Suche:trace

Wondrous ethereal folk songs by a reclusive pen pal of Maxine Funke, first introduced to A Colourful Storm by Funke while sharing music and ideas during her Australian tour. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Cauliflowers, cabbages undying. I hear the spine of the dictionary crack. Is what they call a creature who only wakes at dusk. And turning backs. My afternoon has turned pitch black. For a trace. For a shape. I wipe the steam from the window like the bloom on a grape. Ghost faced pansies. A moth coloured cat. Light of stars long since died.

Late Bush presents “Hoarses” on the label Vlek Records, an original repertoire in which he blends electronic music - power ambient, IDM, avant-pop - and early music, which share the same affective intensity, a taste for ornamentation and a form of sonic excess.

At the heart of this material, AI-cloned voices, both human and spectral, extend the idea that any baroque interpretation is a reconstruction of the unknown. They contrast with organic strings recorded with Echo Collective, in a temporal and radical hybridization, creating a fluid and unstable material, between memory and simulation.

One of the conceptual starting points is essential: we have no sonic trace of baroque music as it was played. Only scores remain, and sometimes contradictory indications, a sensitive archaeology, even an imaginary projection.

Everything that is played today is therefore, in fact, a reconstruction, an interpretation of a vanished material. According to this logic and to pursue this reflection, the cloned voices, transformed by AI, are not a rupture but propose a natural continuation of this chain of reinvention, of this relationship to the invisible, to the indefinite. They do not aim to replace a human voice, but rather to embody the fact that any baroque restitution is already a fiction.

The project does not seek to imitate the real, but to play with the thresholds of the plausible, of the spectral. The music then becomes a fluid material, manipulable, alterable, and the performers, musicians or machines, are its vehicles.

The strings, carried by the sensitive and expressive interpretation of Echo Collective, breathe into the project a vibrant authenticity. Their presence brings an organic and tactile dimension that contrasts with the fluid and intangible aspect of the voices and the electronics.

Preceded by Piazza Centrale and the subsequent Seia the album of the singer-songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, new promise of the Italian music scene, moves along the traces of memories to tell a timeless story, using a very personal language in which singer-songwriter music, pop, and electronic experimentation naturally coexist. Hypnotic and magnetic, her music is a subtle, elusive seduction, an emotion that delicately insinuates itself into the mind, an invitation to get lost in its beauty. A passion that touches the deepest chords of the soul, without the overwhelming rush of the senses, but with the intensity of a pure and profound feeling. Gaia Banfi was born in Milan, has been living in Bologna for years, but in her album, it is Genoa that resonates, the place of her childhood, which here becomes an imaginary setting for a symbolic dimension in which everyone can recognize themselves, through seven tracks in which all those melancholies that swell as we grow up, the lacks, the turbulent and dark loves, the unrequited ones, but also the vitality, the discovery, the absence of judgment, and finally the awareness, the inner conquests, the clemency, and the love for oneself, take voice.

Nevertheless, the latest album from Hammock, exists in a state of awakening. Across 11 ambient guitar string, and piano works, ethereal light crests and contrasts with darkness, giving shape to physical forms and feelings. Amidst sorrow and grief, melodic motifs and refrains echo from the past to reanimate dreams and faded memories. As Nevertheless asks questions of permanence and purpose, beauty takes shape in the intangible_the traceless connections that gave, and give, meaning. "Nevertheless has been one of those words that has outlasted my upbringing," says Hammock's Marc Byrd. "Being from the deep South, I most often heard it said or read at funeral services. It's meant to imply a type of sacred pause . . . a space of in between. Between the grief of being broken by the world and the impossibility of moving into a future that feels more like empty space and less like solid ground. This album is for a friend who lost a daughter and a son to addiction within a couple of years of each other. Requiem for Johan sets up the context for what is to follow throughout the rest of the album. . . a passage through the aftermath of devastation. Unfortunately, and fortunately, these seasons of loss are what we all share in common. Nevertheless . . . we limp on."

