Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield CD 295 Items

Merzbow's Merzbeat is one the most unique and legendary titles in the artist's vast archive. This 20th anniversary repress is being issued at the same time as CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action 2 and a brand new collaboration with Arcane Device, all on Important Records.

Originally released in 2002, Merzbeat contains over 50 minutes of aggressive, psychedelic, organic, analog beat oriented Merzbow compositions. Drummed rhythms, massive looping samples, a punk spirit and a return to analog Merzbow.

KID 606 called it 'one of the greatest thing Merzbow has ever done.'

Japan's leading noise luminary Merzbow meets American electro-feedback artist Arcane Device as they mix and manipulate each other's work. The result are droning, bubbling sonic textures that are as serene as they are extreme pushing the boundaries and meeting in the middle. Both artists contribute long-form manipulations that inspire contemplation as much as highly caffeinated charges of sonic skullduggery. Sonic textures take center stage on Merzbow & Arcane Device.

David Lee Meyers aka Arcane Device has been building electronics and creating feedback based electronic music since the late 70's. He has collaborated with Tod Dockstader, Kim Cascone, Asmus Tietchens among others.

Masami Akita's legendary Merzbow project has established him as an international electronic phenomenon and this collaboration with Arcane Device is being released at the same time as a 20th anniversary reissue of his Merzbeat album and a CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action, all on Important Records.

New 50-minute opus from Gothenburg Sound Workshop. Imagine a handcuffed Terry Riley driving a ice cream truck down in the Göta Älv. The second disc compiles both Förlag För Fri Musik albums (released in small vinyl editions in 2020 and 2021 respectively). Together the three albums creates a massive trilogy of stripped down, melancholic and introspective synth minimalism. Six-panel digipack, edition of 500 copies. Discreet Music Cd04.

Bonobo will release his new album ‘Fragments' via Ninja Tune on January 14th, 2022. Fragments is the most emotionally intense record that he - aka Simon Green - has ever had to make. It’s no surprise that it’s also his masterpiece. The album features Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation, the album ultimately was fused together in a burst of creativity fuelled by both collaboration and Green’s escape into the wild. The artwork for ‘Fragments" is by Neil Krug who returns after creating the art for 2017’s 'Migration’. Krug has also made a visualiser for ’Rosewood”.

One of the biggest names in dance music, Green’s career includes 3 Grammy nominations and playing to over 2 million people for the tour supporting his 2017 album Migration. Migration was a top ten album in multiple countries, top five at home in the UK and a Billboard dance album number one in the US. He’s also a favourite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals. As part of the tour announced today Bonobo will play three dates at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in addition to dates in Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham.

Fragments is a series of 12 sonic affirmations, featuring some of the hardest and most hip-shaking grooves that Green has ever created. The ballads are perfectly placed throughout; they capture a world in flux and glow with hope. Coaxing the ideas out initially took some hard work. The constantly-touring Green creates best while on the move; the global shutdown forced him to stand still.

The psychedelic garage duo The Liminanas and French techno pioneer DJ/producer Laurent Garnier have now produced together “De Pelicula”. The result is neither a Limiñanas techno record nor a Laurent Garnier rock album . It is a record that feels like a walk on the wild side, one straight out of a film noir that was spawned from the need to write music that tells a story and rattles all traditional patterns in a (super)sonic trance. A heated road-trip spent chasing Juliette and Saul, two teenage rascals straight out of a ‘60s classic - think “Breathless” (original title: A bout de Souffle) meets Sailor and Lula - balancing on the southern border with Spain, knocked out by the heat and cheap liquor.

Clan Caimán returns to EM Records for their second album, continuing the instinctive evolution of their music: a wordless, timeless, gently pulsing and sweetly melodic soundworld, based on composer Emilio Haro’s vision of a band playing the music of an imaginary undiscovered ethnic group. Woven together by Haro’s self-made kalimbafón, a tuned percussion instrument, these five Argentinian musicians also use threads of lap steel, guitars, bass and percussion to knit their beyond-genre textures, seemingly ageless despite being recorded in December 2019. Available on CD, digital download and 12’’ LP, the latter cut at Berlin’s famed Dubplates and Mastering. “Asoma” is perfect music for imaginary voyages during travel-restricted times.

Thomas Köner is one of the most influential modernist minimal composers. Alongside Wolfgang Voigt’s “Gas” project, Köner has been centrally responsible for electronic music’s fascination with depth and reduction. His signature sound is vast, seemingly endless, which at first seems homogenous and infinite, but once exposed to it, when our senses calibrate to the fine nuances of changes, we discover and immerse into abundance of textures, richness of modulations and almost infinite range of sonic titilations. Köner’s work was inspired by his frequent travels in the Arctic, and listeners feel his music as a journey to mysterious worlds of the Arctic region. The experience of being exposed to the extreme cold, the hightening of our senses and ability to notice even the slightest changes in color, sound, light or density that creates this dangerously reductive environment, is like an immersion in the sonic world of this German artist, where masterfully crafted layers of sound open into colossal spaces, teeming with aural life, waiting to be discovered by those who venture into it. The titles of Köner’s highly regarded albums from the 90’s ever so often play with this affinity - Nunatak, Permafrost, Teimo - all reference to the world of the Artic region, just as his album Nuuk that points us to the capital of Greenland. Subdued and minimal at first glance, this album is brimming with low-end frequences, shadowy resonances and boreal ambience, but at the same time, constant fluctuation and vulnerability of sonic events.

WRWTFWW Records is proud to announce the official reissue of Motohiko Hamase’s extremely rare live album Anecdote (recorded in 1987). The album is sourced from original masters and available on vinyl (double LP) for the first time ever as well as on CD. It comes with liner notes from the artist. This marks the sixth release from the ESPLANADE SERIES which focuses on the works of Yoshio Ojima, Motohiko Hamase and Satsuki Shibano. Anecdote was recorded live June 12th 1987 at Spiral Garden (Wacoal Art Center) in Aoyama (Tokyo) as part of the Eat Newsic Concert No.3. Motohiko Hamase on electric fretless bass, synthesizers and computer programming, is accompanied by frequent collaborators Toshio Kaji on acoustic piano and synthesizers, and Yasunori Yamaguchi (of #Notes of Forestry fame) on acoustic percussions. The three-man band improvises around Hamase’s unique repertoire of ambient and electronic music, reinterpreting pieces from his albums Reminiscence, Intaglio, and #Notes of Forestry.

