The latest offering from French shape-shifter Maxime Primault (High Wolf, Black Zone Myth Chant, etc.) is both a distillation and deepening of psychedelic soundsystem strategies honed across a decade plus of production and performance, in crisscrossing trenches of vibrational exploration. The four cuts comprising IN D EV IL were born of bass and syrup, designed as anthems for baser desires: “I just wanted to make bangers really.” Alien squelches and insectoid chatter pulse above thick swells of low end, intercut with sirens, screwed voices, and seasick wobble, alternately pummeling and prismatic. Masterfully disorienting, flickering with FX, drops, and narcotic murmuring, at the threshold of dissociative and dubstep.
Recent years spent performing in clubs influenced Primault’s listening habits, both in taste and production methods, skewing towards a starker contrast of highs and lows. IN D EV IL encapsulates this evolution, hallucinatory but urgent, like DJ tools for an underworld afterhours: tight, tripped, and lightless. The EP’s tracks vary in energy and density but share Primault’s premise of “tunes that sound fat and heavy.” Club music as dimensional gateway, booming and liminal, rippling with tremors, texture, and undertow. Whether deployed in public or private, these designs manifest vividly altered states, testament to their creator’s omnivorous vision of rhythm and sound.
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Julian Jeweil returns to Drumcode for his first EP in two years with the inspired six-tracker ‘Boreal’ split across two records.
The Frenchman has been a vital member of the extended Drumcode family since 2017 when he debuted with the fantastic ‘Rolling’ EP. Since then, highlights have included playing main stage at Drumcode Festival and dropping the critically acclaimed ‘Transmissions’ album in 2019.
His ‘Boreal’ EP marks his fifth outing on the imprint. Part I kicks off with the title track, a truly special record, striking the sweet spot between euphoria and melancholy, as airy pads and stirring waves of melody stamp it with a timeless feel.
On the flip, ‘Time’ is a propulsive weapon built around a steely industrial backbone and is a necessary tool for every set. ‘Reverse’ closes out part one in style - a low-slung beast that builds up intergalactic energy throughout.
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Behold! The latest 45 from Queens, NY stalwarts - The Frightnrs. With this platter the group pushes past the rocksteady rhythms that have come to define their Daptone releases and deliver a genre-defying, soulful triumph of sound. "Always" the a-side and title track of their forthcoming album drops with a beat that hits like a seven-ton bomb. Heavy, heavy drums...raw guitar and ethereal keys fortify the soulful bedrock for Dan Klein's other-worldly vocal performance. Plucked from stems tracked years prior, the seamless joining of Klein's old vocal track to the Frightnrs new recordings exemplifies how masters of their craft can make something so complex sound effortless. It also serves as a document of musical brothers injecting the undying love and respect they have for each other into the DNA of every note.
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Recorded over the course of 4 years during late-night, afterhours sessions at RCA's Studio @ Calle Carlos Maurrás in Madrid (one of Spain's best and bigger studio around that time), it was the result of the duo's interest in unorthodox sound-sources which they manipulated in a sort proto-sampling collage technique based on random tape-loops and best heard in their original percussive studies; their dreamy, surrealist-like lyrical passages or the sort of deep primeval atmospheres first conjured by Cluster or Kraftwerk in the early 70's.The studio as an instrument: pure sound alchemy at work.
The Wah Wah edition is the first ever vinyl reissue of this legendary LP reproducing the original gimmick cover, with sound mastered from the original tapes by Eugenio Muñoz, and featuring an insert with photos and info. It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only.
This is a very serene, almost entracing record that seems to inhabit its very own space, between "classical" ambient music (Eno, Budd), "systems music" (Reich, Glass, Riley, Hassell), japanese kankyo ongaku (Hiroshi Yoshimura, Takashi Kokubo), even hinting at what would become 90's ambient electronica (B12, Nuron, SAWII-era Aphex Twin or the Fax +49-69/40464 label). Actually, Lech would be one of the few artists to perform at the first-ever Sonar Festival (Barcelona) back in 1994 (together with Suso Saiz, Esplendor Geometrico, Mixmaster Morris or Laurent Garnier).
A key early effort from this musician and A/V artist whose career spans well over thirty years and a miriad of works, performances and instalations: Art Futura, Sonar, ISEA, Ars Electrónica (Austria), Festival Videoformes (France), Festival de Nuevas Músicas (Madrid & Sevilla), Ciclo Experimental LEM (Barcelona), Knitting Factory (New York), The Korner (Taipei), Festival Pop Komm (Cologne-Germany), Festival Experimenta (Madrid), Festival DAFT @ Taipei (Taiwan), ART BEIJING, Festival EXIS @ Seúl (South Korea), JMAF (Tokio, Japan) or Artefact:Chernobil 33 (Kiev-Ukraine).
The Wah Wah edition has been mastered from the original tapes, reproduces the original sleeve artwork and and features an insert with photos and info.
It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only.
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Yellow Vinyl
The first volume of Back To Mine was released back in 1999 by Nick Warren, designed to showcase a selection of tracks you’d find and be heard playing at the artist's home. Selectors have come in the form of New Order, Pet Shop Boys, Fatboy Slim, and Faithless who all dug deep to find their essential at-home listening.
The latest compilers in the Back To Mine series are none-other than the renowned four-piece, Horse Meat Disco. The horsemen are known for their incredibly fun, deep-diving selections, and this shines through in their Back To Mine compilation in flamboyant style.
Over the course of 16 years of their nightclub tenure, they have become a global brand as pinnacle players of the queer party scene in London and beyond, holding down residencies in New York, Berlin, and Lisbon. Their flamboyant nature and incredibly fun, deep-diving selections have made them one of Disco’s most beloved acts.
Across 15 eclectically brilliant tracks, Horse Meat Disco, which comprises Jim Stanton, James Hillard, Luke Howard, and Severino Panzetta expertly traverse through classic disco cuts, wonky dancefloor groovers, and silky smooth soul.
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To celebrate the 3 years anniversary of Mother Tongue and remind us all the sheer quality of the Madre Lingua album project from last year, MT’s own Patrick Gibin curated this special remix double A-sider!
Patrick himself teamed up once again with Kaidi Tatham to refreak the EDB & Gary Superfly collaboration ‘Pressure’….the result is pure nasty and rude house vibes aimed at the dancefloor!
On the flipside Mark De Clive Lowe gave a spacey and beatless twist to the electronic opus ‘Apollo 3000’ another big favourite from Madre Lingua moving things into more abstract territories!
The best of both worlds on a single phat 12 inch!
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Madre Lingua is a collection of songs born via the constant interactions among the Artists that gravitated around Mother Tongue in the first two years since its opening.
