Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield CD 294 Items

Producer Pieter Kock, active also as a DJ under his DJ Peacock guise, is known for being one of the people behind the legendary O Tannenbaum bar and club, a haven of sorts in Berlin nightlife for years, and the newly opened second O Tannenbaum called Schankwirtschafft O Tannenbaum. He has released some of his own music on labels such as Musikii, RIO, Full Body Massage, Fantasy Fiction Records, Moonwalk X, and Invisible Inc, and has extensively collaborated with people and projects such as Meeuw and De Fabriek.

His new Bright Bars From The Stars album on Meakusma is a dizzying amalgam of moods and influences. From ghostly and contemplative tracks to spaced-out and dubbed-out dark dancefloor psychedelia infused with melodics, phrasing, and percussive patterns reminiscent of pop and avant-garde alike, Bright Bars From The Stars features a full album on vinyl, with an extra CD included. Kock is a versatile chronicler of the night, capturing the beauty, loneliness, and endless possibilities of wide avenues pining for neon lights, futuristic descents into past moods and modes, and all.

14 tracks in total, Bright Bars From The Stars is a cosmic, at times gentle, at times confrontational affair that brims with ideas and influences. Combining sounds, rhythms, melodies, and textures from a wide variety of sources and meanings, Pieter Kock brings all of his influences together, intent on finding new paths of thinking and feeling. His pictures printed in the CD booklet give some kind of indication of his artistic process, without ever wanting to push things in any kind of direction. Cocktail bars of a dystopian future, unite! Bright Bars From The Stars is the soundtrack to a very encompassing and transformative night out.

All compositions by Pieter Kock except Bright Bars From The Stars by Pieter Kock and Dominik Peacho Noé Mastering & Cut by Rashad Becker Art by Pieter Kock and Meeuw

Producer Pieter Kock, active also as a DJ under his DJ Peacock guise, is known for being one of the people behind the legendary O Tannenbaum bar and club, a haven of sorts in Berlin nightlife for years, and the newly opened second O Tannenbaum called Schankwirtschafft O Tannenbaum. He has released some of his own music on labels such as Musikii, RIO, Full Body Massage, Fantasy Fiction Records, Moonwalk X, and Invisible Inc, and has extensively collaborated with people and projects such as Meeuw and De Fabriek.

His new Bright Bars From The Stars album on Meakusma is a dizzying amalgam of moods and influences. From ghostly and contemplative tracks to spaced-out and dubbed-out dark dancefloor psychedelia infused with melodics, phrasing, and percussive patterns reminiscent of pop and avant-garde alike, Bright Bars From The Stars features a full album on vinyl, with an extra CD included. Kock is a versatile chronicler of the night, capturing the beauty, loneliness, and endless possibilities of wide avenues pining for neon lights, futuristic descents into past moods and modes, and all.

14 tracks in total, Bright Bars From The Stars is a cosmic, at times gentle, at times confrontational affair that brims with ideas and influences. Combining sounds, rhythms, melodies, and textures from a wide variety of sources and meanings, Pieter Kock brings all of his influences together, intent on finding new paths of thinking and feeling. His pictures printed in the CD booklet give some kind of indication of his artistic process, without ever wanting to push things in any kind of direction. Cocktail bars of a dystopian future, unite! Bright Bars From The Stars is the soundtrack to a very encompassing and transformative night out.

All compositions by Pieter Kock except Bright Bars From The Stars by Pieter Kock and Dominik Peacho Noé Mastering & Cut by Rashad Becker Art by Pieter Kock and Meeuw

‘Lucky Number’ is the first of two releases for picnic this year. It features collaborations with kindtree, uio loi, Theodore Cale Schafer & Panphilia. Artwork by Eyrie Alzate Additional Artwork by Alexandra Ragg Mastered by Joseph Buchan

Formed in the early 1980s,​ Phauss is Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Erik Pauser.