Almost five years have passed since the last album by Flying Lotus, You're Dead! and he has had many irons in the fire. Collaborating on Kendrick Lamar's To Pimp a Butterfly, playing a key role in the production of Thundercat's Drunk, writing and directing the hallucinatory horror film Kuso, all the while working on his next afro-futurist masterpiece, Flamagra.

Drawing the lines between the galaxies of hip-hop, funk, soul, jazz, global dance music, tribal poly-rhythms, IDM and the beat scene of his hometown L.A, Lotus creates a universe that is uniquely his own. Calling on an all-star cast from the cosmos, Anderson .Paak, George Clinton, Little Dragon, Tierra Whack, Denzel Curry, David Lynch, Shabazz Palaces, Thundercat, Toro y Moi and Solange; Lotus takes these artists on an astral plane to explore his world of fire.

“I’d been working on stuff for the past five years, but it was always all over the place. I’d always had this thematic idea in mind—a lingering concept about fire, an eternal flame sitting on a hill,” Lotus says. “Some people love it, some people hate it. Some people would go on dates there and some people would burn love letters in the fire.” - Flying Lotus.

Hold tight, Fire is Coming.

Sam Shepherd pulls from "global soul, ambient, jazz and folk" genres on the 17-track mix, according to the press release. It features four new tracks, including one from Floating points himself: a cover of Kenny Wheeler's "The Sweet Time Suite, Part I - Opening." Sarah Davachi, Toshimaru Nakamura and Lauren Laverne also contribute exclusive material, plus music by Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, British jazz trio Azimuth and recent Resident Advisor feature star Kara-Lis Coverdale.

"The music is a selection of the kind of records I play to set the tone when DJing all night long," said Shepherd.

Who thought this would ever happen? All new album from Michael Sandison & Marcus Eoin Sandison! Limited digipack with artcards.

“Reflex” is Gábor Lázár’s debut album on raster. His new record is a collection of seven tracks, featuring an extended sound palette of percussions and synthesizers drawing our attention towards the essential soundscapes of techno while maintaining his distinct, uncompromising and meticulously detailed style. While the tracks do not follow traditional narratives, the album has an evolution: it gently builds up from challenging, unpredictable, and organically composed structures to linear yet playful forms of techno-infused tracks, taking us on a journey from home listening environments to club contexts.

Our senses are stimulated by micro-variations of textures and patterns, leading us to the feeling of here and now, allowing us to observe our own reactions and thoughts evoked by the listening experience. Gábor’s consistent production techniques and intuitive compositional approach work together coherently, addressing the listener’s cognition from different angles simultaneously, offering a variety of ways for the listener to get immersed.

Dan Snaith's latest album, "Honey," marks an intriguing new phase for Caribou. Over more than two decades Dan Snaith has had many guises. After putting every ounce of himself into Our Love and Suddenly, for his sixth Caribou album Snaith now pulls himself away a little in search of music that isn’t about any one person and is available to everybody. Huge dancefloor tracks twinkle, shimmer and surprise in a way only Snaith’s productions can but with a freshness that defines an artist who is too excited by music-making to ever truly settle into any one sound. There’s never been a Caribou record that sounds like the last, so change here is just as comforting as constant. They say expect the unexpected and you’ll never be surprised; well there’s plenty here to be surprised by, but then with a Caribou record you’d never expect anything less. "Honey" captures Snaith's curiosity and joy in music-making, offering a fresh yet quintessential Caribou experience.

The inspiration for 'Album l' and 'Album Il' began with a performance by Japanese musician Eiko Ishibashi at Cologne's Week-End Fest in 2019. For this appearance the renowned experimental musician and composer of the Oscar-winning film „Drive My Car" was joined on drums by Tatsuhisa Yamamoto and Joe Talia; both integral members of the top-level improvisational/ experimental scene in Tokyo. While in town for the festival, Ishibashi met up with the members of the Cologne-Berlin based group Von Spar who featured Ishibashi on their then new album "Under Pressure".

Unequal cycles searching for synchronous experiences: On his new album »Pounding«, Frank Bretschneider tells of distance, convergence and congruence in a continuous, ever-changing flow of events. What is often considered to be an unquestionable dogma in club music (for which Bretschneider has provided significant impetus since the 1990s) – the groove – appears precarious, unstable, and in motion. Pulse and accent are volatile encounters and have to be found again and again for short, delightful moments. Music becomes a constant process of negotiation.

In search of new sound spaces, Bretschneider has recently worked a lot with modular synthesizers, both solo (for example on »abtasten_halten«, 2020) and in collaborations, including the project Beispiel together with Jan Jelinek. »Pounding« was created using similar means – conceived in 2020 for the Pochen Biennale in Chemnitz, subsequently developed further and recorded in March and April 2023 on a sample-based modular system. And in fact, Bretschneider is once again exemplarily scanning his own sound material, for example Dub effects that listen to themselves crumbling. But also the human voice, or more precisely: the stuttering of fragments of speech, far in the distance but omnipresent, like a mysterious narration. Aesthetically, the eleven pieces form part of a series of works with a focus on percussion. Bretschneider has already perfected this approach with albums like »Rhythm« (2007) and has been shifting the perspective ever since, for ever new results.

Shifting is the basic principle of »Pounding«. Bretschneider combines elements that are in different aggregate states, changing their relationship to each other and thus ensuring the complex overall movement. He lets one to two-bar loops run against each other and through manipulations, develops a network of rhythms that creates a hypnotic state in the counterplay of repetition and mutation, between clearly recognizable meter and disorientation. There are comparable approaches in aleatoric music. Bretschneider combines them with sounds and patterns that are reminiscent of step sequencer logic and at the same time go far beyond it. The result is relational techno. Never clear, constantly restless and exciting.

Kiasmos - Icelandic composer Ólafur Arnalds and Faroese musician Janus Rasmussen – are returning, renewed and restored, with II. The triumphant follow-up to their universally acclaimed self-titled debut in 2014, which re-envisioned minimal techno with orchestral flourishes and weightless production. They’d made most of that album in just two weeks; this time it’s been 10 years. The making of II was a test of their friendship, but also testament to how great musical chemistry can always go the distance and be just the same as it ever was.

They worked on a lot of II during the lost year of 2020-2021, including a trip to Ólafur’s studio in Bali. “We spent a month there and wrote a few songs that ended up on the record,” says Janus. The pair sampled traditional Balinese percussion like the gamelan and incorporated Janus’s field recordings of their natural surroundings – the sound of birds, crickets and, on standout track ‘Dazed’, echoing the sunrise over the lush landscape.