On the back of this continuous exchange of musical ideas and vibes MT’s own Patrick Gibin full time coordinator and producer of many of the songs here worked on this project like painting a blank canvas inviting Tiombé Lockhart, Kaidi Tatham, K15, Mark de Clive-Lowe, Tommaso Cappellato, EDB, Gary Superfly and the mysterious 黒舌 (Infectious Madness) to bring their colourful and heartfelt contributions to this unique collection of songs.
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Giacomo “Mino” di Martino started his musical career in several early 1960s Italian beat bands. By 1968 he had found enormous success with pop superstars I Giganti. After a brief split in 1970 –during which Mino formed Il Supergruppo with Ricky Gianco and other greats of the Italian scene– he came back to I Giganti in 1971. With them and with new advanced ideas that set the band pretty far away from the sophisticated pop and beat sounds they had been so successful with, they would record the amazing Terra in Bocca conceptual LP, an adventurous experimental album that explored the obscure connections between the Italian state and the mafia. A delicate topic full of political criticism which also found them having to fight censorship –it was played only once in the radio. This fact, along with the advanced new sound probably being too far ahead from the mainstream audience’s taste, turned the record into a commercial flop. Nowadays Terra in Bocca is a highly regarded album among critics, afficionados and collectors, and a pretty seminal one for the Italian scene of the seventies, since it can even be seen as a precursor to the works on the Cramps label. Gianni Sassi, producer and photographer who founded Cramps was involved in the release of Terra in Bocca –his is the amazing cover concept.
After the Terra in Bocca experience, Mino’s will was to keep exploring new musical paths and free his mind to experimentation. Along with his wife, actress and singer Edda “Terra” di Benedetto, they formed the Albergo Intergalattico Spaziale, just after the brief post-Giganti project Telaio Magnetico (with Franco Batiatto, among others) was over. The Albergo was a venue where artists from diverse disciplines, mainly musica and theatre, could meet and create works together.
On the musical side of the community, Mino and Terra explored the cosmic sonorities that were coming from Germany and mixed them with the Italian experimental scene of names like Franco Battiato, Luciano Berio or Roberto Cacciapaglia. It is from the sessions that took place in the Albergo from 1974 onwards that the Albergo Intergalattico Spaziale LP came out. Originally released in 1978 the compositions had been made during those years of exploration, the goal not being the release of an album but the aim to explore new sounds and experiment with music. Eventually it was decided to present a sample of all that work, and a few copies of the Albergo Intergalattico Spaziale LP were privately pressed.
The record sleeve and notes on the insert reivindicate the fight against nuclear power. The music is dominated by Mino’s keyboards, creating amazing space sounds reminiscent of those from 1950s and 1960s science fiction B movies brought to the most avantgardist experimentation of the moment, exploring new sounds with the newest keyboards available. This intriguing background sets the athmosphere for Terra’s voice to improvise all over.
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Born into a musical family, as a child Charlie Hickey would obsessively
watch videos of his parents on tour in their old band Uma, learning all the
lyrics that he loved but didn’t understand. This introduction to music sowed a
seed and Hickey was soon writing songs of his own, playing on the guitars
that lay around him and singing about the little details of his school days. He
continued throughout his teen years, his songs becoming an outlet for the
growing anxieties that Hickey now understands to be Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder.
This journey has led to ‘Nervous At Night’, Hickey’s debut album which is
released via Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records. Where 2021’s
‘Count The Stairs’ EP was an attempt to capture the rawness of his
performance, ‘Nervous At Night’ comes alive within its production, Hickey
and producer Marshall Vore leaning into their perfectionist tendencies to find
the best version of each track. “He’s always interested in how you can push
things further but also reigns them in when necessary,” Hickey says. “I think
that’s the true hallmark of a good producer.”
Hickey calls it a pop record but admits that sonically it moves in many
directions, an amalgamation of his love for the folk singers of yesteryear and
more contemporary peers, from Taylor Swift and The 1975 to the Californian
songwriter and producer Blake Mills. This shifting of styles - from the album’s
quiet heavy-hearted ballads to its more gleaming, hook-led tracks - mirrors
its overarching theme: life’s graceless passage between teenage years and
adulthood.
And so we have ‘Planet With Water’, a plaintive love song that bristles with
nostalgia, Hickey singing of phone calls after school, of hearing a neighbour’s
TV through the wall. Elsewhere, ‘Mid Air’ holds a similar weight, Hickey
singing of “spinning in mid-air, waiting for somewhere to land, or some face
to show up” as the song flourishes around his voice, delicately accompanied
by guest turns from fellow LA musicians Harrison Whitford, Christian Lee
Hutson and Mason Stoops.
‘Nervous At Night’ comes alive in its juxtapositions, chronicling the constant
push and pull of life, both its stagnancy and motion. Chiefly though, this is an
album about connection, how even through those struggles we rely on the
people around us to keep moving forwards. “I’d like to write songs that are
for everyone, that let people into my inner world while also hopefully making
people feel less alone on their own. I hope that these songs can be there for
somebody the way my favorite songs have been for me.”
Collaborated with MUNA on track ‘Seeing Things’.
2022 live shows include The Great Escape and SXSW, as well as shows in
London, NY and LA’s Troubadour. Recent US tour with Samia.
LP available on opaque yellow vinyl.
Born into a musical family, as a child Charlie Hickey would obsessively
watch videos of his parents on tour in their old band Uma, learning all the
lyrics that he loved but didn’t understand. This introduction to music sowed a
seed and Hickey was soon writing songs of his own, playing on the guitars
that lay around him and singing about the little details of his school days. He
continued throughout his teen years, his songs becoming an outlet for the
growing anxieties that Hickey now understands to be Obsessive Compulsive
Disorder.
This journey has led to ‘Nervous At Night’, Hickey’s debut album which is
released via Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records. Where 2021’s
‘Count The Stairs’ EP was an attempt to capture the rawness of his
performance, ‘Nervous At Night’ comes alive within its production, Hickey
and producer Marshall Vore leaning into their perfectionist tendencies to find
the best version of each track. “He’s always interested in how you can push
things further but also reigns them in when necessary,” Hickey says. “I think
that’s the true hallmark of a good producer.”
Hickey calls it a pop record but admits that sonically it moves in many
directions, an amalgamation of his love for the folk singers of yesteryear and
more contemporary peers, from Taylor Swift and The 1975 to the Californian
songwriter and producer Blake Mills. This shifting of styles - from the album’s
quiet heavy-hearted ballads to its more gleaming, hook-led tracks - mirrors
its overarching theme: life’s graceless passage between teenage years and
adulthood.
