NICHOLAS ADDO-NETTEY on percussion.

The new album PRESENT UNMETRICS, is not entirely a stand-alone creation either. There are guest appearances by THOMAS KLEIN (KREIDLER) on percussion, MICHAEL ACHER (THE NOTWIST) on Sousaphone and an outstanding vocal contribution from japanese singer HACO, all deeply woven into the digital topographics of the music.

PRESENT UNMETRICS offers a collection of radically subtle music. The guiding principle of the album was to construct direct and nuanced tracks which embody a sense of open-ended incompleteness and heterogenous dynamics.

Out of sync bass arpeggios, infused with uneven rythms, fractured synth stabs and intimate melodies, frequently created here with a Schlumberg sine wave generator, are continuously engage with experimentation, both on sound and structure.

Expertly pieced-together and produced in timeless fashio, PRESENT UNMETRICS displays all the coherence and artistic authority of an album on a constant quest so vital to the music of Mapstation. An album that couldn't have been made by any other than Mapstation.

2024 Backstock

After having released several solo works of both artists, Dauw announce the first collaborative full album by The Humble Bee & Benoît Pioulard; 'I suppose I'm your future'.

Both artists hold a very special place in the history of the label. The Humble Bee was already present from the very beginning and, in hindsight, definitely has put an important mark on the musical aesthetics we've been developing throughout the years. On the other hand, we crossed paths with Benoît Pioulard several years ago through our ongoing Living Room Concert Series in which he offered one of the most magical evenings to date. Given their mutual love for the tape medium and melancholic compositions, we only had to connect the dots as we were pretty sure that some magic was up in the air.

It goes without saying that we were uttermost happy when they both accepted our invitation to work on a collab album. Even though we didn't know where their efforts would end, it already felt like a victory that we, as a label, were able to link these artists. Above all, the art of curating can be considered as an essential feature of running a label but for us it is also the most wonderful part about it. Linking artists to each other, like we also did in our Dialog Tapes or Illuminine Reworks series, even goes a step further as it makes new connections, pushes boundaries and ultimately can result in an unexpected enrichment of the musical field.

"I always look forward to the Dauw collaboration releases. Most of the creativity for these lays within their curation: it brings together artists that, although arc in the same orbit but somehow never cross paths. The beauty of collaborating is that we learn from having to give space to another creative force, working alone we fall back on what we know and what we have already done. Although I wasn't paired with Tom for earlier projects, the guys at Dauw thought (and rightly so) that it was about time we crossed our musical paths for an lp." (The Humble Bee)

Following January’s acclaimed vinyl debut from Exterior and summer’s much-loved Kota Motomura EP, Edinburgh’s Hobbes Music label ends 2019 with its first album release, also a debut, from GAMING, a fresh new braindance electronica project straight outta Glasgow.

GAMING is a new solo outing that brings together a lifelong love of music and technology and creating left field, rhythmic electronica. It’s the sound of IDM, nineties techno and mensch maschine computer music that is as spontaneous as it is programmed. It's a bit of a grower and may take time to get under your skin....

“Scenes From A Deserted City is a collection of tracks that started as a set of riffs, loops, rhythms and grooves and unfurled around a sense of growing unease about the future of the urban environment around me.

It’s an album that started out as sound…and ended up as a way of telling stories about the age of anxiety we live in, how our world is changing, and how we find a way through that.

This is DIY electronica from Glasgow – it was made on a growing collection of digital and analogue synths and FX units, including a bunch of modular racks, each with its own idiosyncrasies and character that belies the assumption of the binary.

The studio where it was recorded – an abandoned, and often very cold, school building reclaimed by the community some twenty years ago – offered up stories of resilience, even when all seems lost. (I’m not sure what the mice contributed but they definitely climbed in and out of some synths).