Kiasmos have an enviable knack for conveying complex emotions and evocative visuals with instrumental music. But this time they’ve got more experience as producers to draw on. The album’s expansiveness can be linked to Ólafur’s intervening years as a Grammy-nominated composer and prominent soundtracker in film and TV. And they’ve subtly shifted from four-to-the-floor to the frenetic broken beats of UK dance music, experimenting more with BPMs, echoing Janus’s time spent DJing in major venues worldwide. There are still those aching melodies that fans know and love but they’re catchier too: tracks like ‘Laced’ and ‘Bound’ have an irresistible, elastic bounce beneath the ethereal palette.

Layered asymmetry: With Alluvium, Stefan Goldmann explores new structural paths for machine
rhythm in irregular metres. Throughout the album, different non-binary patterns run simultaneously,
interlocking into twelve offerings of jagged polyrhythmic magic. Such a framework may juxtapose 11
on one axis, against 7 on another and 5 on a third – building stunningly iridescent edifices of
multidimensional time.
This is the third album in a series of "first principles" research of metric asymmetry. Veiki (2019) laid
the foundation for "real broken beat". Then, Vector Rituals (2022) explored the bending of grids in
order to yield idiosyncratic forms of organising time. Alluvium takes these two approaches and
expands them beyond their initial reach: Irregular patterns moving along parallel timelines within one
unifying grid.

»Colliding Bubbles« is a composition for string quartet and harmonica quartet, meaning that Quatuor Bozzini is playing string instruments while playing harmonicas. The title refers to different kinds of bubbly matter which are set to collide within the composition, leading to different ruptures and possible release of surface tension. The collision of bubbles unfolds partly in relation to sound, where small fluctuations appear in the encounters between harmonicas and string instruments and partly in relation to a more performative or conceptual bubble where instruments representing different systems, or bubbles, will collide; the very celebrated instruments within the classical string quartet and the perhaps more prosaic harmonica.

»Strange Times« is a virtuosic realization of contemporary electroacoustic soundscapes composed and performed by Stephen Ruppenthal and Gary R. Weisberg. With masterful employment of electro-acoustic techniques and tools, including the original 70's Buchla Music Easel Ruppenthal used in the Electric Weasel Ensemble, these two artist create an essential, psychedelic, electro-acoustic experience. »Strange Times« explores the ability of sound to alter consciousness, creating sonic environments, mental and physical states where one can allow the experience of listening to become transformative.

Hailing from Hiroshima, Meitei, unveils the final chapter of his transformative Kofū trilogy. “Kofū Iii” marks the apex of a musical journey that began in 2020, unraveling an introspective exploration of the artist's psyche while delving deep into the essence of Japanese culture. This latest release invites listeners into the innermost sanctums of Meitei's existence — a passage filled with serenity, self-discovery, and the triumphant conquest of personal demons.

Meitei's journey has been deeply intertwined with his surroundings. His move from bustling Kyoto to the tranquil rural town of Onomichi in Hiroshima wasn't just a change of location but a profound shift in his life. Navigating through the ebbs and flows of mental well-being, Meitei found solace in the quiet, low-key energy of Onomichi, where he began creating his distinctive brand of "ambient" music dedicated to resurrecting ‘lost Japanese moods’.

"Kofū Iii" is not just a collection of songs; it's a window into Meitei's mind, where he reflects on ‘the Japanese mental landscape,’ as experienced during the period of his return to his hometown. This album stands as a testament to Meitei's evolution, from his tentative inner quest to a state of deep healing.

"Kofū” and its precursor, "Kwaidan,” germinated in the solitude of Onomichi, embodying the mysterious, vanishing essence of Japan that Meitei unearthed in the shadows of his hometown. With "Kofū III," this exploration reaches its zenith, weaving musical landscapes that transcend temporal bounds. Each track vividly paints bygone eras and vignettes, all while drawing on the rich tapestry of Japanese literature and mindscapes.

Meitei introduces listeners to the tranquil Hiroshima countryside in 'Reimei,' while 'Hiroshima' reflects upon the city's transformation. It explores Meitei's intricate relationship with the city and contemplates the ever-changing visage of contemporary Japanese progress.

Within the sonic fabric of "Kofū III," "Shisei" brings listeners to Japan's past, when tattoos bore the name "Shisei." Fueled by Junichiro Tanizaki's "Shisei" narratives, the song paints a sensual tale of a tattooed man adorning a woman with a spider tattoo.

Meitei's authenticity shines through in "Kofū III," where complex emotions metamorphose into a kaleidoscopic fusion of lo-fi bliss. In "Yume-jūya," Meitei recounts a peculiar dream and the lingering anxiety it left behind. Also, inspired by the famous Japanese writer Soseki Natsume's "Yume-jūya," Meitei's interpretation offers his own perspective on this comical and bizarre tale.

"Edogawa Ranpo" stands as a mind-bending loop track that pays homage to the genius of the lesser-known Japanese author Edogawa Ranpo, a pioneer of the mysterious and bizarre. This experimental piece melds folklore, electronic rapture, and distortion, echoing Meitei's fascination with Ranpo's work since his elementary school days.

At the core of "Kofū Iii" lies "Heiwa," originally titled "1945," encapsulating Meitei's profound reflection on peace education in his hometown and the weighty significance of acknowledging historical tragedies. Its renaming as "Peace" symbolizes his personal odyssey towards understanding and reconciliation.

As Meitei concludes his Kofū trilogy, global listeners are invited to embark on this voyage to unearth the hidden treasures of Japanese culture and the depths of the human soul. "Kofū Iii" is a meditation on the intangible threads that bind us to our past - a portal to Japan's veiled history, capturing the essence of Japan's elusive spirit through the enigmatic landscapes of Meitei's inner terrains.

"Kofū Iii" is slated for release on December 1, 2023, in 180g LP, CD, and digital formats via Kitchen. Label. Both LP and CD format are presented in a debossed sleeve with obi strip and include an accompanying 32-page booklet. This album is mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama in Tokyo, Japan.

Acustica: For this acoustic sources-only mix, Stefan Goldmann cut up a vast library of recorded interpretations of 20th century avant-garde compositions. Layered segments of individual instrumental and chamber performances form emergent orchestral opulence – just to spill over into actual orchestral segments. Goldmann has tackled acoustic archives before with his edit of multiple recordings of Igor Stravinsky's 'Le Sacre du Printemps'. However, this mix traverses the disparities and convergences of seven decades of score-based music with impressively results. A meta-level polystylistic work that explores vast potentials of integration, interaction and interference. An antidote to the prevailing practice of sounding compositions in scattered, sterile isolation. Here, opposing concepts of music are channeled into one continuous flow, with a coherent DJ performance as the vehicle.