Cathartic avant-rock, literate DIY folk & experimental composition exploring displacement, love, climate change, belonging & the places we call home - RIYL Jim O’Rourke, Richard Youngs, This Heat, Richard Dawson, Flying Nun. ‘Real Home’ is the new album by the Manchester-born, London-based artist Kiran Leonard. His sixth album proper (not including innumerable tour-only CD-Rs and short-run cassettes), since his precocious debut in 2013, ‘Real Home’ finds Leonard invigorated by inspiration and experience, making passionate, literate, and mercurial music that explores displacement, love, memory, climate change, connections to home and more. Encompassing songs recorded after moving to South London, ‘Real Home’ reflects on ideas of belonging and domesticity through folkloric, stream-of-consciousness songwriting. Across nine tracks, Leonard traces lived impressions of the household and the city, expressing sentiments of dislocation, alienation and stasis, but contentment too. Infusing the avant-rock effervescence, terraced dynamics and visionary lyricism of his music with what he defines as a greater sense of openness, Leonard is as versatile, fervent and imaginative as ever on ‘Real Home’, yet his music is somehow more intimate, affecting, and acutely expressive. Shaped by dual considerations of simplicity and formalism, ‘Real Home’ is by turns beautiful, allusive, and ruminative, an album on which Leonard considers what his songs have resembled in the past and what they mean now. In recent years, Leonard has crafted eloquent chamber music inspired by the likes of James Joyce and Clarice Lispector (‘Derevaun Seraun’), responded to contemporary politics and communication breakdown in the digital age (‘Western Culture’), and compiled solo works and ensemble recordings for a longform ode to Jonas Mekas and to one of Leonard’s enduring themes; home (‘Trespass On Foot’). On ‘Real Home’, Leonard reiterates this abiding thematic focus yet ascends to new, different heights, in music of cathartic delicacy and dissonance where all the myriad dimensions of his work to date seem to crystallize. There are sinuous songs about struggle and defying the pace of city life through drift and diversion (‘Pass Between Houses’), stirring songs of intense feeling and crescendo, described as a form of speculative detective fiction (‘Theatre for Change’). There are touching solo piano ballads (the title track), symbolic contentions with carbon capture and climate change (‘Utopia of Bog’), modes of experimental minimalism (‘Void Attentive’), and other profuse feats of compositional range, embroidered with wild tendrils of narrative and lyrical depth. A record to pore over, and get lost in. Exemplifying the vast aesthetic scope of Leonard’s music, lead single ‘My Love, Let’s Take The Stage Tonight’ is inspired by country lodestar Hank Williams, Russian poetry and a late period love poem by William Carlos Williams. Yet for Leonard, the song signals a sense of accessible materiality, and is the product of a more linear approach to writing songs: “My imitation of the great Hank Williams, in spirit if not in substance…This is one of the best efforts on Real Home at a song-as-object. Looking at it now I realise I was trying to write a song that made itself known as a song to the listener, and I wonder whether that’s crucial if you want a song to transcend its context. And that this is either accomplished through a total openness – by being inviting, by laying the tricks of the song out plain to see, as Williams and his many ghostwriters did so well – or by adopting a knowing aloofness, positioning oneself against the listener but letting it be known that that’s what it’s doing. In this song I try both, but mostly the former: as in, I wanted to write a song where every line follows on from the next.” Imbuing the endlessly elaborate and inventive qualities of his music with a newfound streak of candid, clear-cut melodicism, Leonard has reached a special place in his artistry, on a record that feels familial, and expresses closeness. Assembled with affiliates including Lauren Auder, Otto Willberg, Jasper Llewellyn (caroline), Tom Hardwick-Allan (Shovel Dance Collective), Magda McLean (caroline, The Umlauts), Alex Mckenzie (caroline, Shovel Dance Collective), Isabelle Thorn (Dear Laika) & more, the recording process had a significant influence on the subject matter of ‘Real Home’, in sessions defined by close-knit camaraderie and artistic eccentricity: “The theme of the home obviously recurs throughout the record; the album was mostly recorded in domestic spaces with friends, and the name of the album is Real Home. I like the qualifier ‘real’, like you’re getting past the cloak of the word and towards the thing-itself…also nearly all the percussion in this record was recorded on items from my dad’s shed (jam jars, sandpaper, blocks of wood, etc). Real home record!” ‘Real Home’, like anything by Kiran Leonard, is a record of dazzling multiplicity. Yet it’s a companionable prospect with a central premise; a collection of songs where listeners old and new can find a home. An album led by a scene; of Leonard standing at the threshold, ready to welcome you inside. “Exceptional songs that linger” - The Guardian // “An autodidact of amazing talent & energy” – Pitchfork // “A ridiculous amount of talent…confrontational, celebratory, provocative or perverse – he manages all of these emotions & more” - The Quietus /

