quête:tone

"Combining steppy dance music, lush detail and a diaristic tone, Jack Chrysalis’ debut album dials between music that is destined to catch the ear of the club-goer and the heart of the dreamer, his signature propulsive mutations of organic techno and UK garage sounding strongly in tracks like Another Year and Coldharbour.

Between these, Chrysalis threads in more introspective moments. Tracks formed by running a hand along piano keys in improvisation, or made in recollection of Koji Kondo’s clear bright musical palette for Zelda. They lend a sense of atmosphere and a deeper running mood to the album’s overworld, heightening endorphin hits from the garage swing and affording a little more bittersweetness to its textures and secrets.

Whether in rush or retreat, each track on this album emerges with its own emotional resonance. There’s a sense of seasons turning, or a twilight quality that’s hard to fully pin down. “Owl music” became shorthand for Jack’s tunes, a way for Mana to capture a prescient, nocturnal flight within their environment."

Gondwana Records sign LA bassist and composer Seth Ford-Young's Phi-Psonics project and announce a remastered deluxe-edition of The Cradle featuring bonus material

Phi-Psonics is a meditative, immersive instrumental group from Los Angeles, led by bassist Seth Ford-Young and featuring Sylvain Carton on woodwinds, Mitchell Yoshida on electric piano, and Josh Collazo on drums. Their deeply soulfulmusic draws on jazz and classical influences together with Ford-Young's own musical experiences, relationships, and his introduction to spirituality, yoga and philosophy at a young age, to create something uniquely its own. Phi-Psonics' name and ultimate aim is to find 'Phi' – the golden mean – in art, nature and self. Ford-Young explains:

"It's a bit of a cliché, but music saved my life many times and instilled in me a belief in the great power of healing through art. It is my hope and intention that this music provides healing to someone somewhere."

Originally from Washington DC area, Ford-Young moved to California in the early 90s and fell in love with the deep sounds of the upright bass and the music of Charles Mingus, John and Alice Coltrane, and Duke Ellington along with Bach, Chopin, Pärt, and Satie. He immersed himself deeply in music and keen to learn combinedintense personal study with collaborations, tours, and recordings with artists such as Tom Waits, Beats Antique, and John Vanderslice. In 2010 he moved from the San-Francisco Bay area to the Los Angeles hills and continued his explorations. But great music is rarely just about music and Ford-Young's meditative, soulful music draws on more than just the twin wellsprings of jazz and classical music:

"My mother was a yoga teacher from the early 70's until recently and taught me yoga and meditation at an early age, my stepfather is an Aikido instructor and student of the teachings of Gurdjieff. Those were all early areas of study that I came back to many times throughout my life. Phi-Psonics has been a project that unapologetically synthesizes some of these ideas into our music".

It's this mixture of influences, musical and extramusical, that gives the music of Phi-Psonics it's immersive quality and quiet power. Revealingly the music that would becomeThe Cradle, wasn't written specifically for an album, originally Ford-Young was just writing down what was coming through. As time went by and the album began to take shape, the world situation seemed to be getting darker and his compositions aim to offer hope as a response to the negative influences that abound today. Remarkably for such a beautiful sounding record, it was recorded at the composer's home, rather than in a studio, but the relaxed nature of this process gives the music an airy lightness that propels the music to some magical spaces.

Originally self-released on vinyl in a limited run just as the world went into lockdown, The Cradle reached Matthew Halsall (founder of Gondwana Records) when he aws looking for music for his Worldwide FM show and he was blown away, hearing a kindred spirit at work. Halsall explains:

"Phi-Psonics make beautiful, humble and honest music, it's not showy, but it has a deep vibe that will elevate your mind and soul if you let it. When we heard The Cradle we reached out and are really super delighted to welcome Seth and his band to our label". Whereas for Ford Young: "Connecting with Matthew and the Gondwana records family has been a light in the darkness of the last years - to have my music make connections even as we are more isolated."

Ford-Young is currently putting the finishing touches to the second Phi-Psonics record, but aware that only a select few had heard The Cradle, let alone had the chance to buy a copy, and entranced by its deceptive simplicity and elevating energy, Halsall suggested that Gondwana present the album as a remastered 'deluxe edition' with an extended running time featuring extra tracks and new artwork from Daniel Halsall.