And so we have ‘Planet With Water’, a plaintive love song that bristles with
nostalgia, Hickey singing of phone calls after school, of hearing a neighbour’s
TV through the wall. Elsewhere, ‘Mid Air’ holds a similar weight, Hickey
singing of “spinning in mid-air, waiting for somewhere to land, or some face
to show up” as the song flourishes around his voice, delicately accompanied
by guest turns from fellow LA musicians Harrison Whitford, Christian Lee
Hutson and Mason Stoops.
‘Nervous At Night’ comes alive in its juxtapositions, chronicling the constant
push and pull of life, both its stagnancy and motion. Chiefly though, this is an
album about connection, how even through those struggles we rely on the
people around us to keep moving forwards. “I’d like to write songs that are
for everyone, that let people into my inner world while also hopefully making
people feel less alone on their own. I hope that these songs can be there for
somebody the way my favorite songs have been for me.”
Collaborated with MUNA on track ‘Seeing Things’.
2022 live shows include The Great Escape and SXSW, as well as shows in
London, NY and LA’s Troubadour. Recent US tour with Samia.
LP available on opaque yellow vinyl.
Following years of international touring and a lengthy list of critically-acclaimed collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe in recent years (most recently the duo's self-titled 2018 LP), the new album will be Parks' first full-length solo offering since her debut, 'Blood Hot', was released back in 2013 on Alan McGee's 359 Music label. "In my mind, this album is like hopscotch", Parks says: "These songs were pieced together over time in London, Toronto and Los Angeles with friends and family between August 2019 and March 2021. So many other versions of these songs exist. The recording and final completion of this album took over two years and wow - the lesson I have learned the most is that words are spells. If I didn't know it before, I know it now for sure. I only want to put good out into the universe." A growing disillusionment with the state of the world paired with an injury that stopped Parks from being able to play guitar and piano for months meant the album was nearly shelved. "I really felt discouraged to complete this album", she recalls: "I stopped listening to music for honestly about a year altogether and turned to painting instead. I really had to convince myself again that it's important to just share whatever good we can - having faith in ourselves to know that our lights can shine on and on through other people and for other people. The thought of anyone not sharing their art or being shy of anything they create seems like a real tragedy to me. Even if it's not perfect, you're capturing a moment." Recorded over a two year period but with songs, lyrics and ideas dating back over a decade in some form, 'And Those Who Were Seen Dancing' is an album full of such moments, people and places. Col LP is on 180g ultra-clear vinyl, standard sleeve.
Following years of international touring and a lengthy list of critically-acclaimed collaborations with Brian Jonestown Massacre's Anton Newcombe in recent years (most recently the duo's self-titled 2018 LP), the new album will be Parks' first full-length solo offering since her debut, 'Blood Hot', was released back in 2013 on Alan McGee's 359 Music label. "In my mind, this album is like hopscotch", Parks says: "These songs were pieced together over time in London, Toronto and Los Angeles with friends and family between August 2019 and March 2021. So many other versions of these songs exist. The recording and final completion of this album took over two years and wow - the lesson I have learned the most is that words are spells. If I didn't know it before, I know it now for sure. I only want to put good out into the universe." A growing disillusionment with the state of the world paired with an injury that stopped Parks from being able to play guitar and piano for months meant the album was nearly shelved. "I really felt discouraged to complete this album", she recalls: "I stopped listening to music for honestly about a year altogether and turned to painting instead. I really had to convince myself again that it's important to just share whatever good we can - having faith in ourselves to know that our lights can shine on and on through other people and for other people. The thought of anyone not sharing their art or being shy of anything they create seems like a real tragedy to me. Even if it's not perfect, you're capturing a moment." Recorded over a two year period but with songs, lyrics and ideas dating back over a decade in some form, 'And Those Who Were Seen Dancing' is an album full of such moments, people and places. Col LP is on 180g ultra-clear vinyl, standard sleeve.
Marking over 16 years as an artist, Robert James unveils his debut album Battle of The Planets. A milestone in any musician’s career, the LP illustrates the breadth of Rob’s tastes and influences, exploring the rugged terrain of planet electronica. Ranging from breaks and electro to house and techno, Battle of The Planets was made during lockdown, a period of creativity and isolation for many artists around the world. Across 10 skillfully produced cuts Rob takes us on an intrepid adventure into the cosmos, where mysterious atmospheres and uplifting melodies sit side by side with captivating dance floor rhythms. Many shades of his personality come through on this album, all tied together by his unique sonic identity; informed by his years spent on the dance floor, behind the decks and in the studio. On Battle of The Planets Robert James presents a distillation of his extensive knowledge and experience into one succinct, highly engaging body of work.
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Just as one can smell a storm swelling on the horizon, the cataclysmic tremor that is IMMOLATION approaches to unleash its latest, immense creation: ACTS OF GOD. Due to be released in winter of 2022, this 11th studio album serves as the next chapter of IMMOLATION’S Death Metal epic. With 5 long years passed since the most recent studio album, ATONEMENT, ACTS OF GOD vigorously showcases IMMOLATION’s ability to consistently create fascinating sounds, while still keeping their feet firmly rooted in the old school, New York Death Metal for which they are renowned.
Emblazoned with a haunting new masterpiece by artist Eliran Kantor, ACTS OF GOD displays a trifecta of angelic beings desperately trying to prevent one another’s flesh from melting in a blackened light from above. The muted colors and ethereal images will ring familiar to fans of IMMOLATION’s previous album covers. “We wanted this cover to feel much darker; more melancholy and hopeless. The music has always been very dark, and a lot of Kantor’s work had the feeling that we were going for; the semi-surreal colliding with a classic, almost renaissance feel,” explains founder and vocalist/bassist Ross Dolan. “It’s unnerving. It really reflects the music perfectly,” agrees founder and guitarist Robert Vigna.
The album’s third track “The Age Of No Light” is a powerful, hard hitting song with an extreme yet catchy melody. “It’s quick, hits hard, and gets straight to the point” explians Vigna. Consistently changing speeds and patterns throughout, the song is short but remains both dynamic and memorable.
“Blooded” has all the usual IMMOLATION elements: the slow, the fast, the explosive, the big overlaid sections of groovy harmony eventually dropping into evil, ripping guitar work. “It’s a little powerhouse,” describes Vigna, “it’s straightforward, and it has all the elements you would expect from us in a nice, neat package.”