Through her work across five Vastum albums, Leila Abdul-Rauf has been a sonorous contributor to 20 Buck Spin’s discography for more than 15 years now. Concurrent to that she’s also amassed an impressive body of solo work whereby she could showcase the full range of her multi-instrumental artistic and vocal talents. We now bring that part of Leila’s output to 20 Buck Spin showcasing her darkest and most confrontational material to date with new album ‘Andros Insidium’. On ‘Andros Insidium’ Leila draws us into a ceremonial descent, through the architecture of shadow itself. Unfolding like a ritual text etched in obsidian, each movement traces the violent and sacred geometry of transformation. The presence and wisdom of the feminine divine looms throughout, as an ancient and uncompromising force, in conflict with everything buried, exiled and made monstrous by the machinery of societal pressures and unrealistic expectations. The album delves deep into the dark vastness of the psyche of woman: wild, ugly, vulnerable and powerful. Sonically ‘Andros Insidium’ is a mutation of the cinematic dark-ambient, industrial and ritual folk expressed in prior releases, now sharpened into something far darker, more narrative and intimate. Leila’s vocal work becomes a new focus with a wider variety of styles and characters, exorcising the demons of patriarchal fragmentation and revenge fantasy as lived myth. In its most potent moments, ‘Andros Insidium’ suggests that wholeness is not purity or light, but the terrifying act of reclaiming everything that was discarded, and learning to speak with its voice. * New solo album of Leila-Abdul Rauf of VASTUM (also has played in Amber Asylum, Hammers of Misfortune, and others) * Dark and heavy mix of Dark Ambient, Industrial, Ritual / Neo Folk, Electronic

* FFO: Dead Can Dance, Diamanda Galas, Arcana, Amber Asylum, Jarboe/Swans, Chelsea Wolfe, Cold Meat Industry

Venturing into “a limbo world between medieval tropes and modern-day decay”, New Orleans musician Urq (half of art punk duo Spllit) returns with a new solo offering. Recorded over a single, intense month, This Dismal Village is a homespun document that sits somewhere between jittery punk, dreary psychedelia, and hooky bedroom pop. Recorded to 4-track, the record embraces limitation as a creative engine, resulting in a sound that is raw, unsettled, and deeply atmospheric.

The album is set not in a fixed point in time or geography, but a liminal environment where dystopic visions and archaic fixtures exist side by side. In the dismal village, kings and witches share space with televisions, skyscrapers, and modern enterprise; organ fanfares echo down streets populated by disgruntled townsfolk and whispered gossip. It is simultaneously the dark ages, 1950s suburbia, and a 21st-century metropolis. Embracing anachronism was central to the project’s identity, an attempt to collapse history into a single, uneasy present.

Sonically and philosophically, the album sits firmly in the tradition of rough and raw cassette rock. Guided By Voices’ Bee Thousand looms large as an influence, particularly its ability to build an entire world through unpolished, first-take recordings. Robert Pollard’s idea of the “four P’s” (psych, punk, prog, and pop) serves as a neat summary of the artist’s musical instincts and each element can be traced right through the heart of This Dismal Village. Further inspiration comes from post-punk’s so-called “Calgary Sound,” a loose movement blending psych pop, post-punk, and math/prog elements with a home-recorded, unpretentious ethos.