The Cradle starts with First Step, perfectly setting the tone for the whole album, it is a beautiful, soulful slice of musical calm gently propelled by Ford-Young's resonant bass and elevated by sublime flute and Wurlitzer electric piano solos. The seductive title track The Cradle was written way back in 2011 during a time of great personal change that led the composer to a feeling of newness and nurture. The magical, winsome Desert Ride is inspired by many rides through the grandly cinematic Mojave Desert. You can experience how incredibly full of life it's harsh landscape is if you slow down to its tempo. The gentle, sublime Mama is a tribute to mothers of all kinds, beautiful and heroic. Drum Talk was largely improvised, Ford-Young and the band agreed on a topic and recorded their conversation. Choosing their notes based on how Josh's drums were tuned. Like Glass is named for the special properties of Glass. Like some music, glass is delicate, yet has structure. The first of the two bonus tracks Still Dancing was written during the early days of 2020 in response to the challenges we all were facing then. It's a reminder that the figurative dance continues and that real dancing is essential. And the second, The Searcher, also written as a response to 2020, is a gently hypnotic song about the introspection and growth that can spring from a difficult situation.

This then is The Cradle, a quiet self-contained masterpiece, life-affirming and elevating in equal measure and the first offering from a wonderful new voice in spiritual jazz and the latest members of the global Gondwana Records family.

"Escapism" is the second album produced by Piotr Rajski also known as Pepe.. Once again, he offered us music that is hard to close in one genre and is best described by the artist himself:
At the time of creating this album, the world was absolutely dominated by the pandemic turning our lives upside down. Writing new music has became a way to escape from disturbing reality.

According to Paweł Bartnik who also mixed and mastered my first album "Afterimages", the second one is more colourful and vivid. I think he described well the idea I had in mind while recording the new tracks. I wanted them to stay in that dreamy tone which can't be referred to only one genre.

The record was pressed on 180g vinyl.

Limited version was made in 100 copies - each vinyl record has a different splatter color! "Very Limited Surprise Edition"

I found "Escapism" a great opportunity to combine my UK inspirations ("Vanity Fair", "WQRWY") and rap fascinations from Money Sex Records or Tartelet Records ("Realizm Magiczny"). While working on the album my biggest inspirations were i.a. Madlib, D'Angelo, Samiyam, Ras G, Jai Paul and Overmono.
I'm extremely happy I could create some of the songs with such talented people as Moo Latte, Kasia Siepka from Byty, Paulina Przybysz, Immortal Onion, Baasch and Wuja HZG. Everyone's unique personality enriched the sound and compositions on the album.

The cover was designed by Beata Śliwińska "Barrakuz" and it's based on the summer photo taken by Kuba Olachowski. It's worth mentioning that it was created using analog collage technique.

And where did the title come from?
The songs on the album are for me the way to escape from the pandemic and explore new musical areas. I just wanted to forget about all the laws, quarantines and restrictions. Imagination turned out to be the perfect cure for this.

Pauline Oliveros' The Wanderer is available on LP for the first time since it was originally released in 1984. Cut at Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.

An utterly essential document of early American minimalism from this Pauline Oliveros. The Wanderer is the sister record to Accordion & Voice, also available on LP from Important Records.

The Wanderer is based on a single modal scale (B C# D D# E F# G#) and rhythmic modes based on a meter consisting of ¾ and ⅜. Part I, Song, is intended to explore the unique resonant qualities of accordion reeds through long sounds. Subtle variations come about from differences in tuning and air pressure. Part II, Dance, demonstrates the sharp accenting power of the accordion bellows in a mixture of cross-rhythms characteristic of jigs, reels, batucadas, Bulgars, klezmer forms, Cajun dances, and music of other diverse cultures.

The Wanderer was composed in November, 1982 especially for the Springfield Accordion Orchestra, directed by Sam Falcetti. This recording documents The Wanderer's world premiere, as it was performed 27 January, 1983 at Marymount Manhattan Theatre. The orchestra consists of twenty accordions, two bass accordions, and five percussionists, with Pauline Oliveros as soloist, Sam Falcetti conducting.

Horse Sings From Cloud, written in 1975, is one of Oliveros' best known works. Like most of her Sonic Meditations, it can be performed vocally and/or instrumentally, solo or in collaboration. A solo version of Horse Sings From Cloud has been recorded on Accordion & Voice. An early version of the score reads, “Sustain a tone or sound until any desire to change it disappears. When there is no longer any desire to change the tone or sound, then change it.” This time, Horse Sings From Cloud is performed in ensemble. Joining Pauline Oliveros on bandoneon are Heloise Gold on Harmonium, Julia Haines on accordion, and Linda Montano on concertina. This quartet version incorporates the microtonal differences in tuning of the selected instruments, creating shimmering reed sounds somewhat similar to the shimmering of a Balinese gamelan.

Pauline Oliveros' Accordion & Voice is available on LP for the first time since it was originally released in 1982. Cut at Golden and pressed at RTI for maximum fidelity.