A song like “Immoral Stain” is a slightly mid-paced track with an intense, creepy atmosphere. Equipped with plenty of unusual moments, the beat is catchy, dark, and echoing. Searing guitar starts to recite a story and then quickly begins a conversation with thunderous vocals and a vociferous beat. “That whole section of build up just needed to be done exactly as it is. That’s what makes it sound different and interesting,” describes Vigna. Much like the rest of the album, while the lyrics cover the usual, general topics of genuine evil and the great deception of religion, the specifics are most certainly left to the listener’s interpretation. Fortunately for IMMOLATION fans, there is no shortage of corruption and catastrophe in this world.
Fittingly, the concluding track “Apostle” was the last song written for the album. “Some of those chorus sections have a weird almost dream-like quality,” describes Dolan. Its steadily growing momentum discharges rounds of guitar solos and relentless vocals which eventually lead way to an explosive finale to the album.
The creative journey for ACTS OF GOD began with years of notes, and an abundance of inspiration. With Vigna at the helm of the structural writing as usual, further composing and concepts were tossed back and forth amongst all 4 members. Eventually, they began to skeletonize the beginning of what would become a full length, studio album. While the recording process and entering the studio can be a very sterile experience for some musicians, the ferocity of the demos combined with the expertise of long time friend and recording counterpart Paul Orofino of Millbrook Studios (BLUE OYSTER CULT, BAD CO, GOLDEN EARRING), assured that this would not be an issue for IMMOLATION. “Having such a level of comfort is key,” remarks Dolan. Final touches were brought about on the mixing and mastering by Zack Ohren of Castle Ultimate Studios.
Firmly aligned with Nuclear Blast Records, the often coveted sound of IMMOLATION has reemerged from the depths of a cursed and cruel world to illuminate our minds and ears with exquisite, sonic destruction.
Nachpressung des Albums von 2015. Obwohl er vielleicht nicht so bekannt ist, hat sich die sinnträchtige, deutlich amerikanische Musik von Kenniff zu einem allgegenwärtigen Sound gemausert, der im Radio, in Filmen, im Fernsehen und in Werbung von Apple, Facebook, Google und anderen auftaucht. Aufgenommen über drei Jahre hinweg fungieren die Songs auf seinem neuen Album ,Sometimes" wie ein Tagebuch, das die kurzen Momente am Tag dokumentiert, in denen Kenniff sich für Trost und unendliche kreative Möglichkeiten dem Klavier zuwandte. Kenniff schrieb und nahm alles auf dem Album selbst auf, mit der Ausnahme von ,A Word I Give", das eine Kollaboration mit dem japanischen Pianisten Ryuichi Sakamoto ist, der die Musik von GOLDMUND einst als ,so, so, so wunderschön" beschrieb. In einem Interview mit NPR diskutierte Keith Kenniff seine Vorliebe für Musik aus der Zeit des Bürgerkriegs und ihre Möglichkeit, ,in nur wenigen Noten solche Geschichten" zu erzählen. Auch die Improvisationen auf ,Sometimes" schaffen es, trotz ihrer technischen und kompositionellen Einfachheit, tiefgründig zu sein. Subtile Details und Dynamiken drücken das aus, was sonst nicht zu artikulieren wäre. ENG Though he may not be a household name, Kenniff's evocative, distinctly American music has become quietly ubiquitous in the past few years, often appearing on NPR, in films, on TV, and in ads for Apple, Facebook, and Google among others. Recorded over the course of three years, the material on his new album Sometimes functions as a journal, documenting brief moments in Kenniff's day when he could turn to the piano as a source of solace and unending creative possibilities. Kenniff wrote and recorded everything on the album with the exception of the track "A Word I Give", which is a collaboration with preeminent Japanese pianist Ryuichi Sakamoto, who once described Goldmund's music as "...so, so, so beautiful." In an interview with NPR's Weekend Edition Keith Kenniff discussed his appreciation of Civil War era music, and it's ability to covey "...so much story in so few notes." Similarly, these improvisations manage to be richly evocative despite their technical and compositional simplicity, using subtle details and dynamics to express what might otherwise be inexpressible.
Multi-Grammy nominated singer, Seth MacFarlane, announces his 7th studio album, Blue Skies. The 14-track collection of swinging tunes showcases acclaimed arranger and conductor Andrew Cottee’s deft take on an uptempo album full of modern big band jazz orchestrations. The first track off the upbeat set is the classic jazz standard, “No Moon At All.” You can listen to the song and pre-order the album here. You can watch the accompanying lyric video here. Recorded at the celebrated Abbey Road studios, Blue Skies features an all-star group of musicians enlisted by MacFarlane including Chuck Berghofer (Bass), Peter Erskine (Drums), Larry Koonse (Guitar), Dan Higgins (Alto Sax), and Tom Ranier (piano). Together, with longtime friend, collaborator, and producer, Joel McNeely, and superb engineer, Rich Breen, the album covers compositions by musical writing luminaries that include Irving Berlin, Sammy Cahn, Edward Heyman and Frank Loesser.
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
Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn't set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel's Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel's significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz's musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel's extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles "Isfahan" and "Neon Blue." LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel's work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz's voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz' "supreme openness," explaining: "Whatever is happening, she's there with you. We really meet right where we are. She's all ears, I'm all ears. I don't even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow." LIVE A LITTLE is a series of "what ifs" cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It's a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn't have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.
Time Released Sound is pleased to be releasing the new album "Allusionen", from German modern classical artist, Himmelsrandt. The nine tracks on this moody, wintry and melancholic beauty feature the artist Peter Honsalek either on piano and viola, and on four tracks, he additionally plays the mysterious early electronic synthesizer called the Volkstrautonium. This is a somewhat dark and introspective journey through the shortest, coldest days of the year, please pull up a chair by the fire, and put your headphones on!
As Peter says, "The album in general deals with the topic of "allusion". The piano songs reflect the period in which the viola songs were invented (between the years 2019/2020). The viola songs themselves are allusions to certain styles and epochs. To notice this and to classify correctly is the job of the listener.
There are also allusions (music for Piano and the rare Volkstrautonium), which are not intended to refer to specific styles, epochs or compositions, but only to allude to specific cold and snowy days between the years 2019/2020. The aim of the album was to capture the creation of contemporary music in its entirety and make it audible. This includes not only the result, but also the external (musical and non-musical) influences that shaped it.
Recorded back in 1999, 'Half a Dove in New York, Half a Dove in Buenos Aires' is the recorded debut of a NetCast improv between deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros and Argentinian free music trio Reynols >> a fascinating early example of the internet’s capacity to foster remote creativity in-the-moment that deploys the slowest electronics, accordion, voice, trombone and computer sounds on a next level ritual drone incantation recorded in another era, but made for our time.