* First-ever official reissue of the pioneering 1986 ambient work * Produced in full cooperation with Hiroshi Yoshimura’s estate * New liner notes by original album producer Hiroyoshi Shiokawa * Includes Yoshimura’s original notes in Japanese & English * Remastering and lacquer cutting by John Baldwin * Vinyl pressed at Gotta Groove Records "If Surround can be listened to as music that’s asclose to air itself, allowing us to enter each listener’s sound scenery, or assomething that exists within a new perspective, expanding the middle groundbetween sound and music, and transforming it into a comfortable space, it wouldbe much appreciated.— Hiroshi YoshimuraTemporal Drift proudly presents the long-awaited, first-everreissue of Surround, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s sought-after ambient classic. Originally released as an album in January 1986, Surroundwas recorded by Yoshimura as a commission from home builder Misawa Homes,intended to function as an “amenity” designed to enhance the company’s newlybuilt living spaces. A pioneer in the field of environmental music, Yoshimura’sprevious works included Music For Nine Post Cards (1982), originally producedto be played back inside a museum space, and designing sound environments forpublic spaces and subway systems. Surround was recorded almost concurrentlywith the acclaimed and popular Green (1986); the two albums are described byHiroyoshi Shiokawa in his liner notes as being Yoshimura’s yin and yang. In his original notes for the album, Yoshimura recommendsthat Surround be placed in the same family of sounds “as the vibration offootsteps, the hum of an air conditioner, or the clanging of a spoon inside acoffee cup.” And, as he suggests, “with the addition of city noise from outsidethe window,” you may hear Surround in a completely new way."

James Clements (asc) has been one of the most highly regarded artists in ambient, ambient techno and IDM scene since his evolution into the sound about 15 years ago. His ability to create deep soundscapes over lush beats and atmospheres come from his liquid drum n bass background prior to working with more cinematic tracks. ASC is back with a new release and it finds a home at the Past Inside the Present stable where he had put out a few EPs on the last couple years. This haunting and beautiful release Loss, explores various moods and atmospheres to great success. Tracks like the amazing and spacious 'Sensory Disintegration' to the poignant 'What More Can Be Said' which adds a lush airspace to a stunning piano piece. Some soundscapes are majestic and triumphant while others are minimal and then foreboding. New age and ambient fans will rejoice after hearing this magical album. Available in limited quantities so act quickly! Comes with download code inside.

Nous'klaer Audio presents the official debut album by Mathilde Nobel: Founds on Land. Eleven magnificent dark experimental pop tracks written, produced and performed by Mathilde Nobel. Today I woke up with a vague memory of yesterday. It's not the first time that I've encountered clouded memories. From where I lay I can see there are fresh cuts on my arms and feet and legs next to scarred over wounds. I turn my head and see that there are a few drops of blood dried on the white bathroom tile next to caked on red stains turned brown. I've reached the point where I stopped asking "why"? In fairness, I stopped asking "what?", too. I stand out of bed into a relatively organized room. There's no headache, no hangover, no shaking, no blurred vision. There's no nausea, no instability. One foot smoothly walks in front of the other. I trace my fingers along the white walls as I cross the threshold into the bright kitchen. Through the windows I see the city, its skyscrapers glowing in the cold winter morning sun. Beyond them I can make out the snowy mountains and the cold black ocean. As I dress in silence, my mind is empty and clear. My day is not purposeless, I'm not directionless. I have a calling and it's guiding hand leads me outside. As I step outside I turn left down the road one foot smoothly in front of the other, I'm not directionless; I walk in silence. Mixed by Remco de Jong at Phako Studio. Mastered by Neel at Enisslab. Words by Gregory Markus.

Due to popular demand, Indigo Soul are releasing a limited edition one-off Vinyl press of Catching Flies' first EP 'The Stars' on Vinyl to mark it's 10 year anniversary. Support for the EP came from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Bonobo, Odesza, Lauren Laverne, iD Magazine, Clash Magazine, Mixmag, NME, The Line of Best Fit and more.
Catching Flies – aka multi-instrumentalist, producer and DJ George King – is the very model of a modern musician. He blurs the boundaries between mainstream and underground, and between electronic and "real" music as easily as the biggest and the best. His music is a bass heavy yet melodic mesh of broody electronics and intricate rhythms, containing shades of everything from hip-hop to house, from soul to jazz.

The Stars was followed up by Catching Flies' debut album 'Silver Linings' in July 2019. Containing shades of everything from hip-hop to house, from soul to jazz, it was hailed as 'a soundtrack to Summertime' by the 405 - and was awarded album of the month by Future Music who described it as 'a brilliantly eclectic record… a moving journey that will last long in the memory.' Clash Magazine praised the LP's 'killer beats' and 'artfully orchestrated introspection,' whilst London In Stereo praised it's 'exceptional production.' Other press coverage for the album included The Guardian, Complex, Nowness, iD Magazine, Dazed & Confused, The Line of Best Fit and more. He has received radio support from the likes of Gilles Peterson, Annie Mac, Lauren Laverne, Mary Anne Hobbes & Huw Stephens. Artist support for 'Silver Linings' has come from the likes of Bonobo, Jungle, Loyle Carner, Nils Frahm, George Fitzgerald and Lane 8. He toured the album performing headline Live shows throughout the UK, Europe, Asia and North America, as well as DJ shows at Bonobo's 'outlier' event series in Europe and North America. He was also recently nominated for a Bafta ('Best Music' category) for his soundtrack work on a video game.