This album is ultimately about my changing relationship with Glasgow, a city I’ve lived in for more than 25 years. It’s about how I feel now about the increasing sense of urban decay and how the city can be a very isolating place. It’s about how I reflect on my younger creative self trying to find a direction but mainly feeling a sense of dislocation and not fitting in. And it’s about the questions I have about how that relationship is changing, how it will be forced to move forward.
The result is a soundtrack for walking home on your own, in that headphone bubble when it’s just you focusing on that music that makes sense to you alone. It’s for early in the morning, after the night before, or going to work with the memories of that slipping and sliding inside your head. It’s about how it feels to be both elated and lonely, to be lost in the familiar, despairingly hopeful.”

Stroboscopic Artefacts releases ‘X – Ten Years Of Artefacts’, a 13-track album curated by Lucy, the nom de techno of Luca Mortellaro. It celebrates ten years of his label by boldly confirming its raison d’être: a continual redefinition of modern techno.

‘X – Ten Years Of Artefacts’ is a various artists album in which the label’s key artists respond to its tenth anniversary with fresh compositions. Artists with divergent perspectives and MOs are equally at home expressing themselves. These tracks’ timbres, tempos and moods differ greatly yet—somewhat improbably—they seem together, ideologically unified.

The album will be later complemented by a special remixes EP, with four new reworks of pivotal back catalogue material from the label (Donato Dozzy, Caterina Barbieri, Xhin and Klock). And from fall 2019, Lucy and an incredible cast of Stroboscopic Artefacts artists will begin an extended club tour to mark the anniversary.

On ‘X – Ten Years Of Artefacts’, Mortellaro features solo as Lucy, in collaboration with Rrose as Lotus Eater and together with Speedy J as Zeitgeber. (Rrose also appears alone with “The Myth of Purity.”) Shifted, Efdemin, L.B. Dub Corp (Luke Slater), James Ruskin, Denise Rabe, Adriana Lopez, Chevel, Alessandro Adriani and Serena Butler each feature, representing a group of singular artists whose relationships with the label range from years to months—Stroboscopic Artefacts’ past, present and future must exist simultaneously.

Back in September 2009, Lucy released “Why Don’t You Change/Dub Man Walking,” the first record from Stroboscopic Artefacts, which began a discography that, ten years later, is almost unparalleled in its ambition and vision. Put simply, Mortellaro wanted to create something that didn’t exist. Stroboscopic Artefacts would be respectful of, and indebted to, the great techno and electronic music artists of the past but would develop new paths forward for the label and the genre. The label refused to perpetuate the established dichotomies of electronic music — between the dance floor and home listening, between club music and experimental music, between the past and the future. It took risks knowing it wouldn’t always work. But within a year or so of the label’s inception, it was obvious Stroboscopic Artefacts’ approach had captured imaginations far beyond its Berlin base, showing us that the boundaries of techno are often constructs of limited imagination.

The label pursued constantly evolving methods of releasing music. It created concept-driven series like Monad, Stellate and Totem, establishing frameworks that would give freedom in limitation. Standout albums by Lucy, Xhin, Dadub, Zeitgeber, Chevel, Kangding Ray, Lotus Eater and Alessandro Adriani were deeply considered longform presentations.

With this new album, remix EP and tour, now is the moment for Stroboscopic Artefacts to look fondly at its past while drawing breath, reenergised, and hinting at new chapters.

Emotional Rescue again delves in the world of private pressings, with a reissue of British electronic pop meets proto-House duo 4AM. With copies of their self titled album now highly sought after, this timely reissue presents two of their songs as a stand alone 7".

Consisting of multi-instrumentalist Steve Kirby - piano, guitar, bass, programming - and vocalist Kevin Finch, 4AM came together after youths filled with a love of music. Following a string of band attempts, Steve dived in to the world of midi, allowing him to build a studio set up and play solo. A meeting with new work colleague Kevin quickly developed to joining forces to expand on his early demos.

Their melodic, dance-influenced pop draws on a love of Japan, OMD and The The, but also ECM jazz and a touch of "white boy soul". The TR-808 drum and hi-hats, string stabs and random acid squelches - although no TR-303 was used - highlights the influence the nascent House sounds emanating from the "second summer of love" of 1988 / 89 had in their music melting pot.