As the story goes, Oliveros first met Reynols in the mid ‘90s at a Deep Listening workshop she held in their home city, Buenos Aires, where they impressed her with an improvised brass serenade. Years later, in 1999, they met again via NetCast - a series of very early online live improvisations - to explore the Internet’s potential for collaborations between artists thousands of miles apart. Finally mixed down in 2021 and mastered by Helge Sten (aka Deathprod) after marinating in the archive for 22 years, the album resonates with the late, great Oliveros’ legendary work in exploring alternate tunings, spatial dynamics and methods of intuitive performance - a remarkable slab of omnidirectional drone bearing traces of Miguel Tomasin's vox and Oliveros’ just-intoned accordion embedded in its cosmic roil.
Broadcasting from fabled record shop The Thing in NYC, with Oliveros (Accordion) joined by Jennifer McCoy (ICR), Kevin McCoy (Computer processing), and Monique Buzzarté (Trombone), and Reynols revolving Miguel Tomasin (Electronics, subliminal voice & Alclorse drums), Rob Conlazo electronics, leather gloves & e-gtr), and Anla Courtis (electronics, rubber foot & e-gtr) and dialling-in from Florida 943 in Buenos Aires, the results are an incredibly absorbing and consistently surprising testament to vanguard, experimental spirits prizing the internet’s nascent, unprecedented ability to connect minds and art across continents, language barriers, and modalities.
The album's first side, titled 'Micro Macro Wind Dance', puts Oliveros' accordion under a microscope, enhancing it with lower case rumble and noise from Reynolds' arsenal. Shifting glacially over 22-minutes, Oliveros plays subtly and slowly at first, letting the accordion breathe in-and-out like a sleeping mythical beast, before she transitions to fluttering bird-like phrases by the end of the side.
'Astral Netcast Pigeon' expands the dissonant drones to widescreen, submerging Oliveros' trills and drones beneath layers of dirt and grit. It's time-altering music that dissasembles yr head before you've completely worked out what's happening >> basically the perfect mid-point between Oliveros' deep listening practices and Reynols' wildly inspirational free-noise-drone freakouts.
* In 1980 Gerald Moore - of G.T. Moore and the Reggae Guitars and Heron fame - was in Kingston, Jamaica working with Lee Perry on the `Return of Pipecock Jackxon' LP. Gerald went into Harry J's studio with James Lascelles (Global Village Trucking Company, The Breakfast Band) and Bud Beadle (Ginger Baker & Salt) alongside members of Zap Pow: Don Grant, Cornell Marshall and Dwight Pinkney.
* Of the four tracks recorded (two vocal and two instrumental) only `Utopia' was ever released (on the Black Star Liner label in 1980 and then reissued by Partial in 2014).
* The tapes sat around gathering dust for the best part of 40 years and are now finally unearthed. * Mixed directly from the masters by Dougie Wardrop are `Jerusalem', `Working For The Dollar' and `Constant Spring'. Also `Utopia' gets a fresh mix.
* A cuts followed by their respective dub mixes.
* Review confirmed in February's edition of The Wire magazine.
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Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
2022 Repress On Elephantine, Cairo-based Maurice Louca guides a 12-piece ensemble through a 38-minute masterwork that might best be described as panoramic. Elements of free improvisation, Sun Ra's cosmic jazz, gorgeous Arabic melody, trancelike African and Yemeni music and minimalism meet in his wholly unique compositional vision. Louca also makes vital contributions on guitar and piano, and inspires stirring performances from a global lineup.
One of the most gifted, prolific and adventurous figures on Egypt's thriving experimental arts scene, Louca has in recent years garnered a global reputation through two previous solo albums and an expanding, evolving lineup of genre-defying collaborations. The Wire called his 2014 sophomore solo effort, Salute the Parrot, "remarkable music-dense, driven and splashed with colour." In 2017, the self-titled debut by Lekhfa, the trio of Louca and vocalists Maryam Saleh and Tamer Abu Ghazaleh, was praised as an "edgy triumph" in The Guardian and picked by BBC Radio 3's Late Junction as one of the very best 12 albums of 2017.
For Louca, 36, Elephantine serves as both the pinnacle of his wide-ranging experience and a bold next step in his development as a composer, arranger and bandleader. The celebrated Egyptian visual artist Maha Maamoun has created the album cover art, following her contribution to Salute the Parrot. "There was a blessed thing about the process of making this record," Louca says of the sessions, held last year in Stockholm and featuring the leader on guitar and piano. "The dynamic between us musically but also as people ...What these musicians delivered was really more than I could ask for, Everyone played their hearts out on this record."
The music-from its pensive lulls through its stretches of hard-grooving hypnosis and moments of avant-jazz catharsis-testifies to that rapport. Best absorbed as a continuous performance, Elephantine's six individually named tracks nonetheless present striking self-contained landscapes. "The Leper" entrances through a deft use of repetition that Louca gleaned from cosmic jazz, African and Yemeni music and other transcendental modal traditions. (Those who've followed Louca's work might be reminded of the Dwarfs of East Agouza, his mesmeric unit with Shalabi and Sun City Girls' Alan Bishop.)
"Laika" manages to evoke the minimalists, though on the combustible terms of '60s and '70s free jazz; "One More for the Gutter," on which Louca ingeniously pits one half of his ensemble against the other, albeit in a synergistic way, mines similarly fiery terrain. "The Palm of a Ghost" distills the band to a Cairo-rooted core, featuring stirring spontaneous melodies from oud player Natik Awayez, violinist Ayman Asfour and vocalist Nadah El Shazly. The album's title track follows, and it too blurs the border between composition and improvisation with gorgeously atmospheric results. "Al Khawaga," with its colossal ensemble riffs, beautifully dirty swing and impassioned blowing, is an ideal finale.
Rumours about death metal band To The Gallows
have already existed in the (Dutch) metal
underground for some years now, but an official
release has never seen the light. Until now.
In 2013, the ‘underground super group’ To The
Gallows was formed by Swedish metalwundermaster Rogga Johansson (Heir Corpse
One, Paganizer, Stygian Dark, Massacre, Blood
Gut, Dead Sun, Megascavenger, Ribspreader,
Putrevore, Revolting), Eric Daniels (Asphyx,
Soulburn, Grand Supreme Blood Court), Bob
Bagchus (Soulburn, Asphyx, Infidel Reich, Siege
Of Power) and Henri Sattler (God Dethroned).
Master plans ended when Daniels and Bagchus
re-started their career with Soulburn. The ‘match
made in Hell’ duo Johansson and Sattler continued
with To The Gallows and ‘Fury Of The Netherworld’
is their debut-album.