Pauline Oliveros was an electronic music pioneer, accordionist, composer and educator who resided in Kingston, New York. Her instrument was tuned in Just Intonation and she often included it in her meditative improvisational music. Her music is not meditative in the sense that it is intended for listening to while meditating, rather each piece is a form of meditation, such as her aptly titled Sonic Meditations.

A central figure in post-war electronic art music, Oliveros is one of the original members of the San Francisco Tape Music Center (along with Morton Subotnick, Ramon Sender, Terry Riley, and Anthony Martin), which was the resource on the U.S. West coast for electronic music during the 1960s. The Center later moved to Mills College, where she was its first director, and is now called the Center for Contemporary Music. Oliveros often improvises with the Expanded Instrument System, an electronic signal processing system she designed, in her performances and recordings.

“Accordion & Voice was the first of my recordings as a soloist. I was living in an A-frame house in a meadow just below Mount Tremper at Zen Mountain Center. I had a wonderful view of the graceful saddle mountain top. When away on a performance trip I would imagine the mountain as I played Rattlesnake Mountain. I followed the feelings and sensations of my many experiences of the mountain - the changing colors of the season, the breezes and winds blowing through the grasses and trees. Horse Sings From Cloud taught me to listen to the depth of a tone and to have patience. Rather than initiating musical impulses of motion, melody and harmony I wanted to hear the subtlety of a tone taking space and time to develop. The tones linger and resonate in the body, mind, instrument and performance space. My thanks to Important Records for bringing these pieces to be heard again.” ~ Pauline Oliveros, 2007

Black Truffle is pleased to announce World in World, the latest solo offering from prolific Berlin-based guitarist-composer Julia Reidy. Where the recent trilogy of LP releases – brace, brace (Slip, 2019), In Real Life (Black Truffle, 2019), and Vanish (Editions Mego, 2020) – focussed on increasingly lush electronic settings for Reidy’s propulsive fingerpicking and auto-tuned vocals, arranged into wide-ranging side-long epics, World in World finds Reidy refocusing on the core elements of their approach while simultaneously pushing into challenging new areas. Comprising nine pieces ranging between two and seven minutes in length, the album’s opening title track promptly introduces the distinctive palette of just-intoned electric guitars, subtle electronic processing, and voice that is rigorously explored throughout. Where much of Reidy’s guitar work on previous recordings explored rapidly pulsed cycling figures, here notes often hang in the air in a more spacious, lyrical fashion. The elasticity of rhythm and non-linear repetition of pitches initially suggests improvisation until the listener becomes aware of the precise arrangements of spatialised lines. At times, World in World suggests classic bedroom electric guitar works of the 1990s such as Loren Connors’ Airs or Roy Montgomery’s Scenes from the South Island; like those works, Reidy’s possesses a wonderfully live ambience, with frequent pedal clicks adding to the music’s powerful sense of intimacy. In Reidy’s case, however, the yearning, melancholic mood of Connors or Montgomery is tempered by the unorthodox guitar tuning, which at points produces a unique and uncomfortable effect somewhere between the hyper-precision of Harry Partch or Lou Harrison and Jandek’s slack-stringed descent into the void. While World in World plots out its terrain with a bold single-mindedness that allows some pieces to appear almost as variations on a common theme, subtle changes in emphasis distinguish each track. Tactile percussive interjections skitter across the tremolo tones of ‘Paradise in Unrecognisable Colours’, while ‘Ajar’ ramps up the role played by the electronics, with glitching pitch-shifted and back-masked textures threaded through the guitars and thickly harmonised vocal layers. Ranging from autotuned melodic lines to buried murmurs, Reidy’s voice is a frequent presence throughout these nine pieces, at times creating the impression that a more conventional series of songs lurks underneath the chiming microtonal guitars. On the stunning ‘Poised’, whispers and distant, ghostly wails surround the layers of guitars, at times suggesting the foggiest outer reaches of Liz Harris’ Grouper. Both rigorously experimental and emotive, World in World is undoubtedly Julia Reidy’s finest work yet.