"Von Hausswolff and Pauser, who both operated across sound and installation, used Phauss as a means for deconstructing ideas of composition, situationalism, site-specific works and extended performance methodologies. Across the second half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, they made connections, through their travels, outward from their homeland into scenes and communities that stretched from the Middle East, through North America and into Asia.

Like their travels, their ways of approaching the work they made was similarly wide-reaching and innately curious. They worked with often quite strict conceptual structures within which they were able to unlock entirely new ways of considering composition and also the material production of sound, through performance, through iteration and through considered experimentation which allowed for failure, just as much as success.

Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth is a recording made in the United States whilst the pair were undertaking an exhaustive tour in 1991 alongside Hafler Trio and Zbigniew Karkowski. This, now legendary, tour was both arduous and rewarding. Living in a van for many weeks at a time, travelling between cities with the most modest of means meant Phauss came to know a very particular vision of the United States, one that existed below plain view. Their’s was an experience had at the rawest edges of cities.

Equally the performances they gave, from which this edition is assembled, were raw and quite frankly dangerous. Fire on stage, sparks flying from short circuiting electronics and intense physical rituals guided so much of their work during this tour and looking back at bootleg videos from the time it’s difficult to imagine the work being able to be presented in the modern world.

One of the flyers from their tour reads ‘Extreme Swedish Industrial’, and as familiar as those words might appear now, in 1991 they held a very different resonance. They were unfamiliar terms of reference and the intensity of Phauss’s music maintains that unknowability to this day. This is a profoundly individual work and sets the stage for a generation of musicians who followed them."

Subtly hallucinatory, Burroughsian field recording collage by CM Von Hauswolff and Eric Pauser’s Phauss, stitching abstract meta-narratives from the ether of mid ‘80s Switzerland, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand, The Philippines and USA, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Benin and Nigeria, with assistance of engineer Zbigniew Karkowski. Reissued for first time in 35 years.

“Audiodrome collects together two discreet works that sit somewhere between field recording, chance composition and experimental soundscape. Both pieces pre-date the widespread arrival of field recording as a creative practice, and expand outward the work that had been developed by musique concréte and other experimental music approaches concerned with the intersections of found sound and composition. Both works were devised using the same working methodology, whereby an alarm would sound every few days and wherever and whenever it sounded the pair would start recording their surroundings. Those raw material became the basis for the pieces.

The first composition Zürich - Zürich is a piece that traces a line around the world, Phauss travelling on a round the world air ticket stopping only in countries where conflict was present. This unsettling journey became a meditation on the evolving state of the world in those moments. Voices, traffic, cafes, radios, transportation system and other incidental environments float into one another in a kind of stream of (temporally incongruous) consciousness.

The second work Alger - Lagos brings to mind some of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs tape cut-ups. Street musicians are splice against bursts of radio, roadside conversations and searing blasts of industrial noise captured from aircraft and other unfamiliar sources. It is an unsteadying journey where even the sounds of the everyday feel alien and repositioned. The sounds call to us prompting a sensing that is at its heart utterly fascinated, and fascinating.

The edition includes a book featuring an exhaustive collection of photographs, documents and artworks made by Von Hausswolff and Pauser during their journeys undertaken to complete each of the compositions. Many of these images and artworks have never been published previously.”

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”……

This dense 11 disc retrospective of Pauline Oliveros’ early and unreleased electronic work includes her very first piece made for tape in 1959. Organized chronologically, this set not only documents Pauline's earliest electronic music but it also functions as an early history of electronic music itself. Follow as she participates in the establishment of the legendary San Francisco Tape Music Center and then moves to University Of Toronto Electronic Music Studio, Mills Tape Music Center and University of California San Diego Electronic Music Center.

This 10th anniversary edition is packaged in a clamshell-style box containing all the tracks from the 2012 edition spread out over 11 CDs each housed in single pocket sleeves. A 36 page booklet includes extensive liner notes and essays from Pauline Oliveros, Alex Chechile, Ramon Sender, David Bernstein, Corey Arcangel.

