Cosmic | Balearic Vinyl 387 Items

For our fifth release, P&f Recordings is pleased to welcome Berlin-based musician, producer, and DJ, Alex Kassian. Over the past few years, Kassian has made a name for himself in Berlin and beyond as a solo act, as well as with his project Opal Sunn, via a clutch of well received, dancefloor-focused 12s. But on our first release of 2021, Kassian swaps the techy pulse of the German capital for a sound that’s altogether more melodic and atmospheric. Side A kicks off with 'Leave Your Life (Lonely Hearts Mix)' which began as a way for the producer to realize some of his early—and so far unrequited—dreams of playing in a rock band. Next up he delivers 'Leave Your Life (Dance Mix)', which ups the energy and echoes some of the production that made the musician’s 'Oolong Trance' (Love on the Rocks) one of 2020’s best club tunes. On the flip, the gorgeous 'Spirit of Eden' unfurls like a lost Lyle Mays classic, but with a mesmerizing loop that keeps the song’s feet placed firmly on the dancefloor. Concluding the EP is a bass-heavy remix from none other than U.S. dub legend Bill Laswell. 'Eden’s' melodic focus is underpinned by a propulsive groove and filtered through Laswell's trademark sonic dynamics. The EP, comes packaged in a full-color jacket from Parisian artist Alexis Jamet with OBI strip.

The eighteenth release on Second Circle is the label's second exploration into an artists archival works; this time presenting a selection of four early tracks by theatre, film and music producer Can Oral under his Khan alias. Can moved to Williamsburg, New York in the early 90's along with good friend and fellow musician Jimi Tenor. Born in Germany of Turkish-Finnish parents, he would frantically start buying equipment (such as a Tr808, Tb303 and Korg Polysix) from junk shops across New York, becoming greatly prolific in his recordings which he would work on throughout the night. During the daytime though, Can set up and ran the now defunct Temple Records, a seminal Soho record store, and later label, largely importing Techno and Acid from Europe. Though a small store, Temple Records would count musicians and DJs such as Björk, Tricky, Dee-Lite, Josh Wink and Joey Beltram among its regular customers. Also he would host many such guests to play live or DJ at his weekly Techno party “Killer” which was held at Save The Robots in New York’s East Village. Can Oral's nightly studio sessions eventually led to an almost inexhaustible discography with over a dozen monikers each representing a different aspect of his productions. Sc018 focuses then on his early electronic works as Khan. Named after the color painted studio where the EP was produced between 1993-1996, 'Blue Box Sessions' is a collection of four analogue machine driven cuts, covering different tempos and ethos within electronic music. Initially live recorded to an old DAT recorder, and without any overdubs, Sc018 is a lost and found artefact to Khan's unquestioned raw talent and timeless relevance.

Objet Melodie' is a combination of real instruments, synthesizers, drum machines and samples, involving genres from different countries of the world.
It's like being on a surreal oasis, where music is eclectic but also meditative or just for a dance. Interconnecting with the whole planet, imagining or living in different countries and trying to relate with diverse cultures and experimentation.
Lorenzo-Giulio Morresi, 'Objet melodie' producer, combined real instruments like Roland TR-707, Roland JUNO-60, a Gibson Memphis guitar, marimbas and steel drums with percussions samples taken from his personal record collection.
The other musicians involved are Stefano Ubaldini who plays the intro in 'Rituel' with an amazing hand-made guitar called 'Slitar', inspired from an Indian Sitar made with a broken metal window he picked up in a London backyard.
Fabio Mina is playing flutes on several tracks, like the Hulusi from China and the Nose Flute from Hawaiian islands. Giuseppe Diamanti plays tenor sax outros.
'Objet melodie' is inspired by sounds, technologies and traditions from planet earth, with the hope of staying interconnected as much as we can.

Next up on Second Circle is the debut release of Indonesian outft Zatua, with their album ‘Sin Existencia’. Led up by Dea Barandana and Harsya Wahono, the seven track album was recorded in Jakarta and Bali over two years and grew out of improvised live shows the duo had put together.