Over this, personal lyrics flow, full of honest emotions and a touch of youthful naivety thrown in - of relationships, love, sex and passions. Intended as a personal artifact, the original album was released in 1990 with no promotion or live shows and has taken until now, some 30 years, to find a cult audience. I want you with a Passion.

On ‘Ways Of Seeing’ Konx-om-Pax has switched up the mood and hit gold. He has made an album that is filled with joy and sunshine, saturated with the classic feel of Berlin Techno.

Tom Scholefield has moved on from the dark ambient and brittle rave of the first two Konx-om-Pax albums, which were a reflection of his hometown Glasgow's electronic music scenes. After a recent move to Berlin, the textures of Glasgow's musical strains have fused into an accessible and friendly mix of poppy melodic electronica built from a stricter 'less is more' sound pallete, closer in spirit to the music of his adopted city. It is also a record which was made in opposition to recent music he has been hearing, in particular the troubled, dark and noisy experimental music coming out of Berlin. Tom wanted to focus on more joyful qualities, making this a record imbued with warmth and happiness, a panacea to the darkness and disorientation all around in 2019.

Having a social scene full of producers has also influenced the album. The opening track 'LA Melody' came from staying with Ross Birchard (Hudson Mohawke) at his house in LA, hanging out in the glorious sunshine with him and Lunice working on tracks.
"Initially Ross asked me to write some melodies to use in a project he was producing, but I ended up liking it so much I decided to keep the riff. I generally write music alone, but being around other producers gave me a certain excited energy that reminded me of after-parties back in Glasgow where Ross and myself spent our youth together. Spending time in Clark's studio also helped me improve my workflow and sequencing the album by seeing the way he does things". On 'Säule Acid' he collaborates with Silvia Kastel and in 'I’m For Real' the vocals of Glaswegian DJ/producer Nightwave filter around the track.

Following the reissue of ZiadRahbani's "Abu Ali" album, Wewantsounds is pursue its exploration of great Lebanese music with the reissue of "Wahdon," released in 1978 by legendary Middle Eastern diva Fairuz and recorded during the Abu Ali sessions and including the Lebanese dancefloor cult classic “Al Bostah“. 1978 is a turning point for the Lebanese Diva. The 70s had seen her rise as an international star, playing sold out concerts in the US and in Europe, and appearing on national TV in France. She had had a long-lasting artistic collaboration with her husband AssiRahbani and his brother Elias (aka The Rahbani Brothers) who, together, had penned most of the singer's classics. In 1978, Assi who had suffered a brain haemorrhage in 1972 got weaker and the collaboration finally ended (together with their personal relationship). Their 22 year old son Ziad took over Fairuz's musical reins and set to work on their first album together, "Wahdon" ("Alone"), serving as her mother's producer, composer and musicaldirector. Wahdon typifies this key moment in Fairuz's career when she switched from traditional to more modern arrangements. The first side of the album encapsulates the more traditional side of the singer with such mesmerising songs as "Habaitak Ta Neseet Al Naoum" ("I loved you so much i forgot to sleep") or "Ana Indi Haneen" ("I'm Nostalgic"), filled with gorgeous arabic strings and percussion. The Second side though is a whole different affair. Recorded in Athens at the EMI Greece studio at the same time as the Abu Ali sessions, the two long tracksbrings a hipper, contemporary funk and disco feel that has made the album such a collector's item with DJs and diggers around the world. Clocking at almost nine minutes "Al Bostah" ("The Bus") tells the story a woman in love remembering a bus journey with her lover under a scorching heat, enhanced by an hypnotic uptempofunkified disco beat, while "Wahdon" brings a slower and jazzier underlay to Fairuz's superb singing. These tracks shocked some of the diva's fans at the time but they've since passed the test of time and have become highly sought after. Whadon has since become both aclassic Fairuz album and a cult ZiadRahbani production that Wewantsounds isdelighted to bring to a wider audience for the first time.