With each successive release, the world of the Budapest based trio Jü seems to become exponentially larger and encompass an ever expanding range of vibrant and startling influences. The title of their latest reflects the basic fact that this is their third outing as a band and also the tripartite nature of the collective trio. But it also harkens to something mystical and elusive about the number three, a quality of arcane mystery reflected in the number's vital importance in cultures across the globe. That essential fact, rather than any specific meaning, may get at the heart of why the members of Jü - guitarist Adám Mészáros bassist Ern? Hock, and drummer András Halmos opted for the title. More than anything, their music reflects a core drive to explore traditions and ideas from farflung corners of the world, returning with a vital and pulse-quickening sound accented by countless disparate influences yet singularly possessing its own boldly uncategorizable voice.On III that sound is marked by the now - familiar whirlwind of blistering rock, dizzying prog, ferocious free jazz, mesmerizing ambient textures and alluring Eastern European rhythms. This time out, a strong influence from Southeast Asia bleeds its own way into the mix, particularly the gamelan music of Indonesia and the ecstatic devotional songs of India. The mysticism and spiritual intensity of this music melds with the band's immersive potency to conjure an overwhelming sound of compelling complexity and breathtaking vigor. The hybrid sounds become all the richer throughout III with the addition of two special guests, both of whom join the trio on several tracks. Vocalist Dóra Gy?rfi is a Hungarian singer who works primarily in the context of gamelan and wayang groups in Java. Master electronic musician Bálint Bolcsó is a regular collaborator who also joined the band for its previous release,Summa, and adds a limitless array of possibilities to the band's palette.

With about a million subscribers and millions upon millions of views, TheRealSullyG is the undisputed King of Otamatones. His lovingly-produced otamatone covers of pop-culture standards, paired with quirky and imaginative videos starring the adorable Japanese synthesizers, have proven to be a recipe for viral success. Covering roughly his first year of otamatone content, Otama-Tunes, Vol. 1 dazzles the ears and delights the senses with wahsome covers of Queen, Daft Punk, Michael Jackson, Dragonforce and more! Remastered by Angel Marcloid, TheRealSullyG’s debut on physical media is presented on two different deluxe gatefold vinyl variants as well as CD and cassette.

The Avalanches are set to commemorate the 20th anniversary of their debut album ‘Since I Left You’ with the release of a deluxe edition this June.

Released in Australia in 2000, and in the US and UK in 2001, ‘Since I Left You’ was hailed as a boundary-pushing release comprised of over 900 individual samples.

The forthcoming deluxe release – out June 4 – features a plethora of additional bonus tracks, including previously unreleased and fresh remixes by the late MF Doom, Black Dice, Leon Vynehall, Sinkane and Carl Craig to name a few. The CD version will also include some of The Avalanches’ remixes of Belle & Sebastian, Manic Street Preachers, Franz Ferdinand and more.

The German composer and multi-instrumentalist Secret of Elements returns with "Cassini", the entrancing first single taken from his forthcoming album 'Chronos', a musical chronicle of his moving life story. Chronos - in Greek mythology, the titanic personification of time - is the title of an album that captures Pätzold's musical work over a span of more than a decade. During this time, Pätzold saved the "Volkstheater" in his hometown of Rostock with which he now closely works, travelled to the Mediterranean to save lives during the European refugee crisis, became a father — the list could go on. In combining emotive, cinematic orchestration with warm, dense layers of synthesis, Johann Pätzold aka Secret of Elements has created a deeply moving sound picture through which to narrate his personal struggles alongside the social upheavals to which he has dedicated himself as a ‘music activist.’ "Cassini", the albums centre-piece, is a testament to Pätzold’s perseverance to complete it despite challenging circumstances. It is named after a space probe that was launched into orbit in 2004, and which, after almost thirteen years exploring Saturn, finally burned up in its upper atmosphere.

JETS is the collaboration project of powerhouse producers Travis Stewart (Machinedrum) and Jimmy Edgar. On the first single, "PLAY," from their forthcoming full-length album, the duo teams up with boldly pioneering rapper Mykki Blanco. The sparse, yet aggressive beat slaps back and forth between Blanco's playfully sinister vocals.

Past Inside The Present proudly shares the release of The Worlds We Leave Behind, the second full-length record from the duo of Zake (aka. Zach Frizzell) and Tyresta (aka. Nick Turner). Building on both quotidian and profound contrasts, and blurring their associations - Turner’s day job as a Chicago social worker, Frizzell’s reverent interest in the sublimities of natural lansdcapes - this record continues the theme already played up by the pair’s earlier collaborative efforts, that of personal strife and experiential wisdom, which colour the impressions we derive from our environments. Being a “spiritual sequel” to the pair’s first album Drift (2023), the album educes long, heavy-set, gut-fluttering ambient montages, from aphasic, fragmentary titles, such as ‘The Worlds We Leave Behind’ and ‘You Will Become A Song’.

‘Rupture in the Eternal Realm’ is C. Lavender’s musical response to studies of the Tibetan Buddhist meditation practice known as chöd. Not an obvious interpretation, she draws on her experience working alongside Pauline Oliveros, mixing oddly tuned analog synth drones with gong sounds and field recordings. The traditional chöd form usually involves drums, trumpets bells and voice, but Lavender uses tradition as a point of departure rather than a blueprint, reflecting on her own expreience rather than the aesthetic roots of the form. The result is a gusty set of ritualistic experiments that anchor themselves in chöd chants without repeating them, including field recordings Lavender made at the Karma Triyana Dharmachakra Buddhist temple in Woodstock, NY. Using Buchla 200 drones and tones from the expressive Haken Continuum Fingerboard, and fusing them with almost unrecognisable gong and voice sounds, EVI recordings and “brainwave modulating tones”, Lavender generates an immersive soundscape that dissolves between one track and the next. Driven by deep listening’s curative properties (she’s even written a book about it - ‘Transcendent Waves: How Listening Shapes Our Creative Lives’), Lavender avoids the usual new age pitfalls, sculpting sounds that bury themselves deep in the subconscious. It’s oozing, intensely organic material that chimes rather than throbs, obscuring gentle, lulling rhythms in glittering clouds of electro-acoustic noise.

Umeko Ando (1932-2004) was a folk singer from Japan. She was a representative of the Ainu culture on the Hokkaido Island in the north of Japan. “Ihunke” is her first album which was recorded with the Ainu musician and dub producer Oki Kano in 2000. The 16 Ainu songs on “Ihunke” are delicate, natural gems. They are built on Oki Kano’s Tonkori patterns (a 5-string harp), over which Umeko Ando develops her repetitive, mantric vocals, often in a call-response manner. Oki Kano is one of very few professional Tonkori players who performs worldwide with his Oki Dub Ainu Band. The songs possess a mystical energy – when crows call accurately with Ando’s brittle voice in the first song, it seems like natural powers join in with her music. Her voice sounds like animals of the sky and the forest. Oki Kano: “It was a lot of fun to record with Umeko Ando. Many Ainu hesitate to break from tradition - if Umeko hadn’t been so flexible to work with the younger generation and recording technology, this album would never have happened. Our sessions were intense, and we were proud and happy about making such beautiful music.” Upcoming in autumn: remixes of “Ihunke” by Tolouse Lowtrax, M.Rux, DJ Ground, El Buho Mark Peters, Gama, Andi Otto, and Dreems.