Here after a long time the first EP release on Best Record containing new unreleased music. Afrodesia project born from a close collaboration between Periodica Records and Best Italy featuring Mystic Jungle & Whodamanny.
Afrodesia took inspiration from the italian afro-movement that lasted for few years during mid-eighties expecially from those songs produced at the legendary Les Folies Studios in Milan. Afrodesia sounds balearic boogie afro and cosmic with heavy use of original past synths and drum machines programmed and played by Dario Di Pace, Raffaele Arcella and real acoustic instruments thanks to the musicians : Giulio Neri
Tenor Saxophone and vocals), Andrea Farias
Guitar), Davide Di Sauro
Bass) and the late George Aghedo
Percussion).

En Transito is a document of the evolution of the Ambien Baby collaboration between D Tiffany and NAP. An ode to friendship and creative symbiosis. The tracks on this record showcase the project from its beginnings in 2015 to present day.

Claremont 56’s latest release is very much a family affair. It sees Idjut Boy Conrad McDonnell – a regular remixer of Claremont 56 releases since the label’s inception – serve up two spaced-out, dub-wise revisions of a little known cut by Bison, the imprint’s very own “super-group”. The 12” has extra emotional resonance for Bison’s Paul ‘Mudd’ Murphy and Ben Smith, as it marks the band’s first release since the passing of fellow founder members Holger Czukay and Ursula Kloss.
Clutching his cherished space echo and tape delay units, McDonnell has delivered two tasty new dubs of “Salmon Spungcake”, a spacey, gently throbbing Bison cut that he co-wrote, produced and mixed for Claremont 56’s 10th Anniversary box-set in 2017.
While the original version shied away from the dancefloor in favour of creating a hazy, horizontal mood, McDonnell’s “Zip It Shrimpy Mix” re-invents the cut as a hypnotic dub disco shaker rich in weighty bass, layered hand percussion, locked-in kick drums and spaced-out vocal snippets. In true dub fashion, flashes of the band’s original instrumentation – effects-laden guitars, hazy electronics and meandering, deep space chords – float in and out of the mix at irregular intervals. It’s the kind of remix you want to get lost in while wearily shuffling at 5am in a dark, sweaty basement.
The glassy-eyed, head-in-the-clouds fun continues on the “I Think I’ve Got Gout Mix”, an even more spaced-out affair that recalls some of the other inspired dancefloor dubs McDonnell has produced alongside Idjut Boys partner Dan Tyler. Stripped back, heavy, percussive and driven forward by sturdy kick-drums and the track’s rich, warm bassline, this is a deep space dub disco tailor-made for space cadets and intoxicated sunrise dancers.

Fabrizio Fattori is one of the most rapresentative dj in the afro balearic italian movement, Best Italy with this album put together all the songs produced from Fabrizio during 1985 including all the songs coming from the rare and high in demand Appunti D'Africa and Baraonda 12" singles plus unreleased material.

This LP samples Alexander Goldscheider’s music produced for records, films, TV and even an art exhibition in the space of 25 years starting from 1975. In its second venture into reissuing hidden gems of electronic music produced in Eastern Europe in the 20th Century, Little Beat Different Issues focuses on the work of a Czech composer, musician and producer, Alexander Goldscheider. Born in Prague in 1950, Goldscheider started as a music correspondent in New York in 1968/69, went onto reading Music at Charles University whilst continuing as a music critic and radio/club DJ, before becoming a record producer at the top Czech label, Supraphon. As a composer, he pioneered the use of synthesizers in his songs for major Czech pop/rock singers as well as in his own instrumental tracks. After moving to London in 1981, he first recorded two albums at the renowned Red Bus Studios, then proceeded to work at the legendary BBC Radiophonic Workshop, before co-founding and establishing Romantic Robot, a software and hardware design and manufacturing company which later moved into music recording and publishing. Of the many original products, The Music Typewriter was ground-breaking software enabling the writing and printing of real notation on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum. Similarly Terezin: The Music 1941-44 was the first ever release of CDs with music written in the Theresienstadt Concentration Camp during World War II.