Shape-shifting left
coast producer Sage Caswell likens his latest full-length to a surrealist
architectural space: "I walk up to a building and Evil Twin is playing. A copy of
me is at the door and I let myself in. Inside the house is inside my head; each
room is a different song and emotion." A distinct dream sequence logic threads
together these nine nuanced tracks, which swerve from vaporous melancholy to
ecstatic motion to nocturnal wanderlust, alternately lucid and opaque.

Last year's relocation
from his beloved home base of Los Angeles to Madison, Wisconsin certainly played
a role, as pulling up roots inevitably does: "I love L.A. more than I can
properly articulate, but I saw an opportunity to leave so I took it." The
experience prompted an exploratory set of recordings inspired by notions of separation,
vulnerability, and "how it feels to identify the things in your life that don't
feel like you." Evil Twin captures
Caswell at his most fluid and dualistic, mapping a multi-hued maze of twisted rhythms
and refracted textures, fluctuating between beatific expanse and amniotic
bangers.
Previous releases for
Spring Theory and Far Away showcased Caswell's capacity for innerspace club
voyaging but here his vision skews even more vividly elusive, immersive and
immaterial, lost and found. The record's contradictions were deliberate and,
most importantly, therapeutic: "Evil Twin was intended to be as much a visual idea
as a soundtrack to feeling out of control. I didn't really want to talk about
it, so I made this album."

'Voices In The Night' is 23rd Underpass' third full-time length album, and Costas Andriopoulos has not lost a bit of his talent to write classy and catchy yet dark synth pop-infused Italo disco tracks. Again aided by Nadia Vassipoulou, John Britsas and Panos Papapetros on vocals, the album is comprised of eight brand new tracks including smash hits 'I Hear Voices In The Night' and 'Together Forever', for you to dance on your favourite disco's dancefloor, alone at home or just to dream away on Costas' haunting melodies.

TUTTI is comprised of eight soundscapes: an audio self portrait comprising of manipulated sound recordings from Cosey's life, music and art:
'It's the only album I've made that is an all encompassing statement expressing the totality of my being. A sense of the past in relation to the present and everything in between.'

These eight pieces were originally conceived as the soundtrack to the autobiographical film 'Harmonic Coumaction', and performed live in February 2017, part of a series of events that accompanied the COUM Transmissions retrospective which opened Hull UK City of Culture 2017. Later that year, 'Harmonic Coumaction' was presented as an audio-visual installation for Cosey Fanni Tutti's solo exhibition at Cabinet Gallery, London.
Cosey Fanni Tutti explains: 'Working on the COUM Transmissions exhibition also coincided with writing my autobiography - collating archive material and re engaging with my past. My work is a continuum, the past feeding the present and vice versa. The album is an interpretation of my past and present, of my understanding the shifting perceptions of how they inform one another. One form creating another through a metamorphic process.'

On TUTTI, the music has been updated and enhanced with elements of the original tracks re-recorded and further processed specifically to create a unique stand-alone document, separate to the live performance and installation. Recorded at Cosey Fanni Tutti's studio in Norfolk, the album, as on her debut release, Time To Tell, merges Cosey's art activities with her exploration of sound: The album's autobiographical theme is not locked into any specific time or place, the 'voices', instruments and sounds together span decades of my life, music and art. In this context my name 'TUTTI' shifts from its role as a noun to perfectly represent the concept of the album, also acting as sign for me the artist.
TUTTI is Cosey Fanni Tutti's only solo album release since 1982's Time To Tell. Time To Tell was recently given its first release on vinyl, on a long awaited official deluxe edition. The interim years between solo releases has seen a blisteringly prolific output as an artist and musician. Renowned for her art, her work in the sex industry, as co-founder of Industrial music and Throbbing Gristle, and her pioneering electronic music solo and as Chris & Cosey, Carter Tutti and Carter Tutti Void, she has created throughout with the motto 'my life is my art, my art is my life'.