Historical background: Only recently (in 2008) have the Ainu officially been acknowledged as indigenous people who are culturally independent from Japan. This record is an example of how their music has been passed on through generations in the underground Ainu communities while it was oppressed by the Japanese hegemony. It deserves a huge audience.

'Karnofsky's Score' by Teresa Cos is a musical journey inspired by the Karnofsky Performance Scale used in medical oncology. The album explores the emotional spectrum within the scale's extremes. Guitar improvisations and minimal harmonica elements echo the dichotomy of 'normal' and 'dead', revealing a range of fleeting emotions and creating a haunting atmosphere. An imagined soundtrack for a film in the making, 'Karnofsky's Score' offers an evocative sonic experience that leans against conventional boundaries.

With his first widely available new material in 5 years, Aphex Twin returns with an intricate and melodic addition to his discography.

The machines co-opted in production are as complex as the Weirdcore artwork, layering signature sombre ambient chords with intricate drum programming.

‘Blackbox Life Recorder 21f’ marks Aphex Twin’s official and celebrated return to augment our current reality.

Canaan Balsam’s work revolves around the exploration of the dead space between ambient and new age music, the liminal zone between the harshness of industrial, and the beatific serenity of devotional music. ‘Eternity lies within or nowhere’ builds on the themes of loneliness, Isolation, and vulnerability, first explored on their debut album ‘Cruise Utopia’ (Modern Obscure Music). Responding to the context where ever-expanding modes of communication seem only to blur the line between connectivity and solitude, Canaan often returns to the theme of Isolation in his work, creating a deep melancholy - exploring how it can grow and metastasize, until it becomes incommunicable, resistant to empathy; an alien host overtaking the body. Canaan’s considered, emotionally aware experimentations hold that unique power to stop our world dead in its tracks, lulling the listener through the darkness but ultimately towards the light - there is intense hope within Canaan’s work, where pieces guide us through a crushingly low emptiness, but always towards glistening introspective peaks. “I wanted a music that spoke to solidarity, that in a quiet manner offered solace, a brief step outside of this world - not a meditation, nor a background ambient shimmer, or anything vague. That inspired to an almost religious intensity of serenity. Something with the potential to engender empathy and clarity. A music you could wear like an amulet, like a spell, like a religious medal around your neck. Music as protection.” Canaan often uses spoken word to further bring his soundscapes to life, but these self penned passages are far from being clumsily walloped vocal tinglers, instead Canaan’s use of voice compliments and contextualizes the states explored within his pieces with hauntingly evocative precision, where carefully curated guest speakers lament a often bleak scene of dread, despair, and longing recollection. The album culminates with the incredible ‘Requiem for a Wolf’, encapsulating the hints of light that have flickered the album, but blooming them to become 6 minutes of pure celestial minimalism, where bells swing in and out of focus, and radiant zither play looms below Canaan’s swelling ambience. Produced and mixed by Canaan Balsam. Mastered by Rupert Clervaux. Art design by James Hines and Liam Cosford. All tracks by Canaan Balsam except for 'I AM Skeleton' by Canaan Balsam / Saint Jude's Infirmary. 'Rat in a skull '- narration by Daniel Mutch. 'You are the architect of your own utopia' & 'A passive apocalypse': narration by Alex Johnston. 'You fell into a screen as you had no place left to fall': narration by Cosima Cobley Carr. 'I am Skeleton': narration by Jack Vettriano, taken from the track by Saint Jude's Infirmary.

Programmed by footie-mad graphic designer/DJ, Andrew Lyster, ’Sports 3’ casts a wide net over work by Youth label friends and extended family with results limning a dead cranky conception of club music and blooz/beatdown pressure. All sharing a taste for texture that sounds like the masters were left to decompose for winter, the 16 cuts map odd gooches and ginnels of the contemporary soundsphere from the washed-out jazz reminiscence of Zesknel next to harder-to- place works such as the metallic cyborgian slug of ‘Driesh’ by Craig Birrel, or the groggy breaks of ‘Cocaine’ from HR For Drug Dealers. Pigbaby plays the game with a highlight of midnight keys on ‘Far From Home’, and we spy a zinger from Sockethead on the feral yowl of ‘Coarse Ground’, while Dave Saved keeps it slanted on ‘Abisso 66’ and into a super glum one by the still enigmatic Yugen Disciple. That sense of entropy also infects the set’s more energetic bits, as with the PointilisticT arp flight of ’T’ by S, and the drowning struggle of ‘When It Rains (It Pours)’ from Significant Other complementing the worn out acid trample of Iueke’s ‘Videoslash’ and Jessic*nt’s murky stealth bomb ‘Manic/Panic’. Rat Heart, Michael J. Blood x Sockethead unsurprisingly steal the show on the slow cymbal-crash blooz of ‘True’, and the album ends with Lyster’s own VIP of NW / HR tripped & screwed hardcore submersion.

Peter Culshaw was described by Malcolm Mclaren as “the Indiana Jones of World Music” and has tracked down music from the Amazon to Siberia and lived with Pygmies in Central Africa and dervishes in Istanbul. Culshaw interviewed many of the greats including Fela Kuti, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Caetano Veloso and Ibrahim Ferrer. His book Clandestino, now published in ten languages, was a biography/ travelogue on the road with Manu Chao. The result of decades of research is this, his first solo album. As a composer, his East-West group West India Company’s album New Demons, which featured Bollywood diva Asha Bhosle, was released by Editions EG , a label set up by Brian Eno. He has composed award - winning music for assorted dance companies and animated films. He wrote an “opera” recorded in Havana, to be released soon. Music From The Temple of Light was recorded mainly in Half Step Audio, in Mumbai with some of the most vital contemporary Indian musicians including Paras Nath on bansuri flute and Chandana Bala Kalyan on enchanting vocals. The music is a mysterious mix of East and West, ancient and modern, led by minimal tantric piano, objective, meditative music for a chaotic age. Other recordings took place in pre-war Odesa and it was mixed in London. It is the first part of a trilogy. The project was funded by the sale of Malcolm Mclaren’s classic Mercedes, which he left to Culshaw and some successful bets on Leicester City Football Club. The next release on Iskra in 2023 will be Aeroclube - an anglo-Brazilian fever dream. recorded in Salvador, Bahia. Music From THE Temple OF Light will be released on Vinyl, CD and digitally in March 2023, preceded by a trio of “singles”……

As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies.

Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theatre practitioners & performance artists in India making music for theatre as well as curating shows & workshops with actors and performers from around India.

The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travellers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focussed on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concepts.

We at Hive Mind feel privileged to have worked with Seljuk to bring you these deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works which really do defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. Everything appears touched with a mischievous sense of playfulness that's maybe reflected in the face of the grinning camel that adorns the sleeve. We're sure you'll agree there's plenty to delight the listener on this strange dream of an album, Seljuk's first to receive a physical release.'

The CD version comes in a gatefold card digisleeve in an edition of 250 copies

Seljuk Rustum: Piano, Synthesizer, Sequencer, Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Saxophone, Voice, Percussion Sekhar Sudhir: Violin on Tracks 5, 7&8, Acoustic Guitar on Track 4, Mandolin & Melodica on Track 3 Akshay Ashokan: Electric Guitar on Track 4 Joffy Chirayath: Drums on Tracks 3 & 10 Cochin String Orchestra: Strings on Track 1 (Thanks to Duncan Roy Bruce)

Produced, Engineered & Mixed by Seljuk Rustum Tracks 9,4 & 8 Edited by Sekhar Sudhir Track 3 voice from the Alan Lomax Archive from recordings made in Kerala in the 1970s to document the Malayam language Track 2 was composed for BUS (a theatre performance Written & Directed by Firoz Khan

Album Art: Unknown Artist (found on the walls near Palayam Market, Kozhikode).

French electroacoustic veteran Lionel Marchetti returns to Room 40 with a special release composed in Australia and recorded telematically between three separate locations..

For his second Room 40 release following 2018's "The Last Days of Reality", Marchetti again collaborates with Aussie chamber ensemble Decibel. He worked out what he wanted to do in 2019 while visiting Australia, and devised a way of composing the piece that avoided a traditional score, instead working with conversation, listening and experimentation. After rehearsing with different instrumentation and imaginatively placed speakers, he adapted what he calls the 'partition concrète’ using his various studio techniques. But when he was due to record the final version of the piece, he was hit with a problem - Australia was in pandemic lockdown, and Marchetti was in France. So a special recording method was developed; some musicians were based in Melbourne, some in Perth, and Marchetti joined from Europe, everyone was connected via conferencing software that was adjusted to improve sound quality and latency.

Marchetti worked into the final recordings in his studio, adding the finishing touches and making sure it sounded as close to his original vision as possible. The final version clocks in at almost 37 minutes in length, and is as impressive as you'd hope from the story of its construction. Decibel's work from two different sides of Australia is at the center of the recording, but it's Marchetti's smart, restrained processes that have us coming back for more. If you're not completely concentrating you might miss it, but the small glitches and spacial effects that Marchetti provides gives the orchestral elements a distant charm. It's not completely acoustic music, and it's bending the possibilities of the sonic presentation just as Marchetti did with the recording process itself. He finishes off the album with a shorter two-minute composition recorded for Decibel's "2 Minutes from Home" project, a hand-scored piece that he wrote on crumpled paper using ink and white-out. Each member of the orchestra recorded their part separately in their own home, and the result is beguiling - otherworldly and tonally exhilarating without being overwhelming or overstaying its welcome.

Absorbingly paced and inventive electro-acoustic/concrète chicanery by Melbourne’s clarinet improvisor Aviva Endean, giving the ear something to chase with her micro-to-macroscopic proprioceptions.

Dynamically recorded across multiple spaces and hugely variegated in texture and tone, ‘Moths & Stars’ is titled for the artist’s attempt to zoom the ear’s eye between natural intimacy and the sidereal. Fucking with fundamentals of time and space she uses canny microphone placement and feedback systems to poetically mess with the listener’s sense of place and atmospheric pressure in a way crossing lines with the sound arts of Leila Bordreuil and Teresa Winter. In the process Aviva evinces a an underlying narrative by meshing and wrapping perceptions of the abstract with more palpably human vocal tones in a very instinctive and sensually haptic manner where it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the surprising folds and discreet dimensions she delves into.

“The microphones became extensions of my instruments, getting right up close to capture the microscopic, creating tones of feedback which captivated me, or zooming out to capture multiple acoustic spaces. My recording and composing process became more intuitive and explorative, another form of play. I could start creating and see where the piece would take me, and notice how new relationships were formed as I folded multiple time/spaces in and over each other.

Sometimes I would begin by gleaning sounds from my archives, and listening to how they could be reimagined and transformed alongside the discoveries my microphones and instruments were finding. In ‘Nightwork’ I wanted to find a way to revisit some microtonal humming that I had recorded for a sound design project, and then discovered the Leslie speaker as a way to spin my bass clarinet sound around the microphones, creating bass tones emerging as waves out of the densely layered pitches. Sometimes a new instrumental fascination, such as the e-bows and magnets on ‘Mirror Signals’ or the binaural microphone feedback on ‘Moths & Stars’ would call for me to find further layers of clarinets and field recordings to be woven into their story.”

Music for Real Airports is a series of exciting live art events and installations in art galleries/spaces that are artistic response to the reality of occupying the semi-public space of an airport, and a contemporary reply to Brian Eno´s work from the 70s. Produced by musicians and artists with an international reputation - the Black Dog and Human - the project will portray airports as they really are, rather than idealised utopian vision of what they should be. Combining performances of electronic music and live-mixed animation and digital video projected on multiple screens, Music for Release Airports will be a unique, immersive experience that will draw in new audiences to art galleries.

Digitalis's Brad E. Rose (aka The North Sea, Charlatan etc) debuts on Room40 with his most rapturous collection yet - six tracks of bewitching, blissed-out synth drones that bear up to comparison with AFX's "Selected Ambient Works II", Steve Roach's "Structures From Silence" or Brian Eno's "Apollo".

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Brad E. Rose has been quietly churning out music for decades at this point, working under so many different monikers and in so many different outfits it's been hard to keep track. Apart from heading up the beloved but now defunct Digitalis imprint, Rose also runs The Jewel Garden, where they've been releasing mostly their own private press-style material since 2020. "Annular Silhouettes" is Rose's first non-Jewel Garden solo drop in ages, and sounds like a subtle summation of their recent loose musical threads. Written in "the depths of 2020", the material is Rose's attempt at creating a love-letter to the place where they grew up, created in the house where their grandparents lived for over two decades, only a few minutes walk from their childhood home.