Pauline Oliveros was a composer, performer, humanitarian and an important pioneer in American Music. Acclaimed internationally, she forged new ground for herself and others. Through improvisation, electronic music, sonic philosophy, teaching and meditation she created a body of work with such breadth of vision that it profoundly affects those who experience it and eludes many who try to write about it.

"On some level, music, sound consciousness and religion are all one, and she would seem to be very close to that level." John Rockwell

Pauline Oliveros built a loyal following through her concerts, recordings, publications and musical compositions written for soloists and ensembles in music, dance, theater and inter-arts companies. She provided leadership within the music community from her early years as the first Director of the Center for Contemporary Music (formerly the Tape Music Center at Mills), director of the Center for Music Experiment during her 14 year tenure as professor of music at the University of California at San Diego to acting in an advisory capacity for organizations such as The National Endowment for the Arts, The New York State Council for the Arts, and many private foundations. She served as Distinguished Research Professor of Music at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and Darius Milhaud Composer in Residence at Mills College. Oliveros was vocal about representing the needs of individual artists, about the need for diversity and experimentation in the arts, and promoting cooperation and good will among people.

She was honored with awards, grants and concerts internationally. Whether performing at the John F. Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., in an underground cavern, or in the studios of West German Radio, Oliveros' commitment to interaction with the moment went unchanged.

Oliveros passed away peacefully on November 24, 2016 but her sonic legacy and philosophy continues to grow and inspire.

A darwīš is a religious monk dedicating his entire existence to the advancement of faith and meditation. Although he believes in Allah, he can be described predominantly as a mystic. Refraining from any form of material wealth and even societal appreciation, holy enlightenment is his true aim.

After finishing up their semester at University, Nicolas and Jonas – or Parra for Cuva & Senoy – decided to pack all their gear into their camper and go on a road-trip down to the eastern coast of Spain.

The car filled with all kinds of gear, from synths to speakers, guitars, and percussions amongst other tools and toys, three creative weeks ensued, creating music with a view out to the sea.

While taking everything in and doing daily trips, the two were able to create enough song ideas in three weeks to spent the rest of the year at home in the studio to finish all arrangements and mixes.

Inspired by the Spanish way of life in a small and historically rich port town, a stark contrast to life Berlin, and soaking up diverse musical influences, the individual titles are highly personal and reflect on specific emotions or intimate experiences.

During the arrangement of the title-song, the percussion track was accidentally dragged to infinity, which resulted in a trance inducing meditative sound that gave them the idea for the title. Watching turkish dervish dancers while listening should therefore enhance the listening experience.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce a tenth anniversary reissue of Oren Ambarchi’s Quixotism, originally released on Editions Mego in 2014. Recorded with a multitude of collaborators in Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA, Quixotism presents the fruit of two years of work in the form of a single, LP-length piece in five parts. Quixotism takes the driving rhythmic aspect of works such as Sagittarian Domain to new levels, with the entirety of this long-form work built on a foundation of pulsing double-time electronic percussion provided by Thomas Brinkmann. Beginning as almost subliminal propulsion behind cavernous orchestral textures and John Tilbury’s delicate piano interjections, the percussive elements (elaborated on by Ambarchi and Matt Chamberlain) slowly inch into the foreground of the piece before suddenly breaking out into a polyrhythmic shuffle around the halfway mark, and joined by master Japanese tabla player U-zhaan for the piece’s final, beautiful passages.

The pulse acts as thread leading the listener through a heterogeneous variety of acoustic spaces, from the concert hall in which the Icelandic Symphony Orchestra were recorded to the intimacy of crys cole’s contact-mic textures. Ambarchi’s guitar itself ranges over this wide variety of acoustic spaces, from airless, clipped tones to swirling, reverberated fog. Within the complex web Ambarchi spins over the piece’s steadily pulsing foundation, elements approach and recede in a non-linear fashion, even as the piece plots an overall course from the grey, almost Nono-esque reverberated space of its opening section to the crisp foreground presence of Jim O’Rourke’s synth and Evyind Kang’s strings in its final moments. Formally indebted to the side-long workouts of classic Cologne techno, the long-form works of composers such as Éliane Radigue and the organic push and pull of improvised performance, Quixotism is constantly in motion, yet its transitions happen slowly and steadily, often nearly imperceptible, the diverse elements which make up the piece succeeding one another with the logic of a dream.