Cosey's autobiography ART SEX MUSIC was published to worldwide acclaim by Faber & Faber in 2017, a Japanese edition has just been published with further translations and an audio book to follow. TUTTI

It is with great honour that Emotional Rescue comes back to the music of Jaki Whitren & John Cartwright for a special 7" of two previously unreleased songs on to vinyl for the first time in That Will Be That and This Time. Originally part of the International Times reissue project (ERC004) in 2013, the songs have previously only been available on CD and digital formats as 'out-takes'. However, all that time the plan was to release the songs as a stand-alone vinyl release at some point.
Discussion with John continued over the years and the plan was for a release as part of the label's fifth anniversary, until sadly the project was put on hold due to the untimely loss of both Jaki and John in late 2016. The recent repress of their masterpiece that is their privately pressed album, International Times, led to these songs being revisited for the first time since and so here at last are both available together, as much in homage to these two wonderful musicians. More than studio-plus recordings, That Will Be That actually appeared in rerecorded form on the couple's Rhythm Hymn album of 1983. Here though is the original (and superior) version, with all the hallmarks of classic Whitren and Cartwright song writing craft, musicianship and production skill. Again remastered by their son (and at the time, teenage drummer) Joby Baker, the song drips with a confidence of masters of their instruments, full heartfelt, righteous and as relevant today as then lyrics, all backed with some deep white funk and enough soul to move mountains. This is accompanied by one of their greatest compositions in the spine-tingling This Time. Only ever known on this live recording from Glastonbury Hall, Jaki's vocals and light accompaniment from John's keys let the song shine. If the sheer power of her voice and words don't move you, then something is missing in life. A pure, sad, joyous way to thank and remember this wonderful music and people.

Limited Edition 400 Only Translucent Violet Coloured Vinyl Lp. Housed In A Full Colour Outer Sleeve With Mind Bending Artwork And Download Code.

Third Earthling Society Album For Riot Season Following The Previous And Now Sold Out 'england Have My Bones' (2014) & 'ascent To Godhead' (2017)
 
'mo - The Demon' Was Recorded At Leeds College Of Music Between November 2017 - February 2018. The Basis Of The Album Was To Record An Imaginary Soundtrack To The Shaw Brothers Bat Shit Psychedicrazy Kung Fu Horror 'the Boxer's Omen' Aka Mo Or Demon.
 
The Story Is An Everyday One.
 
After A Hong Kong Kick Boxer Is Paralysed By A Cheating Thai Competitor, His Mobster Brother Vows Revenge And Journeys To Thailand For A Duel. Along The Way, Our Hero Is Met By Bizarre Visions, Entered Into A Buddhist Monastery, And Begins A Quest To Save The Soul Of A Deceased Monk (his Twin Brother In A Past Life) Who Died At The Hands Of A Powerful Black Magician.
 
We've All Been There. However The Movie Descends Into A Kind Of Spiritual Jodorowsky Mushroom Fest That Is Completely Deranged And Is Therefore One Of Those Perfect Midnight Movies.
 
So We Got Free Studio Time At Lcm In November And Just Went 'fuck It' Lets Make An Imaginary Soundtrack In Homage To Such A Great Movie.
 
Taking Inspiration From All The Things Musical That Have Inspired Us Over The Years. Berlin Era Bowie, Prime Magazine Circa 'correct Use Of Soap', Electric Funk Miles, 'caravanserai' Santana, Embryo And God Knows What Else (it Doesn't Really Matter As It All Ends Up Earthling Society), We Think We've Made A Groovy As Fuck Concept.
 
Then, Invited Back In February We Decided To Record 2 Stand Alone Pieces 'spring Snow' And 'jetavina Grove' And Bring All Our Space Rock Elements And Psych Raga Back Into The Fray. Throw In Some Super Cool Korean Vocals Courtesy Of Bomi Seo Of Tirikiliatops And Run The Guitars Through A Harmonizer H910 (as Used By Visconti On Low An Heroes) And Its The Perfect Swansong To The Last 14 Years Of Playing Live And Recording Together.