When No Pussyfooting was released in 1973 by two great pioneers like Eno and Fripp, that first whisper of their artistic association surprised many critics and fans. Yet, that kind of minimalist ambient sonority carried out by the two appeared in the ear like something absolutely new and innovative. Although nowadays we might be more accustomed to creative operations of this type, we are still fascinated, while listening, by the still possible achievement of relevant moments of musical epiphany, however distant we might be from that first eminent combination between keyboards and guitar which concerned electronic experimentation. Something similar occurred in this new collaboration between Riccardo Sinigaglia and Maurizio Abate; two generations in comparison, whose research developments unfold in the handful of different conceptions and experiences. Their music does not own a pre-defined structure; it receives its ultimate reason from the progressive and continuous metamorphosis of sound. It’s all the result of spontaneous sessions, during which a predisposition towards an active trance procedure, sustained by complementary flashes of lucidity, prevails. The dominant atmosphere is entirely oneiric, perpetually doubtful, still not linked to the passive remote unconscious: it rather reminds of lucid dreams, of phosphenes, of eidetic visualizations that belong to Tibetan tradition.

The people at Antinote are always excited to introduce new names to its roster and Sign Libra, its latest addition, makes no exception to the rule.
Released under the moniker Sign Libra, Closer to the Equator is the work of Latvian artist and composer Agata Melnikova. Composed for a contemporary ballet at Latvian National Opera in Riga, the music on this record strongly relies on Melnikova’s appreciation of BBC-produced nature documentaries. Projecting the life of each creature that inhabits the British TV-program into her very personal and highly synthetized world, Sign Libra lends these microscopic beings her own voice. Each song works like a musical “tableau” in which the main protagonists – plants and animals – come on stage to play their part in a ballet carefully choreographed by the Latvian artist.
Sign Libra’s mental and musical incarnations of the microcosm of the rainforest have something to do with Software’s album populated by exotic insects and crawling plants, a “Carnaval des Animaux” released on Sky by a MIDI-addicted Hector Berlioz. These microscopic beings incarnate themselves in resonated melodies that echo through a technicolour rainforest, while winds blow through holographic ferns, vines and palms.
Closer To The Equator synthesizes visions panning treetops as the sun’s rays pierce through clouds nearby. Sign Libra takes you into a harmonic world that shines brightly wherever you stand, and offers a genuine synesthetic experience.

Distant Images is D.K.’s fourth release on Antinote and we can say quite safely that Dang Khoa Chau fueled a few identifiable obsessions over the years – for those familiar with his work, it probably won’t feel like uncharted territory when they’ll hear a somehow well-known guitar in the background of the title-track.
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What time spent collaborating with D.K. also showed us is how much his sound magnified itself and its textures sharpened for the past three years. We now know for sure that his music only seems versatile on the surface as Distant Images confirms that the Paris-based musician has been, in fact, digging deeper in the same direction; each new record working like a diaphragm, always more precisely adjusted to capture his inner vision. It feels, for instance, like D.K.’s music is constantly trying to reach a higher level of vanescence from one record to an other, a process which possibly accelerated after a visit from Suzanne Kraft – who he recorded an album with, earlier this year (coming out on Melody As Truth).

With Distant Images, D.K.’s sound also took a step further into reality – the most attentive ears will hear seagulls on Distant Images while rain is softly falling on Leaving – and slightly departed from the digital universes that his
previous records seemed to set in motion. From the most abstract songs – like the Steve Reich-ian Shaker Loops – to the most evocative ones, the five compositions on Distant Images are like stained glass, gently filtering natural light. It is therefore no coincidence if, of all the senses, the titles of the songs mostly refer to Sight: close your eyes while listening to the cinematographic Days Of Steam and visions of an industrious city might appearbefore you.

The beauty that emanates from Distant Images is of a diaphanous kind and the record a collection of kaleidoscopic moments.

The Wrekin Crew is back for a seance outing on the peerless Is It Balearic? This new offering rather continues where the first one left off with two tracks of immersive sonics for sunny days. First up is 'Vapour Trails' which melds lush Italo disco melodies and nice emotinoal pop of the sort you would expect to hear in this duo's DJ sets. Goldsuite also step up with a remix to smooth the edges and lay down moon-lit Balearica then closer 'Broken Wings' has more meaningful vocals but this time over grooves more suited to a late-night setting. Cosmic arps finish it in style with plenty of dubby undercurrents.