At the time of its first release, Quixotism was clearly a summation of Ambarchi’s work in the years leading up to it. Now, listening back a decade later, it also seems like an arrow pointing to the future, suggesting paths that would be explored further in works to come: the pulsating guitar layers of Hubris, the album-length collaboration with Jim O’Rourke and U-zhaan on Hence, Shebang’s joyous layering and percussive drive. Now sounding better than ever in a new remaster by Joe Talia, the time is ripe to rediscover its quixotic charms.

Originally released on September 30, 1991, Orbital's eponymous debut album became known as "The Green Album" to distinguish it from their second album (known as "The Brown Album")
The Green Album includes the seminal 'Belfast' and a live version of 'Chime', the landmark dance track that launched their career in 1990

1. The album will be remastered and represented in multiple formats, to be released alongside the band's 'Green Album' UK tour (the band performing Green & Brown albums) starting on 24th April . They've just be announced for Coachella , as well as Miami's Ultra Festival & headline shows in New York & Chicago.
2. Last available on vinyl in 2015 - long time sold out. Back On Double Vinyl editions.
3. First repress on CD for over 20 years ! Back on Double CD - Bonus CD featuring rarities and classic remixes

BIOG / SHORT PR INFOS

Following on from the UK Top 20 success of 2022's 30 Something, and the Top 10 for 2023's Optical Delusion, London Records launch an extensive 2024 campaign for Orbital, revisiting 1991's seminal debut Orbital (aka The Green Album).

The Green Album heralded a brave new world for the UK musical landscape (DJ Mag would later decry that the album "rewrote the rule book for rave"). Brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll eschewed formulas and clichés, choosing to explore wider textures, rhythms and stranger mind spaces within dance music. Their resulting album would enjoy both chart success and an enduring legacy, influencing and inspiring artists from Björk to Bicep, with the Hartnoll brothers going on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Madonna, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk, Sleaford Mods and Professor Brian Cox.

33 years since its original release the album is revisited, from black vinyl , limited colored vinyl and CD editions (long out of print), to special Record Store Day double Splatter Lp. In the digital space 'Tonight In Belfast' will be lauched on February 2nd, :a reworking of the band's seminal track 'Belfast', remixed by David Holmes and re-interpolated with new lyrics and vocal by acclaimed street poet Mike Garry.

Orbital will be supporting The Green Album with an extensive headline UK tour this April (performing both their Green and Brown albums). Ahead of that they've just been announced today for Coachella 2024, as well as Miami's Ultra Festival and headline shows in New York and Chicago.

“A human being experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separate from the rest [of humanity] – a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison…”

You many have seen this quote attributed to Albert Einstein on social media, the archetypal Smartest Guy Ever apparently having an out-of-character religious epiphany. It certainly leapt out at Paul Hartnoll of Orbital who spotted it in Michael Pollan’s 2018 book How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression and Transcendence.

“As soon as I saw ‘optical delusion’ I thought Oh hey, that’s the album title,” says Paul. “It just seemed to say so much about how people construct their own realities, how we see patterns that aren’t there, how we see what we want to see.

“But it’s actually a misquote. He never quite said that. In the German original what he’s really saying is that human experience is as relative as physics. Wouldn’t it be good if we could accept that, and find a kind of universal theory of everything for the human race? Then you look at everything from history to art to your Twitter feed and you think yeah, that’s what we’re all trying to do all of the time…”

Hence ‘Optical Delusion’, the tenth original Orbital album and the latest in a burst of renewed post-pandemic creativity for two brothers who’ve stayed at the top of their game longer than anyone from the post-1988 Class of Acid House.