 

Following the release of lo-fi electronic masterpiece I Don't Remember Now / I Don't Want To Talk About It and his brilliant follow-up Plaster Falling, Cincinnati-based artist John Bender began assembling his third and last album, Pop Surgery, in late 1982.


While all of Bender's work draws from intimate home recordings - featuring the artist alone with various keyboards, analogue sequencers and tape delays - Pop Surgery remains the one that perhaps best distills his arrant deconstruction of the "pop" concept. These twelve frenetic tracks, meticulously stitched together with dubbed-out vocals and disjointed drum machines, stretch the boundaries of bedroom electronics.


Bender would forgo the handmade LP sleeves typical of his Record Sluts imprint. The cover depicts an imposing scrapyard crane, ready to pick up discarded objects with its bright red electromagnet, while the center labels détourn Columbia's classic '70s style.


"I pressed a single run of 500 copies," Bender recounts. "The only review I remember railed at the poor production quality. The DIY era had clearly come to an end."


This first-time standalone reissue is recommended for fans of Suicide, TG's 20 Jazz Funk Greats and early Cabaret Voltaire. Liner notes by John Bender.

For the dance film essay - The Body as Archive Gregor Schwellenbach chose a simple yet radical approach: he created a kind of catalog of sounds, clearly structured, presented with sobriety and boldness. The sounds are not embedded in the familiar frame of rhythm-harmony-melody, rather, they are introduced smoothly, presented one after the other, sometimes going together, then standing alone. It is a sensual approach, at the same time executed strictly systematically. Or vice versa: Schwellenbach's composition is strictly systematical, giving maximum space for sensuality and the unfolding of sounds.

Schwellenbach strives to create a system that doesn't become rigid, by treating the material gently and with sincerity.

In composing - The Body as Archive he sets clear rules: everything is played by hand, he only uses instruments he plays himself: Keyboards (Rhodes, piano, synthesizer) and double bass. Almost all material is played in the same key, the chords can be used in any combination, everything fits to everything. The ten parts of - The Body as Archive , mastered by Taylor Deupree, could be played all at the same time without sounding cacophonous.

Everything is pure presence, a gently woven stream of elegance and attentiveness. The organization of sounds - usually an action of preparation, didactic and discipline - turns into poetry.

Set for release on June 23 via Asylum Records, x (multiply) is the hugely anticipated new album by Ed Sheeran.
It follows his critically acclaimed and hugely successful 2011 debut +; an album that was certified 6 times platinum in the UK alone and has achieved worldwide sales of over 4 million copies to date. It also saw Ed asthe recipient of various awards for the record, including 2 Brits, an Ivor Novello and multiple Grammy nominations.
Never an artist to stand still, Ed recorded x at various locations around the globe (all the while drawing on experiences and influences encountered on his over three years of unrelenting touring) with such luminary producers as Rick Rubin (Eminem, Jay-Z, Red Hot Chilli Peppers), Pharrell Williams (Daft Punk, Robin Thicke, N.E.R.D), Benny Blanco (Rhianna, Wiz Khalifa) and Jeff Bhasker (Alicia Keys, Jay-Z) adding new flavours to the classy work of key collaborators Johnny McDaid (Snow Patrol) and Jake Gosling (who produced +). xhas the musical ingredients to make it one of the most important global releases of this year.
The new set showcases the exponential growth (both vocally and musically) of an incredible artist, who at 23 exhibits the poise of a seasoned veteran. The songs for x came together whilst touring + and, in the same way as the latter was a snapshot of his life and relationship to-date, x charts his loves and life since. Only 'One', the perfect album opener and first song written for the record (in 2011 whilst on tour in Australia) looks back to that time and is the link between the two records. With 'One' under his belt, almost before he noticed he was writing, Ed had ten new songs and counting.
The breath-taking album-closer 'Afire Love' was written about his grandfather who passed away last Christmas. 'Always the hero of the family - such a cool guy - he'd been suffering with Alzheimer's for some time and I actually started writing that song two weeks before he passed away," Ed says. "I was thinking 'What if' and then he did...' Then there is the timeless ballad 'Photograph' written in May 2012 in a hotel room in Kansas whilst on tour with Snow Patrol. McDaid had a piano loop playing on his laptop while Ed was making a Lego X-wing Fighter to give to a charity auction. He just started singing as he put the pieces together and the song grew from there. 'Don't' started life as a riff on his phone and grew into another of x's massive moments. The deluxe version of the album also includes the original song, 'I See Fire', which Ed wrote, produced and recorded for the second Hobbit movie. This was after Academy award-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson personally commissioned him. With no promotion besides 3 tweets from his personal twitter account, it reached #2 on the UK iTunes chart.
However it's the Pharrell-produced lead single 'Sing', due out in the UK on June 1, that's pushing the envelope for Ed. #Sing was the number one trend on twitter globally ahead of launch with the track immediately tearing up airwaves nationwide including a 7-week add to Radio 1 and an unprecedented addition straight to the Super Hit list at Capital FM and Kiss Network. The audio upload on YouTube was Ed's biggest ever video launch, clocking 650k views in its first 24 hours. Already i-tunes Top 5 in 15 different countries (number 3 in the US), Top 20 in 36 countries and with all chart positions climbing, 'Sing' is well on the way to being a global smash.
On the back of 'Sing's' launch, x reached No.7 in the UK iTunes chart on pre-order alone with that success mirrored internationally with No.1 positions in the US and Canada, Top 5 in New Zealand, Sweden, Australia and Top 10 in 20 countries.
'I'm really proud of my new album and can't wait for people to hear it.' Ed says. 'It's definitely my best work.'