After 8 years Georgian pioneer George Dzodzuashvili is back as Post Industrial Boys with a new album. It's his most personal record to date and opens up its own world: a world full of memories of a bygone time and observations so precise you almost feel like you are living and capturing them yourself with a Super8 camera.

French producer Jerome Barresi assumes his Robert's Diary Palais here for a new outing on Is It Balearic that offers something a little adjacent to the norm. Opener 'Dinky Bird' is a mix of tender keys and hand claps with a soulful vocal sample that reminds of early-era Moby. Norse mainstay Bjorn Torske appears then to remix and brings some scuttling percussive sounds and watery effects over four-four drums. 'Six O Six' is a yearning dub cut packed with wild FX and 'kxp' is a zoned-out and tinny retro-future nu-disco cut that is a perfect B-side.

Pinchy & friends is delighted to present the latest offering from Kaifeng-born and raised, Vancouver-based musician Yu Su. In her first major release of original music since 2021’s acclaimed “Yellow River Blue” LP, Yu Su says elements for the EP began to form during time spent in the deserts of Ojai, California and the fertile coastal areas around her home in British Columbia. Of the new release, Yu Su says the ideas are thanks to “the objects around (colors, reflections of light, wood burning in the fireplace, and material rhyme with the sounds in the room) the desert and valley plants, the ground where citrus grows, and the flood a rainstorm created.” She notes that “the golden earth is the changing point of the matter, earth centers, stabilizes, and conserves, nurtures, and seeks to draw all things together with itself.” Likewise, the four varied pieces of the EP match four very different landscapes: Earth-of-water (Wet/Cold Earth) Earth-of-Fire (Arid/Hot Earth) Earth-of-Metal (Dry/Hard Earth) Earth-of-Wood (Loose-Fertile/Warm Earth). Additional guitar and bass were provided by Scott Johnson Gailey and Aiden Ayers - who also play in Yu Su’s live band. The vinyl release comes on 180g vinyl in a full-colour sleeve by Seoul based Lobde Kim, with OBI Strip.

An electronic homage to celebrated B-Movies and Cult films. Limited Edition of 100, includes download card

For its first release, Tiella Sound has chosen Perugia-born DJ and producer Daniele Tomassini, already known for his records under the Feel Fly moniker, this time with the first LP by his alter ego Vaisa. This work consists of unreleased tracks composed between 2014 and 2016, during an intense creative period that saw him involved in more experimental and alternative projects such as Palenque Pacaltrio and Wunder Cameraduo.

“Vaisa is a dense, raw, evocative project. A lo-fi maelstrom of field recordings, sound collage, mysterious vocal samples from ancient cultures, obscure rhythms and layered tribal percussions, ambient clouds, dub echoes, with the martial tolling of the kick drum beating out the slow electronic ritual” (Caveargento): a deep and timeless journey, ready to drive all the lovers of the most abstract and primitive sounds into ecstasy.

‘Double Pink’ is the debut album by And Is Phi (Andrea Isabelle Phillips), a multidisciplinary artist from Norway and the Philippines now based in South East London. ‘Double Pink’ is a nuanced world that draws on colours and texture; with influences of Joni Mitchell and Frank Zappa, 90's R&B and Madlib’s ‘Shades Of Blue’ blending languidly to produce a base for uncovering layers of self, a deep release, and fragile new form. Written by Andrea and co-produced with Fiona Roberts and Lorenz Okello over a nine month period; ‘Double Pink’ thematically explores the many movements of internal change, speaking from a deep inner voice inside the body. The title track is an invitation to be as unapologetically hungry as you please after a long absence of life giving passion and trust in oneself. ‘White Noise’ is a recovery song playing in your soul the first time you made it back out to the dance floor after a heart break so massive it laid rest to the person you used to be. Songs like ‘Working’ and ‘Staaar’ come from a candid and contemplative aspect. Stages of grief and resilience and wonder and wisdom are all touched upon. “The album explores metamorphosis, liminal spaces, and the multiple faces of love”, says Andrea. “I mention love as a key ingredient, because anyone who has had to push and pull and hold and yield themselves through great loss and transformation knows it ain’t gonna happen without love. Tough times ask for double love, a stronger heart, something like a double pink”. Andrea’s story dots between periods spent living in Norway, the Philippines and England - experiencing joy and beauty battling corruption and violence in Manila, DJing in Oslo, losing her sizable record collection in a warehouse fire before making friends and family in the jazz scene in London. Every story needs a scene, a landscape, an environment; all things Andrea visualises when writing songs. “At my heart I am emotional and imaginative, searching for freedom for my spirit. What grounds it all is coming from a family of storytellers. My father played drums and percussion, he was a great dancer and a true collector and connoisseur of music from everywhere. My wise mother instilled in me a sense of faith and grace”. Andrea is far from new to the scene, having performed with Steamdown, Emma Jean Thackray, Hector Plimmer, Scrimshire, William Florelle and many more as a valuable and inspiring creative force within the South London music scene. Andrea also created the album’s artwork and music videos: musicality and painting evolved from her initial creative languages of drawing and dance. All aspects are dialects of her common language: singing what can’t be painted and painting what can’t be sung.