 Ty Segall meets a new non-rock challenge head-on; soundtrack music for
Matt Yoka’s compelling documentary film ‘Whirlybird’. A variety of synth
sounds, electric keyboards, drums, percussion and saxophone (and yeah, a
few guitars) form a shifting impressionist counterpart, instrumental music that
dialogues with and serves to frame the film’s compulsive themes and
images.
 Released to great acclaim in Summer 2021, ‘Whirlybird’ tells the story of
Zoey Tur and Marika Gerrard, former partners and founders of the Los
Angeles News Service, and deftly tracks their extraordinary and oftenreckless pursuit of breaking news throughout the 80s and 90s - a time in
which they pioneered the use of a helicopter to report on Los Angeles at its
most chaotic, capturing historical moments like the 1992 riots and the OJ
Simpson slow speed pursuit.
 Through striking interviews and one-of-a-kind archival footage, Yoka’s
documentary expertly tells the story of Zoey and Marika’s unravelling
marriage as they singlehandedly changed broadcast news forever. These
two arcs intertwine to create an electric view of the encroaching intensities of
that era, when the 24-hour news cycle first rose to dominate our national
consciousness.
 Ty Segall has previously scored scenes and interstitial bits for film and video
things here and there - but this is his first full-on feature film score, a work
done in collaboration with the director, whose friendship and creative
partnership with Ty has grown over a decade-plus of music videos and other
projects. Working off notes and feels from Matt and responding to the images
and story on screen, Ty crafted some of his most creative arrangements to
date, using synth, drum machine, Wurlitzer keyboard, guitars, drums and
percussion (plus saxes played by Mikal Cronin, who also cowrote the title
track with Ty) to articulate a multitude of tones running through the film.
 For a shape-shifter like Ty, this apex of tone colour is no mean feat, an
achievement further highlighted by the full set of pieces. Rather than simply
throw a bunch of songs-with-singing at the project, Ty’s score perfectly
epitomizes the film’s ethos, providing an instrumental counterpart that
dialogues with and helps frame the film’s provocative themes and images.
 As both Matt and Ty are natives to the Southern Californian milieu,
particularly the era ‘Whirlybird’ depicts, their collaboration involved a journey
through their past. In realizing the music, they revisited their own Los
Angeles awakenings, adding another personal layer to the deeply felt
meditations and elegies sighted by the remarkable ‘Whirlybird’ - now an
equally thrilling counterpart to be experienced through the original
soundtrack.

Harrison Whitford, LA-based multi-instrumentalist, producer and songwriter, announces his new album Afraid Of Nothing, released via Screwdriver Records, building on his previous work, his delicate vocals and signature guitar tones being joined by lush layers of instrumentation. It's both emotionally devastating and sonically impressive, an immersive record that warmly embraces the listener. He has spent the last several years lending his warm, expressive guitar skills to Phoebe Bridgers (who lends backing vocals to select tracks on the album) and even when her music started being noticed, Harrison still felt the urge to flex that creative muscle. A departure from his previous method of writing and recording quickly, Afraid of Nothing is an album that has benefitted from the time afforded to Harrison from being able to truly focus. “Recording Afraid of Nothing taught me an important lesson: don't stop until you're happy with it,” Harrison says. Recording was seen as a constantly evolving process, every single kink ironed out until he was sure every track was how he envisaged it.