The result is an album that unrolls like a place wandered through, uneasy, occasionally familiar, and impossible to pin down in time. All captured on tape before it could disappear like an apparition, like a dream only half-remembered.

For his new full-length on Second End Records, Lyon-based artist Jonnnah turns deeply inward. Conceived as a form of therapy, as much as a reflection and a testimony, the record retraces a process of introspection and confrontation with one’s own history, looking back at origins, DNA, and the invisible ties that connect us to our ancestors, while opening paths toward new connections.

The double-sided structure of the album makes this journey tangible. The first side lingers in uncertainty : opaque atmospheres, fragmented rhythms, and restless textures mirror the doubts, questions, and fragile states of self-analysis. The second side, in contrast, embraces clarity and resolution, dense yet luminous soundscapes where reconciliation and acceptance take shape, culminating in The Blue Comet, a piece charged with finality and revelation.

Opening with the multipart suite N-zero, symbolizing the beginning of therapy, and closing with O-one, evoking the soul’s original purity, the record traces a complete emotional and spiritual cycle. Between them, the third edition of Insomnia Never Ends once again portrays the struggle between sleep and the irresistible pull of musical distraction, a fragile tension that runs through the album as a whole.

The record condenses Jonnnah’s language into something rawer and more direct. Layers of dub and dub sonic resonate against ethereal ambient passages, while techno impulses maintain tension and forward motion. Each piece feels at once intimate and expansive, designed as much for solitary listening as for collective experience.

A new chapter in Jonnnah’s trajectory, the album is a document of transformation : from shadow to light, from questioning to acceptance.

Music To Watch Seeds Grow By continues its second season with Seoul-based left of centre ambient duo Salamanda - Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda) - and their meditation on the inner life of a basil plant. Seeds 008 is an ambient composition born from quiet domestic observation: a single basil on a windowsill, its days shaped by light, warmth, and the slow passage of time.

The album moves through a full day in the plant's life opening with ‘introduce my atom which is my favorite one’, an act of quiet self-declaration in morning light, before settling into the unhurried rhythmic pulse of ‘to to ki toki tok’- the drip of water, the tick of a clock, the slow beat of photosynthesis. ‘allez, pousse!’ - one of the standouts in this journey - carries the basil's gentle will to grow, to push, to tilt toward the sun, while ‘hungry snail’ captures a moment of creaturely encounter on the glass: an uninvited visitor, moving slowly, wanting. As the afternoon deepens, 'Basil's Ritual' traces the daily ceremony of light and warmth, repeated with calm devotion from root to leaf. Night falls across 'Basil's Dream', and in the stillness something like sleep arrives - the plant resting, imagining tomorrow's sun. The album closes with ‘the blue wine’, a final mysterious reverie in which the basil seems to contemplate its own fate, somewhere between acceptance and wonder.

Music From Memory presents inrain, a collaborative project by Rudy Tambala of A.R. Kane and Alison Shaw of Cranes, originally recorded in the early 1990s.

inrain brought together two artists who were at the time shaping distinct yet quietly influential currents within alternative music. Through A.R. Kane, Tambala had helped redefine the possibilities of guitar music, placing atmosphere, abstraction, and emotional ambiguity at its centre in ways that would later resonate across dream pop, shoegaze, trip hop and experimental pop. At the same time, Shaw’s work with Cranes was establishing a singular vocal presence and a deeply intuitive approach to mood and space. inrain emerged at the intersection of these sensibilities.

The project began after Tambala was introduced to Shaw by Geoff Travis, leading to sessions at H.Ark! Studios in Stratford, East London. Working outside the expectations of their primary bands, the pair recorded informally over several months, building songs from minimal foundations. Early sampling technology, drum machines, acoustic guitar, and voice were used sparingly, with arrangements left open and space treated as an active element within the music. Vocals were often improvised, first takes preserved, and the atmosphere of the studio — calm, unhurried — became part of the sound itself.