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.

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.

Rumored to be one of the most intriguing collaborations of 2018, Rocketgirl presents Pieter Nooten's 4th solo album 'STEM' as Nooten teams up with legendary producer/ mixer/sound-artist Stephen W Tayler (Kate Bush, Underworld) at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios. 'STEM' is probably Nooten's finest work since collaborating with Michael Brook 30 years ago, producing the timeless cult classic 'Sleeps With The Fishes'.Setting the tone in his 2012 double cd 'HAVEN', Nooten further explores the boundaries between the neoclassical and ambient genre, delivering an album of  heartwrenching, profound melodic compositions that invites you to listen to 'STEM' over and over again.

Stem is 60 minutes long (The CD includes a bonus track)
The vinyl has been specially edited by Stephen and Pieter and comes with a postcard and a download code of the full version.

Press:'Moments in life so often slip by with only the rusted acquaintance of memory to recall them but with a masterpiece like Haven in your collection you won't ever walk alone. No matter the slips and pitfalls you encounter or the loves you recriminate yourself for squandering, Pieter Nooten's newest will allow you to dwell with your thoughts in private with dignity...''Haven is the kind of record that gives modern composition a good name. It will also give countless budding musicians the belief that they can create a valid piece of work with nothing but a laptop. This may not be a bad thing, but it will be a while before anything in the genre matches the maturity, warmth and technical ability displayed by Nooten...'

Nooten's musical career began in the late 1970s. Starting out as the drummer in a local symphonic rock band,2 he quickly changed to bass guitar and later keyboards, playing in different bands. At the height of house squatting culture and new wave, Nooten met Anka Wolbert and Ronny Moorings who had just formed Clan of Xymox together. During the mid-eighties Clan of Xymox recorded two highly acclaimed albums on 4AD.

The Works of John B. McLemore, the star of one of last years biggest podcasts, S-Town, which is coming out on Dais. The story behind this release is truly fascinating.. the music itself is ambient remixes of Tor Lundvall's best works, but with John's idiosyncratic slant on them, with some having been woven together using the horde of clocks he use to keep in his basement. This story is really worth a read if you get a chance."In September 2012, I received an e-mail from someone named John B. who said he had assembled a lengthy remix of my music, which also incorporated some of his own material. John asked if I'd mind if he posted this recording on YouTube, to which I agreed. He also mentioned that there was a second part to his mix that was "roughed out", but never completed. I was curious to hear both parts, so shortly afterwards, John mailed me two CDrs which I enjoyed very much. The recordings were hypnotic and haunting, evoking images of vast fields at twilight. I was especially fond of the second disc which had a darker atmosphere and featured more of John's original material, beginning with ghostly clock chimes and ending with a mysterious piece using dried seed pods and other cryptic sounds that slowly built-up into an intense, almost claustrophobic environment.