Trees Speak are back!
Speak’s new album, “Vertigo of Flaws: Emancipation of the Dissonance and Temperaments in
Irrational Waveforms” comes as a double-vinyl edition, single CD and digital release. The limitededition first pressing only of the vinyl includes a bonus 45 enclosed in an 8-page 7”x7” booklet
insert housed within the gatefold sleeve with cover artwork created by Soviet Union propaganda
artist Lazar Markovich Lissitzky in 1911.
Trees Speak are back!
This new release is a vast leap into an ocean of space and sound, a quantum leap into cybernetics, biology, anti-gravity,
time travel, dream speech and transfiguration. A seriously next step release!
Showing no signs of slowing down their rapid creative pace – incredibly this is their fourth album in the space of just over
one year – ‘Vertigo of Flaws’ is a mighty 29 tracks, one and a half hours of music across one double album that is surely
going to be a defining point in their musical career, a giant leap into the sonic unknown, an epic exploration of intensity
and sound.
Alongside their now trademark German krautrock motoric-beat rhythms, angular New York post-punk attitude, tripped-out
60s spy soundtrack, psyche-rock, and 70s synthesizers and vocoders, here you will also hear a new cosmic spacial
awareness (both personal inner space and galactic outer space) and a truly wilful pushing of sonic boundaries - as police
sirens, static noise, alarms, radio signals, avant-garde voices, and orchestral string quartets, all collide to add beautiful
dissonance to uber-powerful, intense, addictive and propulsive rhythms - in the process creating a truly unique
soundscape that Trees Speak have made wholly their own.
If you ever wanted to hear Can, Hawkwind, Destroy All Monsters, Pere Ubu, electric eels, John Cage, Liquid Liquid,
Tangerine Dream, Suicide, Neu!, Laurie Spiegel, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Barry, Mother Mallard’s Portable
Masterpiece Company, Sun Ra, Stockhausen, John Carpenter, Electro-Acoustic and Musique Concrete and Mars in one
band - then this is it!
Trees Speak are Daniel Martin Diaz and Damian Diaz from Tucson, Arizona and their music often draws on the cosmic nighttime magic of Arizona’s natural desert landscapes. ‘Trees Speak’ relates to the idea of future technologies storing
information and data in trees and plants - using them as hard drives - and the idea that Trees communicate collectively.
Special guests from the hyper-creative hub of the Tucson music scene on this release are Gabriel Sullivan, Ben Nisbet, Saul
Millan, Stephani Guilmette, and Davis Jones.
The album Vertigo of Flaws was recorded in Brooklyn, New York, and Tucson, Arizona during the plague of 2021.
Extract from Vertigo of Flaws sleevenotes:
‘As we travel through space and time, avoiding the discarded remains of the industrial period, the
deconstruction of social norms through the expression of art, music, and philosophy guide the human
experience towards the unknown.
All that remains are musical echoes scattered throughout the universe, like ancient vibrations that now
populate the cosmos. These waves now show signs of decay. Melody, beauty, tonality have all but fallen
away as dissonance blossoms. As John Cage wrote in 1937,
“Whereas, in the past, the point of disagreement has been between dissonance and consonance, it will be,
in the immediate future, between noise and so-called musical sounds. New methods will be discovered,
bearing a definite relation to Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system and present methods of writing percussion
music and any other methods which are
free from the concept of a fundamental tone”.
Similarly, George Van Tassel claimed the Integratron as capable of
rejuvenation, anti-gravity, and time travel. So, what remains of the
“people”? We have adopted from them our own Zeitgeber: their pulses
now guide our sun, our planets, our earths, and are the new circadian,
diurnal, and ultradian rhythms of the galaxy. Traumsprache, dream
speech, is now the internal language of trees.
Decaying metal and machines liberated the note unto nature’s table,
and we sip the delicious nectar of music once more irrational, elaborate,
violent, vast. The past is the future, musical disintegration its own rebirth.
We are nature, once more the computer of the Universe.’

Sub Signals Vol.2 is a deep dive into underground bass, guided by artist and producer Gaudi. Featuring predominantly unreleased originals and versions by some of the biggest names in the worldwide dub collective, it intricately combines analogue elements with digital grooves to stunning effect.

Much more than just a compilation, the Sub Signals series is a celebration of the evolution of the sound of dub, from its original roots in reggae to its fusion with a much wider spectrum of sounds and influences. Gaudi curated the first volume back in 2006 for the cult Canadian label Interchill, sourcing tracks and dubs from High Tone, Zion Train, Manasseh, Almamegretta, Noiseshaper, Creation Rebel, Greg Hunter, Dubadelic and more.

15 years on, Gaudi has created the second volume, blending contributions by established reggae names Steel Pulse, Dennis Bovell and African Head Charge with next generation dub producers Alpha Steppa, Radikal Guru and Paolo Baldini Dubfiles, headline acts Groove Armada, Dub FX and The Orb with underground artists Deadbeat, Pitch Black and SUBSET, to create a seamless 75 minute mix.
“With Volume 2, I wanted to create a deep vibrational experience by shaping an aural trajectory that encompassed the many aspects of dub and its related sub-frequencies. To achieve my goal, I reached out to the artists I regularly work with to ask for contributions, in some cases digging in their archives to find what I was looking for.”

As a solo artist, Gaudi has recorded over 20 albums, while as a producer he has hundreds of productions under his belt. He has worked with legends of the reggae and electronic music worlds including Lee "Scratch" Perry, Horace Andy, Dub Pistols, Hollie Cook, Youth, Mad Professor, Prince Fatty, Lamb, Trentemøller and Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan.

Dedicated to the sound of dub in its many forms, Gaudi’s latest excursion of his Sub Signals series is pure bass therapy, designed to excite your eardrums and worry your woofers.

Best known to funk / groove collectors for his 70's library efforts (Freezing Point, The Pop World Of Yann Tregger, Schifters, Catchy, Ducks & Drakes) on such cult labels as L'Illustration Musicale, MTS or Montparnasse 2000 or his late funky disco output via projects like Major Symphony or M.B.T. Soul; french trumpet player / composer /arranger Yann Tregger also devoted time and efforts to delve into electronic sound abstraction when needed.