Originally released in limited form during the early 1990s, the recordings carried subtle traces of the surrounding musical landscape: the low-end experimentation of emerging jungle, dub-influenced rhythmic structures, and a restrained melodic sensibility shaped as much by classical textures as by contemporary underground culture. Though modest in scale, the music feels quietly expansive — intimate, patient, and emotionally direct.

For this release, all tracks have been newly remastered from the original DAT tapes. This edition also includes the additional track 'Biology', written and recorded in 2012

Following the first chapter of Connessioni, Danza Tribale unveils Connessioni II, the final movement in Tamburi Neri’s two-part sonic exploration of connection, vibration, and ritual.
If the first EP traced the invisible threads between body, city, and earth, Connessioni II is where those threads tighten and transform. It is no longer the search-it is the meeting point. Nature, metropolis, and digital spirituality no longer call to one another from afar; they converge..

2ND LP PRESSING

Cosmic Ear is a new group bringing together Christer Bothén, Mats Gustafsson, Goran Kajfeš, Kansan Zetterberg and Juan Romero. Their debut album TRACES is released by We Jazz Records on 23rd of May, 2025. Including 6 deep cuts, TRACES is an album that sees Cosmic Ear tracking down the "traces" of the legendary Don Cherry's legacy while paving their own way in contemporary creative music expression.

Christer Bothén, a collaborator with Don Cherry during his Swedish period in the 1970s, brings depth to the history of the band, while his bandmates each belong at the top of the game in Scandinavian jazz. Their music is meditative and deep, much recommended for fans of the likes of Don Cherry, Alice Coltrane, and Pharoah. That being said, listeners should approach Cosmic Ear only with openness and curiosity, without set stylistic boundaries, as it's the group's natural flow and togetherness that brings their music into a fresh territory of their own.

As John Corbett writes in his liner notes:

"The Cosmic Ear. Five souls, sometimes six, on the same road. The pied piper path of Mr. Cherry. Christer Bothén, one of Cherry's main collaborators in his Swedish period and one of the most beautiful bass clarinetists on planet earth, together with next-gen saxophonist Mats Gustafsson, who has carried so many torches in Cherry's procession, and younger Swedish stars trumpeter Goran Kajfes, bassist Kansan Zetterberg, and percussionist Juan Romero. Together a tempo is set, a path is charted. There are global grooves. A berimbau, a karignan (metal scraper from Guinea), donso n'goni. There are ET grooves. Synth, live-electronics, slide flute. The globe is a glove, a hand warmer that radiates with extraterrestrial power, returning the fingers to their place at the center of the galaxy; the Cherry path is a balm that restores essential moisture to the lips that blow life back into the megacosm. Let us all praise warm fingers and moist mouths."

First time reissue of JP / US free jazz rarity.

The 1970s were Marion Brown’s most searching decade, a period during which he sought to move beyond the free jazz of the previous era and find more personal approaches to structuring improvisation and composition. After leaving New York for Europe in 1967, Brown began reshaping his music into what he described as “a more deliberate kind of music that had more structure to it,” pacing it so that moods and modes could develop over time. Albums such as In Sommerhausen, Afternoon of a Georgia Faun, Geechee Recollections, and Sweet Earth Flying trace this evolution: rhythmic structures moved to the foreground, harmony receded, and composition became a matter of orchestrating interlocking rhythmic parts as one would polyphonic lines.

Released in 1976, Awofofora is an overlooked but crucial entry in that sequence. At the time, its use of funk and reggae beats, electric guitars, and grooves drawn from contemporary Black popular music led some to misread it as a jazz-rock detour. In retrospect, it is entirely consistent with Brown’s methodology. As he admired in the Art Ensemble of Chicago, the stimulus comes from within the community. Here Brown filters Afro-Caribbean rhythms and funk through his own sensibility, abstracting their structural qualities rather than adopting surface style.

“La Placita,” making its first recorded appearance, layers distinct rhythmic phrases in a manner reminiscent of African drum ensembles, over which Brown and trumpeter Ambrose Jackson spin extended improvisations. The standard “Flamingo” is reshaped through diasporic rhythm and lyrical soloing, while “Pepi’s Tempo” and “Mangoes” harness crisp funk and reggae grooves to generate what Brown called a “manifestation of community” through collective improvisation. Even the overdubbed solo feature “And Then They Danced” reflects his structural thinking, ingeniously re-voicing a duet composition for two alto saxophones performed by one player.