Now with ‘Optical Delusion’ the Hartnolls dig deeper into the unquiet psyche of our increasingly surreal and disordered world. Sketched out partly during lockdown but fully recorded in the uncertain After Times, the album summons up conflicting emotions and sometimes beguiling images from years when the science fiction doomsdays that the Hartnolls watched on TV as kids finally came true. There are mesmeric tracks with names like ‘The New Abnormal’ and ‘Requiem For The Pre-Apocalypse’ and ‘Day One’. But there are also straight-up bangers and ethereal cosmic dreams, abstract sound wars and deeply human songs of separation and loss.

And it all starts with a bang. Lead single ‘Dirty Rat’, an outright Fall-meets-Front-242 class rant with vocals by Sleaford Mods mob orator Jason Williamson, harks right back to the Hartnolls’ days of politicised anarcho-squatpunk. It began as a remix swap (Orbital did the Sleafords’ ‘I Don’t Rate You’) and morphed into a comic, brutal, bass-driven harangue not so much against our rulers but at the petty, mean-spirited, frightened, Mail-reading voters who put them there: the people who are “blaming everyone in hospital/blaming everyone at the bottom of the English Channel/blaming everyone who doesn’t look like a fried animal.”

Also key to the album is opening track ‘Ringa Ringa (The Old Pandemic Folk Song)’ which returns to an Orbital truism, that time always becomes a loop. This chugging, cyclical Orbital groove gives way to an unnerving past-meets-present timeslip fit for ‘Sapphire And Steel’ as goth maenads The Mediaeval Baebes materialise to sing ‘Ring O’Roses’ – the innocent nursery rhyme whose roots are in the Black Death.

“I’ve always liked folk music and mediaeval sounds,” says Paul, himself an occasional Morris dancer. “I had the basis of that track and I wanted to spin it off somehow.” Trawling his archives he stumbled on The Mediaeval Baebes’ version of ‘Ring O’Roses’ “and my hackles just went up. I was like, my God, this is the original pandemic folk song.”

?his being Orbital, there are collaborations galore on the album, the roles once played by Alison Goldfrapp, Lady Leshurr or David Gray now filled by new talents. London singer-songwriter Anna B Savage contributes a compellingly fragile, Anohni-like vocal to ‘Home’, in which nature reclaims the scorched and vacant mega-cities. ‘Day One’ is a pulsing techno track featuring the singer Dina Ipavic. Paul got in touch with her after working on a score for a sculpture show of giant robotic installations by his friend Giles Walker during the pandemic. First Paul cut up his own score and Ipavic’s vocals on the track The Crane, which appears on the deluxe version of the album. Then he thought, Why not work with her for real? The result is school of ‘Belfast’, a bassy dreamscape with vocalised clouds billowing above.

The pensive ‘Are You ?live?’ adds to the Orbital product range of existential questions (‘Are We Here?’, ‘Where Is It Going?’) in collaboration Bella Union signings Penelope Isles, AKA brother and sister act Lily and Jack Wolter. “They’re our studio mates, they work upstairs!” says Paul happily. “And they’ve both got amazing voices.”

But Orbital are Orbital and never far from the dancefloor. “Eventually the more abrasive bits came back into the fold…” ‘You Are The Frequency’, first of two tracks to feature mysterious vocalist The Little Pest, surrounds the listener with warped voices ordering you to the dancefloor (Phil: “we wanted the idea that the music is kind of absorbing you”). And the second, the sinister ‘What A Surprise’, traps you in a paranoid electronic hall of mirrors.

In another nod to Orbital’s resurgent past the cover artwork once again comes from fine art painter John Greenwood, creator of fantastical grotesques for the covers of ‘Snivilisation’, ‘In Sides’ and Orbital’s most recent album, 2018’s ‘Monsters Exist’. Orbital had just had a slick Mark Farrow cover for ‘30 Something’ – this is a return to the overripe and bulbous techno-organic constructions that somehow express Orbital’s own uncontrollably fertile sound.

There are gaps in the future that Orbital are desperate to fill too; there will be tours and festivals and rooms and fields full of people. Those long paralysed months when we had little to look forward to but a Zoom DJ set made Paul and Phil appreciate the things that make life worth living.