Based around the possibilities of the legendary ARP 2600 synthesizer, To The Land Of No Return was an outrageous and nightmarish collection of sound vignettes that pushed the instrument's capabilities to the limit. Thrilling, uneasy, surreal, spellbinding or just plain spaced out - an album "whose theme is the departure of a psychedelic train on a trip with no return to a lost world, leading its only passenger to unreal adventures" according to composer's words.

An essential slice of musical lunacy coming from the most experimental fringes of the french library world!

It started, as it so often does, with two old friends hanging out.

John Shima and C P Smith were joking around one evening in their home city of Sheffield. At some point, Smith challenged Shima that, if the latter could produce a record using nothing more than a small modular synth setup, then Smith would release it on his Central Processing Unit label. As heads will know, while Shima has drops on imprints like FireScope and Subwax Excursions to his name, he had never previously released anything via CPU. Shima accepted, and thus we now have his CPU debut, the four-track EP CPU Modular 1.

The specific setup that Shima worked with for these tracks was Smith's Doepfer A-100P6 Suitcase, a small but mighty combination of modules and programmers. It's no surprise that Shima was able to familiarise himself with the equipment in double-quick time - after all, Shima was an early adopter of the Eurorack modular format back in the day. What emerged from the CPU Modular 1 sessions was a quartet of devastatingly effective DJ tools, mid-set rollers which will get the dance moving something crazy.

Opener '003' kicks the EP off as it means to go on. There's something at once stiff-necked and buoyant about the rhythms here, all thwacking Roland tones and snares which crack like someone whipping a length of sheet metal. While the beat barrels unyieldingly onwards, the programming in the tuned modulars is more exploratory and even trippy, full of delay-laced bleeps and flighty rhythmic motifs. It comes together for a cracking mix in the vein of artists like Jerome Hill and London Modular Alliance. Second A-side cut '010' is no different, the street-beat groove and grumbling low-ends underpinning all manner of modular wizardry.

CPU Modular 1 is really timeless stuff, a set of percussion-heavy, future-focussed beats which recalls Smith's own CPU drop 'DJ Tools Vol.1 - 808 Tracks'. '011' kicks of CPU Modular 1's second-half with a dose of Drexciyan dystopia, playing an atonal loop off of an insistent bass wiggle and neurotic hi-hats. Even when Shima tightens or slackens the modulars here, '011' remains unyielding, a dose of pure 'Wip3out' energy that you could happily groove to all day long. The EP closes out with '005', a gnarled, gurgling production which still retains the dancefloor punch of the rest of the record.

For his Central Processing Unit debut, John Shima was tasked to produce four tracks using a single small modular setup. Unsurprisingly given the pedigree of this seasoned machine-funk pro, Shima aced the assignment.

Gap/ Void is the first collaborative full-length album by Automatisme (the Canadian musician and conceptual artist William Jourdain) and Swiss field recordist, ambient musician, visual artist and writer/academic Stefan Paulus. Jourdain and Paulus first met through shared projects with Mille Plateaux/Force Inc, each contributing to the Ultrablack Of Music anthology and Paulus going on to make several videos for Automatisme tracks issued by the two labels. In early 2021, Paulus approached Jourdain with a proposal based on his field recordings made during numerous mountain expeditions in the Swiss Alps, the Caucasus, and north of the Arctic Circle _ documenting stormy weather, high alpine winds, avalanches, and sounds emanating from glaciers and from the insides of crevices and caves. Paulus created ambient noisescapes from these recordings by splicing and folding them into hundreds of layers of sound: an analog to the geological strata of their geographic sources. The resulting audio mixes, compounding a multiplicity of spatio-temporal excursions, were then further encased in drones using the natural tone series (the traditional zäuerli or wordless yodels of northeastern Switzerland), the monotonic standing drone of Lamonte Young's Dream Syndicate, and the mass chords of early 1970s Kosmische Musik as points of reference. Paulus sent these extended ambient/noise pieces to Jourdain as source material for the latter's bespoke Automatisme techniques, where variable tempo and glitch systems forge more overt minimal techno/IDM works. Gap/Void leads with five rhythmic tracks (cut to 33rpm LP) that feature Automatisme's trademark interstitial digital synthesis and elastic/erratic signal processing, in combination with his own crate-digging `expeditions' through obscure 1970s-80s disco 12-inches, deconstructing their scores and structures to bring these microsamples and sensibilities back to bear on Paulus' deterritorialized sedimental source material…