This was the only recording by a short-lived band that briefly polarized audiences during festival appearances in 1976. Yet Brown consistently sought unity across change: different sounds, same principles — rhythm as structure, melody as architecture, collective improvisation, and above all, the primacy of tone. Awofofora stands not as a departure, but as a vivid synthesis of the elements he had been refining since the late 1960s, its grooves and golden alto lines conveying a sound drawn, in his words, “from life and from the world of experience.”

Emerging from the vivid chaos of Detroit’s underground, ZelooperZ returns with Dali Ain’t Dead — a surreal yet deeply grounded statement from one of rap’s most singular voices. Following his recent collaborative exploration Dear Psilocybin (with Real Bad Man) — which found him moving through a “stream of psychosis” just before sobriety. (Pitchfork) — ZelooperZ enters this new chapter not simply as the same intricate-flows rapper, but as a rising cult-figure in underground hip-hop who’s forged an identity both enigmatic and quietly unstoppable.

On Dali Ain’t Dead, ZelooperZ channels the spirit of the surreal — the album’s title a nod to the iconic surrealist artist Salvador Dalí — as he reframes his world post-substance, post-chaos, yet still dripping with vivid imagination. Reviews highlight that the album finds him in a more focused mode: one critic writes that “ZelooperZ seems to have adopted a similar outlook to Dalí… embracing sobriety and allowing his art to exist as the psychotropic fuel for his mind.” (Album of the Year) Production (courtesy of Dilip) is inventive and cohesive, blending experimental hip-hop, trap, cloud-rap and drumless textures to mirror Ze’s newly clear-eyed vantage point and trademark eccentricity. (Legends Will Never Die)

Tracks like “Mona Lisa Left Eye” and “Push Me Around” (featuring Zack Fox) carry Z’s jagged humor and restless energy, while deeper cuts like “Shrooms” and “Take Me I’m Drugs” trace his evolving relationship with psychedelia and the legacy of his past. (Legends Will Never Die) In doing so, the record positions itself as the sound of a freak-icon in transition — still wild, still weird, but sharpened, matured, operating with a purpose and increasingly commanding the attention of fans who relish the underground unusual.

ZelooperZ’s trajectory continues to rise. From his roots in the Bruiser Brigade collective in Detroit to the present moment as a cult figure whose every release feels like a mission statement, Dali Ain’t Dead confirms that he’s no longer just the oddball off-to-the-side: he’s the weirdo that others are quietly watching. This album isn’t just for the longtime disciples of his left-field aesthetic — it’s an invitation to anyone curious about hip-hop bending, breaking, and rebuilding itself from the fringes inward.

Audaciously innovative sound designer/producer/live artist Enrico Sangiuliano reaches #0 in his countdown from ‘NINETOZERO’ on his eponymous ephemeral imprint, triggering its built-in autodestruct by the release of provocative 3-track EP ‘Absence’, out March 19th on vinyl & digital. The digital EP will also feature an Edit of ‘Step Into The End’.

The Italian tech maestro and artistic pioneer eschews populism, yet still storms charts & wins hearts – notably/recently in his unsettling, compelling manifesto x battle cry ‘The Techno Code’. Says Enrico of his label, ‘NINETOZERO is a cycle of listening, making, and letting go. Born from silence, shaped by space, directed by reflection, altered by change, revealed by glitch, unified through interconnection, lifted toward transcendence, refined by discipline, clarified by chaos, and finally returned to absence.’

On his ‘Absence’ EP: ‘With ‘Absence’ we come full circle, back to the womb of nothingness but charged with the echo of everything we have experienced. It is an ending, yes, but also an invitation. A new kind of silence is born, shaped by the memory of every frequency we unleashed.’ Enrico Sangiuliano can thrill listeners with his music, but dares to challenge, to trust them.