Tulsa is a complicated city with often uneasy politics, but Rose's view is holistic, empathic and sensitive - their memorial is melancholy and sometimes even cold, but never lacking hope. The album is split into six separate pieces that play together as a whole, all made in the same style with the same instrumentation. It's more of a continuing thought than an assembly of different tracks; Rose acknowledges that they enjoy the feeling of not completely knowing what they're doing, and letting their subconscious thoughts guide the creative process. Certainly that gives the music a level of spiritual kinship with Aphex's seminal "Selected Ambient Works II", which was allegedly partly written in lucid dream states. Rose's compositions are nowhere near as dark, but strike a similarly ambivalent mood that feels nostalgic, but not completely rooted in the past.

"Annular Silhouettes" sounds like an elongated take on Brian Eno's "Apollo" classic 'An Ending (Ascent)', and Rose uses the soft-focus synth tones to represent the sun rising and setting across Tulsa's wide, flat plains. It's hard not to be moved.

A contemporary product of relentless capitalism has been a trend called slowness for several years now. In order to counteract the perceived fast pace of the times in which we live with a little deceleration, sustainability and relaxation, phenomena such as Slow Food, Slow Travel, Slow Fashion or even Slow Cruising, the tourist sailing of the world's oceans with somewhat smaller cruise ships "away from the mainstream", have been introduced into the world.

That slowness is more than the opposite of speed, that elements, things, sounds that move as if in slow motion unfold a special power, precision, aesthetics and beauty, doesn’t need to be explained twice to ambient musicians. The 23rd edition of the Pop Ambient compilation, compiled as always by Wolfgang Voigt, is no exception, but instead provides the proof. Already with the first tracks of Leandro Fresco/Thore Pfeiffer, Gen Pop (Burger, Pfeiffer, Würden), Morgen Wurde feat. Tetsuroh Konishi and Max Würden up to Triola's gloomy and melancholic "Kupferblüte", the feeling of a slowness and calmness not experienced before, of an exceedingly lively standstill, creeps over us. A mental state that resembles dreams, in which we follow strange events as if paralyzed, yet awake and sensory.

The Cologne-based Sono Kollektiv, an association of experimental artists Annie Bloch, Stefanie Grawe, Joel Jaffe, Alex Linster, Luis Weiß, Moritz Riesenbeck, Lukas Schäfer, Emily Wittbrodt and Max Würden, is represented for the first time with two contributions on Pop Ambient. The two works, the fragile "Bolzano Sessions IV" and the rather light-flooded "Bolzano Sessions V" (only available on CD and in the digital version) nestle perfectly into the musical whole of this year's compilation, not only in terms of their majestic leisureliness.

In Jens-Uwe Beyer's "Nero", melancholic guitar chords reduced to the bare minimum are carried away by the wind like leaves, the reverberation holding the last note so long that it almost comes to a stop in the ear. If you like it synesthetic, look at the once again ravishing cover artwork by Veronika Unland right at this moment. Colors and shapes in which there is both everything and nothing to discover. Both feel equally right.

The final third of Pop Ambient 2023 begins with Reich & Würden's herbaceous "Receiver," a track so dignified and carried by pads reminiscent of the sound of bagpipes that it would have perfectly punctuated her majesty the Queen's 8-hour funeral ceremony - a wonderful example, by the way, of the spiritual confluence of deceleration and precision that eventually turns into trance.

The slowness is joined by togetherness at the end: Pop Ambient veteran Joachim Spieth cooperates with American sound artist zakè on his literally weightless "Air", Thore Pfeiffer co-produced the wonderful "Instinct" with Scottish brother duo Andy and Mike Truscott aka Kinbrae. California duo Patrick Hills and Morgan Fox aka Blank Gloss close out the vinyl version with the yearning "Down At The Heel," while that honor falls to debutant Ümit Han on the Pop Ambient CD. "Sieg über das Ungute" (victory over the unpleasant) in all its beauty brings us painfully back to reality.

Here is the Deluxe Version of 'Voltaic' which includes 2CDs and 2 DVDs of her performing Live in Paris and Reyk_Javik. Also features Live in the Studio and Remix Versions of her tracks

The tenth studio album by Bjork on CD coming with a Digipak sleeve.

Andrew Tasselmyer already has quite an extensive discography, with solo albums released on labels like Laaps, Eilean Recs, Constellation Tatsu, Home Normal, etcetera – but also as a member of Hotel Neon, Gray Acres, Mordançage as well as various collaborative projects.

Music For Nonexistent Films, released on Somewherecold Records this time, consists of largely improvised material, inspired by photographs of Philadelphia (where he currently lives). As far as I know, the photos are not included in the release (apart from the cover image of course), so it’s up to you to relate the music to images of your own surroundings. This should not be too hard because, as the album title already suggests, this is very ‘visual’ music.

Hajj's Dawn label returns with a limited CD drop from Modern Collaspe Recommended if you're into Youth & Bfdm.

Panos Kyveleas a.k.a. Biomass returns to Modal Analysis after his debut EP "M.D.O.F. in 2015, in collaboration with Italian performers R.O.M. 'B-Trade' is his first album since 2009, debuting also the CD catalogue of the Athens' label. Focusing on instruments like Cretan Lyra and Violin, this is an ambient/drone cinematic album of 12 tracks by the Greek musician credits.

Wickedly crude but skilful no-input mixing board business from a boss of that discipline, Toshimaru Nakamura

‘Culvert - No Input Mixing Board 10’ is the umpteenth exposition of Nakamura’s improvised and eternally inventive practice since he switched to this style from guitar noise with 2000’s self-explanatory ‘No-Input Mixing Board’ CD. Its 8 parts see him reflect on the hidden waterways that underline his home region around west Tokyo, generating discrete burbling streams of mulched feedback that metaphorically resemble the culverted streams that nobody sees underfoot, yet necessarily course with energy, as in many built environments. In his home region these hidden streams are often topped with artificial brooks that overlay their route like a “double decker river.”

While sitting on a bench beside one of the artificial brooks, Nakamura was prompted to make music that reflects these secret veins. Each of the eight parts gushes with an allegorical brownian motion apt for the concept, and also recalling K2’s torrential forms of junk metal cut-up, but also perhaps implicitly speaking to the threat of rising sea levels which would surely seep up from the Pacific thru these coastal waterways with a destructive attrition akin to this music.