Brutal blackened death metal for fans of
Dissection, Zyklon, Belphegor, Hate, Necrophobic,
Archgoat and God Dethroned.
Rumours about death metal band To The Gallows
have already existed in the (Dutch) metal
underground for some years now, but an official
release has never seen the light. Until now.
In 2013, the ‘underground super group’ To The
Gallows was formed by Swedish metalwundermaster Rogga Johansson (Heir Corpse
One, Paganizer, Stygian Dark, Massacre, Blood
Gut, Dead Sun, Megascavenger, Ribspreader,
Putrevore, Revolting), Eric Daniels (Asphyx,
Soulburn, Grand Supreme Blood Court), Bob
Bagchus (Soulburn, Asphyx, Infidel Reich, Siege
Of Power) and Henri Sattler (God Dethroned).
Master plans ended when Daniels and Bagchus
re-started their career with Soulburn. The ‘match
made in Hell’ duo Johansson and Sattler continued
with To The Gallows and ‘Fury Of The Netherworld’
is their debut-album.
Brutal blackened death metal for fans of
Dissection, Zyklon, Belphegor, Hate, Necrophobic,
Archgoat and God Dethroned.
Rumours about death metal band To The Gallows
have already existed in the (Dutch) metal
underground for some years now, but an official
release has never seen the light. Until now.
In 2013, the ‘underground super group’ To The
Gallows was formed by Swedish metalwundermaster Rogga Johansson (Heir Corpse
One, Paganizer, Stygian Dark, Massacre, Blood
Gut, Dead Sun, Megascavenger, Ribspreader,
Putrevore, Revolting), Eric Daniels (Asphyx,
Soulburn, Grand Supreme Blood Court), Bob
Bagchus (Soulburn, Asphyx, Infidel Reich, Siege
Of Power) and Henri Sattler (God Dethroned).
Master plans ended when Daniels and Bagchus
re-started their career with Soulburn. The ‘match
made in Hell’ duo Johansson and Sattler continued
with To The Gallows and ‘Fury Of The Netherworld’
is their debut-album.
Brutal blackened death metal for fans of
Dissection, Zyklon, Belphegor, Hate, Necrophobic,
Archgoat and God Dethroned.
VA - 08
Creating a distorted reality, Jacidorex chose to reunite various artists from different horizons with strong personalities bringing all bunches of stuff to the table, creating a dark reality helped with sonorities reaching from trance to UK dubstep.
Disk Space - Matrix
A good introduction to what trance blended with techno can do and how a repetitive beat can sharpen a track transcending trance, techno and more. This track will definitely create a matrix in you, thanks to the use of low and quick riffs creating a tension that will keep you dancing.
Charlie Sparks - Senshi
Charlie Sparks may have discovered how to break jaws with the simple use of a baseline. Starting with a Japanese sample and a mysterious vibe, this track sound like a heart warming remembrance of hooligans songs, and the 90's Gabber spirit all mixed to create a new GTO manga soundtrack, but better.
Axyom - Blackout
It all started with a dark riff and a sharp voice, then it went crescendo creating a UK dubstep Burial kind of track in a more rhythmic way. A melodic synth and a whispering female voice achieving to create a forgotten memory lost on the dance floor, served with a crunchy acid side. This track mold with concrete and sounds, will surely leave a loud deeper feeling in your mind.
Dorian Parano - Locked Down
After years of lockdowns and stay at home jobs, there's one sentence that nobody wants to hear anymore, and as you may imagine reading the name of this track, French artist Dorian Parano have is own way to cope with the pandemic. Hopefully, his cinematic piece makes things much easier using a synthetic voice and a dark futuristic aesthetic. This track will definitely be locked in your mind!
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Last delivered 9 months ago available to reorder, subject to availability
A Collection of Sounds from the Studio Eksperymentalne Polskiego Radia (1959-2001)
Art by Zofia Kulik
"Would it sound just as bad if you played it backwards?" assembles a collection of audio experiments created at the Polish Radio Experimental Studio (PRES) from 1959 to the beginning of the millennium. These exceptional works are presented alongside images from the Polish artist Zofia Kulik, whose career reached its apogee between the late 1960s and early 70s. While PRES and Kulik remain important artifacts in the recent history of the Polish avant-garde, presenting them together in one release may not seem like an obvious choice. There are, of course, some historical intersections-he most notable being a shared interest in Polish artist and architectOskar Hansen's Open Form theory. Open Form promoted a modular theory of architecture that became a tool adapted by its users and inhabitants to ??????????????..Hansen's ideas influenced Kulik's early works and also manifested in the PRES's iconic "black room", a music studio designed by Hansen, himself, which was equipped with moveable sound panels that absorbed or reflected sounds to promote a greater, creative freedom from its users. And yet, as it usually goes, the most obvious connections are usually the most deceitful. Whereas Kulik initially followed Open Form, she later turned away from it. And as for the black room-it mostly worked in theory but not in practice. What is it then that makes the two work together?
Polish Radio Experimental Studio - PRES (Polish: Studio Eksperymentalne Polskiego Radia) was an experimental music studio in Warsaw, where electronic and utility pieces were recorded. The establishment of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio was conceived by W?odzimierz Sokorski, head of the Radio and Television Committee. Between 1952 and 1956 he was a Minister of Culture, and as a strong supporter of socialist realism he fought against any manifestations of modernity in music. The Polish Radio Experimental Studio was founded on the 15th of November 1957,1 but only in the second half of the following year was it adapted for sound production.23 It operated until 2004.4
Until 1985, for 28 years the studio was headed by its founder - Józef Patkowski - musicologist, acoustician, and the chairman of the Polish Composers' Union. The second most important person in the Studio was Krzysztof Szlifirski, an electro-acoustics engineer. Before founding the studio Józef Patkowski visited similar hubs in Cologne, Paris, Gravesono and Milan.5 Though the studio was a place where autonomous electronic pieces were recorded, this wasn't its main purpose. It was launched as a space for the creation of independent compositions, sounds illustrations for radio dramas, and soundtracks for theatre, film and dance.