NRW Records is proud to present another subversive album from Orax. After one year + wait, the main man is back with his sinister dark-synth injective sound. A must for all Darksynth and Cyberpunk enthusiasts!

»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.

San Francisco-based DJ/producer Nick Monaco has long been part of the Soul Clap family, releasing his first 12" on the label back in 2012. Mating Call, a double 12" set running at album length, is easily his most expansive release yet. It's typically eccentric, delivering a range of songs - featuring his own distinctive vocals - that blend numerous styles whilst retaining a loose, funky and altogether rather kaleidoscopic feel. It's rooted in Balearic pop, but also touches on dub, deep house, boogie, dub disco and a strangely deep and contemporary take on the triple-beat rhythms of glam rock. It's hard to accurately describe, but is really rather good; certainly, it's one of Soul Clap's strongest releases of recent times.

"Positive*" by Neuro... No Neuro is based upon thin slices of memory, and the disintegration of their existence. The day-to-day, with its 'ups and downs', all while operating/existing above and to the right of the body. When the day ends, and the separated is reunited; how does one collect what is no longer there?

Separating consciousness from the corporeal.

Memory and thought are being swept out to sea in granules that are imperceptible to those around you. Short term is riddled with inconsistencies.

Say "so long" to the granules.

Prolific Georgian sound artist and composer Natalie Beridze (fka TBA) returns to Room40 with an elegant set
of uncanny vocal treatments, smudging artificial cries into endless, frozen echoes.
When we last spotted her on Room40, Beridze collected up 14 years of unreleased tracks on the brilliant
‘Of Which One Knows’, showing her understanding of ambient chamber music. ‘If We Could Hear’ is a more
recent suite that centers its energy around vocals, but those voices are probably not real. And for an artist
so notorious for her command of song forms, it’s a bold move to take such a different approach. Honestly, it’s
hard to tell that the vocals are synthesized, even; the first time we played ‘If We Could Hear’, we would have
sworn it was Beridze singing. But focus a little closer and the cracks appear. On the extended ‘Who hears it
all’, the sound artist rubberizes a virtual choir, prodding it and pulling it to accentuate the uncanny qualities.
Freezing phrases in time and granulating them so they become gusty pads, Beridze provides an unstable,
anxious ambience, and when she disrupts the relative calm with tape-saturated screams, it’s genuinely
unnerving.
‘Who wakes the dawn’ is a little less bone-rattling, but no less enigmatic. This time an operatic solo voice
leads, sometimes sounding painfully human, before Beridze uses discreet tells to remind us we’re listening
to a synthesizer. Each track uses a similar sonic palette but appears to approach a different musical form:
‘Who whispers to hysteria’ sounds like AI church music, and ‘Who dwells in possibility’ is a Michael Nyman
opera conducted by robots. It’s disquieting material that provides us with plenty of food for thought. Certainly
worth a look if you’ve exhausted Lee Gamble’s ‘Models’ already.

Sunkissed' is a live recording of a four-hour performance directed by Mylan Hoezen and composed by Bergur Anderson. The piece explores slowness through vocal sounds and interactions with glass, plaster, and latex, creating a hypnotic, immersive experience. Performers Emirhakin, Negiste Yesside Johnson, Ratri Notosudirdjo, and Mylan Hoezen move in slow motion, crafting a choreography that unfolds in sync with their environment.

The meaning of dreams usually stays hidden in stacks of abstract layers, obscuring their essence in surreal and bizarre imagery. Exploring the depths of our subconscious, they lead us from stories of lighthearted innocence to our most gruesome ghastly fantasies, making us live through multiple scenarios each and every night. While in sleeping-state, we are at our most vulnerable and at a total loss of control over mind and body. At the same time, we feel most free and safe during REM, with none of our worldly worries breathing down our neck while our minds find ways to cope with exactly these worries.