Justin K Broadrick (Godflesh, Jesu, JK Flesh) breathes new life into his FINAL project for an album on Helm’s ALTER label. Formed in 1984 out of an obsession with the industrial, noise & power electronics acts of the early eighties, FINAL made its public debut at the legendary Mermaid pub in Birmingham when Broadrick was just 14 years old. A string of cassette releases via his Post MortemRekordings label established the name within the underground noise scene of the time until increased activity with his various groups (Napalm Death, Head of David and later Godflesh) meant that FINAL naturally fell by the wayside before the end of the decade. Broadrick reactivated the project in 1993 during the British ambient “isolationism” period and FINAL's sound became focussed more on texture, producing beatless ambient work with a number of albums for labels like Sentrax, Utech, No Quarter and Neurot. ‘It Comes To Us All’ is the first FINAL album to appear on vinyl since 2015’s ‘Black Dollars’ on Downwards and continues to explore the textural nature of Broadrick’s ambient work - this time through a filter of blown-out harmonic noise that reconnects the project with its harsher roots. Rather than channelling the angst of early power-electronics, the noise here rumbles along blissfully through 8 untitled tracks, sombre in tone and at times beautiful. Melodies sampled from pop music are put through a process of decay, stripped of their form and worn down with a rusty, melancholic afterglow. Reducing all its parts to slow-motion shadows of their former selves, ‘It Comes To Us All’ is an exploration of the decay of all living things that we face collectively, day after day.

 “As a human being it’s really important to feel and express
emotions whether happy or sad,” says Hiro Amamiya, the
Teleman drummer whose solo guise is Hiro Ama. “I sometimes
struggle to and so these are a collection of songs that explore
different emotions. I want people to feel something through my
music so I called this EP ‘Animal Emotions’.”
 Amamiya follows up on swiftly on 2020’s field recording-heavy
EP ‘Uncertainty’ with a record made in his bedroom and during
a time of introspection to create something even more personal.
“On ‘Uncertainty’ I was using sounds from everywhere and
whatever sounded good,” he says. “But for ‘Animal Emotions’ I
stuck with fewer instruments so the EP feels much more united.
I also used more acoustic instruments as I sometimes feel
electronic music in general lacks some organic and human
elements so I tried to make this EP as organic as possible.”
 However, buried beneath the warm electronics, gently pulsing
grooves, infectious melodies and immersive soundscapes - that
veer from disco strut to IDM via jazz-laced ambient - you’ll still
find some field recordings. “You might not hear them as
obviously as on my previous EP but field recordings are there,”
he says. “I like them because it's very spontaneous and gives
some human feel. It also adds some air to a recording which I
quite like.” On the opener ‘Free Soul’ - which marries funk bass
with subtle electronics and squelchy grooves - you can hear a
voice sample of a woman from Southeast Asia singing a lullaby.
 “I wanted to make an up-tempo and danceable song so I can
dance in my room during the lockdown. I got lost in Jazz music
the last couple of years and it really changed and opened up
the way I make music.” The moods, tones and emotions on the
EP shift as seamlessly as the genres, never quite settling into
one single place and constantly exploring and expanding into
new musical terrain. A process mirrored by Amamiya’s own
varied influences and tastes that were funnelled into the record,
from film soundtracks to IDM to spiritual jazz such as
‘November Cotton Flower’ by Marion Brown and ‘Harvest’ by
Pharoah Sanders.

Four years in making, Voyeurs In the Dark is Toronto artist Barzin’s fifth studio album. That the album is more cinematic in its scope and conceptual in feel than his previous studio albums can be attributed to the time he spent over the past several years composing the soundtrack for the independent film, Viewfinder. Voyeurs In the Dark retains that cinematic quality, and at the same time infuses the music with elements taken from Jazz, electronica, rock and pop. Having primarily explored the quiet side pop and folk in his previous four albums, Barzin has expanded his musical palate, broadening his sound towards a more an experimental direction, while still retaining his preoccupation with exploring the internal landscape. The uniformity of sound that characterized the previous albums has been abandoned for the expression of differing aspects of the self that at times hold opposing views and desires. This is best represented in the image chosen for the cover of the album, which depicts three figures in one body. The album seems to be the expression of not one unified self, but the various aspects of the self. Voyeurs In the Dark sees the artist plot a seductive, contemplative route through city haze, shuttling between graceful glimmering interludes, with wonderfully atmospheric songs at every stop. From opener Voyeurs In the Dark’s first guitar strums and the fizz of its drum machine, the record envelopes itself in a glorious shadow, as shown in the slow waltz of I Don’t Want To Sober Up, dancing around its own swirling guitar chords. On Watching, Barzin plunges himself deeper into a wash of cyclic bass, guitar and synth riffs, as the gloom grooves into light. It’s Never Too Late To Lose Your Life has a much more affirming and urgent tone, shade turning into shapes and motion, while To Be Missed In the End builds its own smoke in a cloud of saxophone and sparse guitar notes, closing out a record full to the brim with scatterbrain beauty and eclectic dusk. Voyeurs In the Dark will be released worldwide on Monotreme Records on May 6th on CD and limited edition180 g black vinyl LP with printed inner discobag and digital download card. Press highlights so far: Video premiere and feature interview on Rumore.IT. Airplay on BBC 6Music, Amazing Radio (UK and US), Glastonbury FM, Shoreditch Radio, Indie Music Discovery, Listen to Discover, Norfolk Radio. Press coverage in V13, Skope, Whisperin and Hollerin, Fame Magazine, High Violet, Indie Midlands, Beehive Candy, Music Won’t Save you. Feature confirmed for Wonderland Magazine. PUBLICITY - UK and North America press and radio Cannonball PR. Europe Five Roses Press