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
Upon meeting some years ago in Berlin, Galina & Andrea connected creatively and embarked on a musical voyage. These are studio recordings from Xberg in 2018, at a time when they gave life and animation to a beautiful and young electronic music scene
out of Stock
Last delivered 4 years ago available to reorder, subject to availability
The second LP by California rock n roll unit SPICE expands their palette of damaged anthems and addiction poetics with a more bristling, visceral sound, distilled from years in the trenches of bands, break-ups, and breakdowns. Singer Ross Farrar explains their chemistry succinctly: "We all got in a room and this is what came out." Viv is named for a precursor project of bassist Cody Sullivan and violinist Victoria Skudlarek, but also alludes to broader notions of vividness, sonic, visual, and otherwise. Engineered by Jack Shirley and mixed/mastered by Sam Pura in Oakland, the mix achieves that rare balance of every element being elevated but distinct, with voices, strings, and drums each given space to blaze parallel paths. Opener "Recovery" captures SPICE at their stormy, weathered best, booming drums and East Bay riffs skidding out in a rockslide of rapture, regret, and bruised melody ("You sacrifice perfect days to laugh through the night / you have to get out of bed / and it's hard / and it's hard / it's so hard to admit"), peaking in Ian Simpson's poignant single-note vibrato guitar solo; Farrar agrees: "The guitar says what we cannot." Other tracks embrace the group's shredded pop potential ("Any Day Now," "Dining Out," "Live Scene") and their speedway ripper mode ("Threnody"), with detours into oblique instrumentals ("Melody Drive") and orchestral balladeering ("Ashes In The Birdbath"). But what unites and ignites these songs across different energies and arrangements is their specific sense of emotion. Rawness refined into reckonings, approaching truth, born of cold mornings, bad luck, and too many wrong turns. Waking up where you're not supposed to be, living a life you don't recognize. The album ends with no end to its narrative, still fighting, still slipping. Farrar calls "Climbing Down The Ladder" a "relapse song - telling people you're okay but you're still fucking up." Heartbeat drums march under heartbroken guitars in an elegant downward spiral of defeat, delusion, and desperate hope, dreamed more than believed: "I said it was the last time / but I was up so high / 100 miles / 1000 miles / no me in sight / I saw into the next life / I wasn't dead / I felt so vivid in the next life."
The second LP by California rock n roll unit SPICE expands their palette of damaged anthems and addiction poetics with a more bristling, visceral sound, distilled from years in the trenches of bands, break-ups, and breakdowns. Singer Ross Farrar explains their chemistry succinctly: "We all got in a room and this is what came out." Viv is named for a precursor project of bassist Cody Sullivan and violinist Victoria Skudlarek, but also alludes to broader notions of vividness, sonic, visual, and otherwise. Engineered by Jack Shirley and mixed/mastered by Sam Pura in Oakland, the mix achieves that rare balance of every element being elevated but distinct, with voices, strings, and drums each given space to blaze parallel paths. Opener "Recovery" captures SPICE at their stormy, weathered best, booming drums and East Bay riffs skidding out in a rockslide of rapture, regret, and bruised melody ("You sacrifice perfect days to laugh through the night / you have to get out of bed / and it's hard / and it's hard / it's so hard to admit"), peaking in Ian Simpson's poignant single-note vibrato guitar solo; Farrar agrees: "The guitar says what we cannot." Other tracks embrace the group's shredded pop potential ("Any Day Now," "Dining Out," "Live Scene") and their speedway ripper mode ("Threnody"), with detours into oblique instrumentals ("Melody Drive") and orchestral balladeering ("Ashes In The Birdbath"). But what unites and ignites these songs across different energies and arrangements is their specific sense of emotion. Rawness refined into reckonings, approaching truth, born of cold mornings, bad luck, and too many wrong turns. Waking up where you're not supposed to be, living a life you don't recognize. The album ends with no end to its narrative, still fighting, still slipping. Farrar calls "Climbing Down The Ladder" a "relapse song - telling people you're okay but you're still fucking up." Heartbeat drums march under heartbroken guitars in an elegant downward spiral of defeat, delusion, and desperate hope, dreamed more than believed: "I said it was the last time / but I was up so high / 100 miles / 1000 miles / no me in sight / I saw into the next life / I wasn't dead / I felt so vivid in the next life."
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.
These words by legendary bassist/composer Charles Mingus are a touchstone for Little Big, the quartet led by pianist Aaron Parks. The band’s new recording, Little Big II: Dreams of a Mechanical Man, communicates with a clarity and simplicity that belies its ultimate depth. “I want to cast a spell,” explains Parks, “to lull you into a trance where you think you know where you’re going, and then take you somewhere unexpected, almost without realizing how you got there.”
This new music continues the band’s cultivation of a musical language that marries creative improvised music to more groove-centered music—electronica, indie-rock, hip-hop, and psychedelia—but without a trace of mannered “fusion” or a sense that the music is cobbled together from disparate styles. Rather, it feels seamlessly integrated, whole in and of itself.
Dreams of a Mechanical Man is Little Big’s second release on Ropeadope Records, recorded after more than two years of touring for Parks, guitarist Greg Tuohey, bassist David “DJ” Ginyard, and drummer Tommy Crane. One primary distinction of this new album, according to Parks, is that “today, the band operates as a single organism. The first record was about the tunes and the aesthetic. This album keeps that focus and also captures the chemistry we’ve developed on the road, the way this band feels as it makes music in the moment.”
The tide turns once again. From tumultuous oceanic depths French legend BLUT AUS NORD erupts onland in all its singular dissonant glory: be-tentacled, malformed, accursed, fearsome.
Following up the purported 'new era' of melodicism ushered in by 2019's lauded "Hallucinogen", new work "Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses" finds the leaders-in-perpetuity of Avant-garde Industrialised Black Metal compelled to reassume their rightful throne, crowning nigh-on 28 years of consistency with seven mesmerising tracks of bleakly-maximalist harmonic unease.
Comparable to naught except BLUT AUS NORD, the inimitable leads, eroded melodies and uncanny vocal textures of "Disharmonium" ooze and uncoil, leeching into vast hyper-skilled rhythmic structures which traverse sea-mountains of madness towards lightless echelons far beyond comprehension. The reflexive darkness we all demand. The Order of Outer Sounds.
The tide turns once again. From tumultuous oceanic depths French legend BLUT AUS NORD erupts onland in all its singular dissonant glory: be-tentacled, malformed, accursed, fearsome.
Following up the purported 'new era' of melodicism ushered in by 2019's lauded "Hallucinogen", new work "Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses" finds the leaders-in-perpetuity of Avant-garde Industrialised Black Metal compelled to reassume their rightful throne, crowning nigh-on 28 years of consistency with seven mesmerising tracks of bleakly-maximalist harmonic unease.
Comparable to naught except BLUT AUS NORD, the inimitable leads, eroded melodies and uncanny vocal textures of "Disharmonium" ooze and uncoil, leeching into vast hyper-skilled rhythmic structures which traverse sea-mountains of madness towards lightless echelons far beyond comprehension. The reflexive darkness we all demand. The Order of Outer Sounds.
The tide turns once again. From tumultuous oceanic depths French legend BLUT AUS NORD erupts onland in all its singular dissonant glory: be-tentacled, malformed, accursed, fearsome.