Laidback summer vibes over a brazilian rhythm and a little brokenbeat anyone? The London based artist Toma got you covered with his debut NothingCanEverBe. RawMTs Interpretation of it is a 10 minute subaquatic trip taking you deeper and deeper for ultimate relaxation. Now for the dancers: JKs Oldschool Remix is a LoFi workout with an irresistible groove in classic LOVEiT House tradition whereas Jo Pariotas Remix preserves the brazilian vibes and the vocals from the original but spices everything up with a phat housey beat, warm chords and some funky piano sprinkles on top. - morri313

Soundclash or romance? Androo versus Bony Fly have composed six tracks finely balanced between the care given to sound experimentation and the explosive ardor of the dancefloor. Love Affair EP was born from this particular research, the fruit of a common passion for dub music, dancehall and its infinite variations. Radical and popular, the EP carries within it this generous and spontaneous quest for dance, naturally provoking body movements. It is also combined with a particular attention to sound textures, subtle and harmonious, whose multiple references (to jazz in particular) testify to an overflowing curiosity

After the success of Middle Name Dance Tracks Vol. 1 comes Vol. 2 of the series by Brisbane's Middle Name Dance Band. The collaborative trio project between Sampology, Megan Christensen & Sam Stosuur was originally intended as a one off studio project, but the success of the first EP saw both a demand for live shows and a Vol. 2 EP. _ Middle Name Dance Tracks Vol. 2 features the first single 'Weekend Love Chant' which dropped end of 2019. Support from Gilles Peterson on BBC 6, and Middle Name Dance Band have recently performed atLaneway Festival and Melbourne Museum as well as a debut Australian tour. An iconically Brisbane video also accompanied the release, featuring the unmistakeable moves of Megan at beautiful early morning locations around the sunny city. _ This EP sees a progression into both mid tempo and slow jam grooves on the A side with 'Love Bite' & 'Weekend Love Chant' as well as house and Brazilian rhythms on the B side with 'Deeper Than Love' & 'Lovers Carnival'. The writing of the EP happened both in the studio and on stage throughout 2019 as part of the band's Bearded Lady venue residency in which they developed the songs in front of an ever increasing hometown crowd.

Recorded mostly as a live-jam, august 2019, Il Sogno di Carmen is the result of a solitary producer meeting a nomad musician, Viscardi & Alano Santo. A brand new friendship. From there, the duo leads us to a spontaneous and fragile vacation story that yet manages to frame, with a sometimes mischievous accuracy, the current Genevan musical spirit: experimental, sincere, hybrid and hot. “I have no idea where this will lead us. But I have a definite feeling it will be a place both wonderful and strange. Deep into summer, most definitely. The season of torrid bodies, of slowed down movements ; where melancholy creeps in the form of light and inconstant paragraphs, italian-style. Dragged around in hedonistic reunions, spiritual vagrancies and the soothing coolness of the Rhone river, Carmen is smooth and frivolous. She loosens up. Nothing is important. It can wait. Him too, you mainly. Geneva in the tropics, Bongo Joe on the terrace, stolen emerald glances & air-conditioned airports. That's it. A wonderful and insignifiant story”.