My correspondence with John lasted about two months. In one of his final e-mails, John said "I have to observe that your paintings seem to have a great deal of loneliness involved in them... even multiple characters seem to be together alone, so to speak... I really appreciate looking at your paintings as well as your music, I think I have connected with the spirit of them both as much as anyone can." He went on to discuss his struggles with depression, caring for his aging mom and his concerns about the future. I tried to encourage his music as a possible outlet, perhaps as a means to help transform his feelings of loneliness into a more content solitude. Always easy to say, but as I well know, not always easy to do.

In his last e-mail in late October 2012, John sent me a beautiful slideshow of his Fall flower beds and his dogs. I was touched and I told him how much watching his video had brightened my day. That was the last time I heard from him.

Last year, I visited John's YouTube channel to see if Part One of his mix was still posted, which it was, and still remains. I was shocked and saddened to read in the comments section that he had passed away. The comments also suggested that John had received some sort of national attention recently. This quickly led me to the S-Town podcast. Although I had mixed reactions after listening, I was thankful that S-Town shed more light on John and his remarkable life... but somehow, I just couldn't place the person in the podcast with the person I had corresponded with. Had I not listened to S-Town, I would have remembered John as a very private, somewhat dark and lonely person. He may have been these things, but there was obviously far more to him than that.

After finishing the final episode, I decided to play the second, unreleased CDr of John's recordings for the first time in years. Listening to his clock chimes ringing in the dark was an eerie and chilling moment. I was reminded of a line from my song "29" which says "I live with dreams and a lonely mind, my clock is set to a different time". I wondered what those lyrics might have meant to him.

John had mentioned that he wasn't satisfied with his final mix, but I felt his work was too special not to be heard. I hope that these recordings offer another glimpse into the creative mind of a unique, complex and gifted individual who tragically left this world all too early."

Tor Lundvall
January 17th, 2018

JOHN B.'s NOTES:

This is what was intended to be the second part of my Tor Lundvall Remix series. Unfortunately I am dissatisfied with it due to a few defects, and it is highly unlikely that I will ever be able to complete it. Still it serves as a testament to my interest in the work of Tor Lundvall that I made it this far. Defects are as follows: The first movement is too 'fussy', and the first section of the fifth movement seems a bit long and may bore the listener, but since it consisted of so many slow moving textures, I don't know how I could redo it and still achieve what I was wanting to accomplish. Additionally, this recording was done just days before my Father died, and there are many feelings of guilt associated with the time spent on it. If you are receiving this recording, either you are one of my better friends, or you are a great admirer of Tor Lundvall, and requested that I send it to you.

1st Part: Basically a track of me fiddling around with old clock bells, and air turbulence mixed with Tor Lundvall and Field Recordings of rain, birds, cicadas, frogs and such.

2nd Part: My interpretation of Lundvall's Dark Spring. This track was inspired by the music of Carl Michael von Hausswolff.

3rd Part: Very ambient Field Recordings inspired by the work of Francisco Lopez.

4th Part: A Very Quiet passage consisting of delicate Field Recordings.

5th Part: Music performed entirely by me inspired by the Darker paintings of Tor Lundvall. Most of the instruments on this piece consisted of dried seed pods from the plant; Showy Rattlebox (Crotolaria Spectabilis), that I had collected and dried the previous Fall. There are other sounds from my own environment as well.

This mix was assembled in the Late Fall of 2003. There are some very Quiet passages in this piece, so it requires a nearly Isolated listening environment... It should be heard After Midnight, in the Late Fall of the year, and, not surprisingly, a Very Long Attention span is a Prerequisite.

John B. McLemore
September 10, 2012