Main track ‘Step Into The End’: a full-on barrage of trustworthy techno danceability & energy, bookended by soulful violin, high horns & sirens, with spoken incantations as if summoning to a sacred rite. A ten-minute timeless dance track as ‘all we’ve learned converges into a single point where presence & silence merge.’

Title track ‘Absence’: The (Techno Code-esque) Voice speaks of sound, space, absence, trace... the track’s background noise is the almost- silence of his studio ‘through a magnifying glass’.. His breathing can just be heard in the recording. Melodic, beautiful, free-form chords in the middle section act like a breakdown in reverse. ‘A provocation, a track of silence, incidental noise. A tale of a story that just finished, but also a background for a story to be shaped. No one is intentionally performing for us. Here, the responsibility and work of listening is on you, to figure out what you can hear and what to make of it, to craft your own soundtrack based on the sounds that surround you, beyond the track. You can perform your own version yourself. Close your eyes and just listen. Engage with your environment. Be present. Expand your senses. Enjoy absence.’

‘The Aftermath’: a 40-second provocative coda. A snatch of stirring conversation signing off the EP and label alike. What will be launched post-zero by Enrico Sangiuliano? Watch this space, this absence.

Formed in Taipei in 2013, Scattered Purgatory (破地獄) has occupied a liminal space between drone, ambient, psychedelic folk and ritualistic kosmiche experimentation. Their early work, including ‘Lost Ethnography of the Miscanthus Ocean’ (2014) and ‘God of Silver Grass’ (2016), blended dense instrumental drones, improvisational guitar, and ambient textures rooted in the heat, humidity, and urban pulse of Taiwan. Over the years, the duo-turned-band has drawn on Krautrock, minimalist electronic music, and heavy drone traditions while remaining firmly grounded in Taiwanese geography and culture.

‘Post Purgatory’ emerges after a three-year hiatus following the pandemic, a period the band describes as pivotal to the album’s conception. “The feeling of loss and uncertainty has later become the inspiration of this record, and ‘time’ is the main theme – it can heal or it can destroy,” they explain. Musically and lyrically, the record traverses Taiwanese, traditional Chinese, and English, reflecting the multilingual fabric of Taipei life. While there isn’t a linear storyline, metaphor and poetry imbue the lyrics with reflections on love, loss, and the human experience, interlaced with influences of Hokkien and Mando pop and traces of trip-hop.

Recorded half in their home and half at the studio where they composed their first album, ‘Post Purgatory' integrates precision, clarity, and digital production techniques. Guest contributions—from White Wu’s dynamic drumming to Minyen Hsieh’s tenor saxophone and dotzio’s sci-fi-infused vocals—expand the band’s sonic palette, creating a doom metal record shaped by electronic sensibilities.

‘Post Purgatory’ is a statement of loss and re-empowerment, a bridge between their past and present. Through it, Scattered Purgatory reclaim their distinctive voice, presenting a sound that is at once rooted in Taiwan, informed by global musical traditions, and unflinchingly forward-looking.
credits

2026 Repress

Rhythm by Nature is back with Somefink Old, Somefink New, a three-tracker from seasoned producer Grant Dell that bridges past and present: sketches first laid down in the mid-2000s rediscovered and reworked alongside a brand-new cut, forming a dialogue between memory and renewal.

The EP opens with Feel Me?, a deep tech construction driven by a heavy low-end, its groove unfolding patiently while flashes of disco glimmer through the framework. On Light of Day, Dell shifts into full deep house territory — spacey pads and floating strings suspended across open structures until acidic stabs break through, twisting the track into brighter, playful directions. Closing with Death Disco in Dub, Dell channels the hallmarks of his Tribalation project: dub-infused atmospherics, light percussion and echo-drenched fragments circling around a hypnotic core, equally suited to open or dissolve a night.

With Somefink Old, Somefink New, Rhythm by Nature traces the arc of an artist deeply embedded in the underground, reuniting past forms with present gestures in a release that reaffirms the label’s consistency in quality and commitment to timeless club music.