The Magic Movement marks its twenty-fifth release this May with Coss & Luca Musto's 'Remind Me Tomorrow' EP, comprised of three originals from the Berlin-based pair and a remix from label boss Noema.

Coss has been a mainstay at Berlin's Kater Blau club for some time now and just recently delivered an EP on the club's in-house imprint Kiosk ID as well as an EP for his own metanoia.
Italian rooted but Germany-based Luca Musto returns to the Magic Movement here following his 2018 'Parabel' EP and has since gone on to release further material with Cologne's Feines Tier and Laut & Luise in recent years.

Here joining forces with the 'Remind Me Tomorrow' EP the two artists deliver more of their distinctive tripped-out, dropped tempo club sound.
'Broken Promises' leads the way via dreamy dubbed out textures, gnarly bass tones, twinkling chimes and airy arpeggios atop a bumpy drum groove.
Title cut 'Remind Me Tomorrow' follows and brings modulating resonant synth lines into the forefront alongside elongated subs, cinematic pads, and circling sequences while Luca also stirs in his own rap/spoken word hip house style vocals.

The third original 'Concept Zero' follows next and lays down psychedelic guitars, choppy stabs, murky bass swells and dynamic delays before Noema rounds out the release with his take on 'Remind Me Tomorrow', flipping the switch to raw, crunchy drums and spoken word vocal chants amongst the original's chuggy arps and dreamy melodic elements.

Isabelle Duthoit – clarinet, voice
Franz Hautzinger – quarter-tone trumpet
Hamid Drake – percussion, frame drum, voice
Michael Zerang – percussion, frame drum

Two duos firmly anchored in improvised music - Duthoit/Hautzinger and Drake/Zerang - explore what ritual music can mean in the present time. They moan and groan, sigh and sing in the jungle of their soul. Melodies between tradition and contemporary music in all their extremes ventures forward into a poetry full of sound noises. Recorded live at Artacts, Alte Gerberei, St.Johann, March 7th2020.

Available on vinyl for the first time! -Limited to just 500 records worldwide, this 2XLP is a must have production tool for producers and deejays. -Included are one shot drum tools, loops, song starters, guitar chords, and melodic chops.

DJ Nu-Mark is pleased to present his Creme De La Crate sample pack on vinyl for the first time. This dynamic collection offers the rusty grit and groove of classic funk and soul records at your fingertips without the sticky licensing issues.

The featured drum breaks and one shots were captured through Nu-Mark’s array of vintage ‘60s preamps, compressors and microphones. There’s also complete drum loops and fills provided by J-Zone, Aaron Steele and Jon Radford, as well as an abundance of melodic content thrown into the mix. From Nu-Mark’s own inspiring ‘Song Starters’ to guitar chords, bass guitar lines, tonewheel organ licks and electric piano recorded by Dan Ubick.

Whether you’re looking to create some classic hip-hop, or add some additional energy to your production arsenal regardless of your preferred genre, there’s endless creative paths locked away in this diverse pack. As Nu says; “Enjoy and stretch out! Remember, nobody can replicate you so unlock and reveal your core since ultimately your art will live in perpetuity.”

English thrash metal outfit Xentrix is commonly referred to as one of the “big four” of English thrash metal, given their popularity in the underground metal scene of the mid-1980s to mid-1990s. The band was formed in 1984 under the name Sweet Vengeance, but after signing with Roadrunner Records they changed their name to Xentrix in 1988. Not long after, Xentrix released its debut album Shattered Existence in 1989. In support of the album, the band toured with Sabbat. The album set the tone for future works and lifted Xentrix to many metalheads’ treasured band.

Shattered Existence is available as a limited edition of 1500 individually numbered copies on translucent red coloured vinyl and includes an insert.