Following up the purported 'new era' of melodicism ushered in by 2019's lauded "Hallucinogen", new work "Disharmonium - Undreamable Abysses" finds the leaders-in-perpetuity of Avant-garde Industrialised Black Metal compelled to reassume their rightful throne, crowning nigh-on 28 years of consistency with seven mesmerising tracks of bleakly-maximalist harmonic unease.
Comparable to naught except BLUT AUS NORD, the inimitable leads, eroded melodies and uncanny vocal textures of "Disharmonium" ooze and uncoil, leeching into vast hyper-skilled rhythmic structures which traverse sea-mountains of madness towards lightless echelons far beyond comprehension. The reflexive darkness we all demand. The Order of Outer Sounds.
Awe Kid explores ideas of trans-humanism, evolution and digital immortality on Body Logic, a fantastically lush new album for Atomnation. The immersive 10 track record plays with organic, breathing textures punctuated by moments of digital unrealness to result in an album permeated with a dream-like quality. This contrast is mirrored by the artwork from Portugal's acclaimed The Royal Studio.
Awe Kid is an alias of Sine Language Records co-founder Rick Parsons. It is the product of years spent exploring a multitude of different music. From early days in post-hardcore groups and on to a love of 90s Warp, electronic jazz and more experimental niches, the multi-instrumentalist has now settled on his own unique fusion of breaks, ambient and left-field dance music. This deft studio wizard mixes up melodic nostalgia with forward-thinking sound design using whatever he can get his hands on, from analog and modular hardware, to samplers, field recordings to digital techniques.
Says Parsons, “I love working with digital processes because you get these unexpected moments where you dial something in, that somehow takes on a tangible, organic form in the real world. Searching for these sweet spots was the motivation for the album, contrasting natural textures against synthetic elements, and finding ways to create something that feels like it exists outside of the computer.”
While the album pays homage to dance music traditions, such as the broken beat of title track 'Body Logic', and full-throttle breaks of 'Zenith', these are assimilated and repurposed to create something that defies genre categorization. The listener's journey is perfectly paced, with broody but uplifting cuts of electronica giving way to shimmering, celestial melodies, and dusty breakbeats emerging from dense layers of atmosphere, only for the mood to be reset with soothing, suspenseful synths and haunting vocal samples. Elsewhere, devastatingly emotional ambient is followed by punchy grooves and propulsive melodies to make for a real ride.
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Originally released in 2008 on Type Recordings, Caesura by Helios aka Keith Kenniff returns in a new 2022 edition vinyl re-release, remastered by Taylor Deupree.
Keith Kenniff had been with Type from the very beginning, and in the fifth year of the label he offered his fifth gorgeous release. In those five years Keith's style had evolved constantly, with his drifting piano compositions taking the Goldmund label and the Helios sound moving out from underneath the clipped beat-heavy electronics of 'Unomia' and into a more unique place, even incorporating vocals on the 'Ayres' mini album. 'Caesura' however was his 'proper' follow-up to the acclaimed 'Eingya', and has seen Keith return to the instrumental sound he knows so well. In fact in many ways 'Caesura' is a more electronic work than its predecessors, blending layer upon layer of synthesizer and adding his assured drumming to come up with the perfect meeting of indie-pop and ambient music. The haunting cinematic element is still present of course, but these songs are more rounded and confident than any in Keith's career to that point.
From the delicate bliss of 'Hope Valley Hill' which opens up the album with gauzy nostalgia and, as the title promised, hope, through the chunky pop of 'Come With Nothings' it is clear that Keith's music is as arresting as it ever was. Taking cues from the lilting indie-electronics of Ulrich Schnauss and the unfussy ambience of Brian Eno, Keith manages to inject this with his knowledge as a composer. The epic harmonies of 'Backlight' for instance reveal a lightness of touch rarely heard in the genre with sweeping synthesized chords buzzing alongside Keith's signature guitar.
Accompanied by more gorgeous artwork from Matthew Woodson, 'Caesura' still is a glowing record for the winter months, and a glimmer of hope to keep the seasons at bay.
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First album by this duo, known separately for their work in Mouse on Mars
and Gastr del Sol.
Two long-form pieces, utterly different from one another: one hyper-detailed
electronic music and sound poetry, and the other live-in-the-studio electric
guitar and laptop paint-peeling.
The exciting first chapter in a long-anticipated collaboration
David Grubbs and Jan St. Werner met in the mid-1990s when Grubbs was
playing with Gastr del Sol and The Red Krayola and St. Werner in Mouse on
Mars and Microstoria. After years of exchanging ideas, ‘Translation from
Unspecified’ marks their first time locking horns as a duo, and it’s clear this
deck-clearing collaboration was long overdue.
In January 2020 Grubbs arrived at Mouse on Mars’ Berlin studio Paraverse
with a guitar and ‘Translation from Unspecified’, an open-ended, seemingly
self-generating poem suggesting AI, one of the themes in St. Werner’s recent
work. This became the side-length title track, a winding corridor of electronic
fanfares and spontaneous musical miniatures urging Grubbs’s slow and
steady recitation to grow wings and graduate into song.
Who knows where this idiosyncratic mise-en-scène - day-glo, extrovert
electronics and task-oriented human - came from? Reference points - distant
ones - might include Robert Ashley and Paul De Marinis’s ‘In Sara, Mencken,
Christ and Beethoven...’ and the sound poetry of Anton Bruhin.
Flip the record and you have ‘Soixante Ooze’, a live-in-the-studio duo for
guitar and computer more recognizably St. Wernerian and Grubbs-like that
reconfigures elements of the title track before finally morphing into needlepinning monoliths of sound.
David Grubbs has released fourteen solo albums and appeared on more
than 200 releases. He was a member of the groups Gastr del Sol, Bastro,
and Squirrel Bait and has performed with Tony Conrad, Pauline Oliveros,
Luc Ferrari, Will Oldham, Loren Connors, the Red Krayola, Royal Trux, and
many others. His newest book is ‘Good night the pleasure was ours’ (Duke
University Press, 2022).
Jan St. Werner is an artist and electronic music composer best known as
one half of the group Mouse on Mars. He has collaborated with Oval’s
Markus Popp as Microstoria and written music for installations and films by
visual artist Rosa Barba. In 2013, St. Werner released ‘Blaze Colour Burn’,
the first of a series of experimental recordings called ‘the Fiepblatter
Catalogue’. Recently his work has prioritized installation and interventions
with spatialized sound, including a number of collaborations under the name
Dynamische Akustische Forschung (DAF).
“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.