For his debut full length “Too”, My Panda Shall Fly decided to collaborate with a variety of singers from all over the globe to explore their subconscious anxieties and fears together. Giving away control over the songs himself, he was only amazed by the results of this process that took over more than a year until final realization.

Just like in Ursula K. Le Guin‘s classic sci-fi novel “The Lathe of Heaven”, you can shape your dreams by becoming aware of the inner forces that invisibly guide you every day.

‘Too’ comes out worldwide on limited 2LP red vinyl, CD, MC (including download code) and digital.

It's by some strange inversion that since his untimely death in 1999 Bryn Jones' Muslimgauze project has become evermore enigmatic as his publicly available recordings have become evermore vast. The Mancunian artist's sudden passing at the age of 37 prematurely resolved a body of work that remains as experimental as it is diffuse, with an informal archive that was left spread between favoured labels and confidantes. And though this monadic project never abided by genre specifications, it all feels as if it is taking the critical pulses of its time and rendering them into something other than the sum of its obscure compulsions. Jones' double album 'Veiled Sisters' from 1993 is no exception, and it persists as a magnificent outlier in his singular and bewildering discography.

Originally released by the label Soleilmoon, an early and lifelong supporter of Jones' work along with Staalplaat, the album is a notable example of the uniquely recombinant fragility and fervour of Jones' work. This 3LP edition marks the album's first appearance on vinyl. Like much of the Muslimgauze catalogue, 'Veiled Sisters' is dedicated to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its two halves—Sister One and Sister Two—calling on the history and conflicts of the modern Islamic world through opaque titles and snatches of musical oration.

Forgoing the raucous timbre and abrasion that Jones could occasionally employ, this album balances a medley of shrill instrumental bursts with a complex patterning of ambient atmospheres. 'Veiled Sisters' moves with a hypnotic gait across its extended runtime with a dynamic ensemble of electronics grounded in a pulsing yet evasive combination of low-slung kicks and dub-soaked bass. The hissy wash of drums, both played and machined, decorate a restless patina all over, and the cacophony of samples send impressions scattershot into Jones' idiosyncratic yet readymade psychedelia. With a quiet intensity that is not often captured this succinctly in the Muslimgauze catalogue, this new edition of 'Veiled Sisters' is a reminder of the haunting wonder that Jones was capable of manifesting.

The brand new album after the top seller "Amongst Strangers"! The sound of the album can be described as a mixture of Hip Hop, Dubstep, Ambient and ‘electronic music’. The record is darker, harder, faster and more tenuous in the array of sounds used than previous work. CD version with gold stamped letterings!

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.

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

Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995.

MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor.

‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Artwork by Vica Pacheco, design by Steele Bonus, liner notes by Dr. Rob

Mike Lazarev drops his first album on Past Inside the Present and it's one that reminds us why he has such a great reputation as being one of modern ambient and classical's finest composers. After exploring notions of time on previous records, for this one, he embraces the here and now and that lends itself to a record steeped in mindfulness and meditation. As such, Sacred Tonalities is a perfect accompaniment to introspective moments with textural soundscapes placing you at the centre of them. The harmonics range from soft to gritty, the moods occasionally hint at trance and the layers of bass, piano and arps bring subtle and ever-shifting rhythms.

Wrwtfww Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are ecstatic to announce a new full length album by celebrated Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass), in collaboration with Buddhist monks belonging to the Samgha group of the Shingon school of Koya-san, led by Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is available on half speed mastered vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD.

Recorded at The Premises Studio (London) and in Tokyo in 2019,You Who are Leaving to Nirvana is a majestic work combining a suite of six Buddhist liturgical chants and a musical creation by Midori Takada. The Buddhist chants come from three types of repertoires: shomyo ("Teisan", "Unga-Bai", "Sange", "Taiyo"), but also goeika ("Kannon-Daiji") and mantra ("Hannya-Singyo").

After supervising the recording of the Buddhist chants, Midori Takada added her own compositions, with subtle layers of percussion and the melodies of her beloved marimba, giving full life to the sacred texts.

Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa explains: "Shomyo is a form of declamation of sacred esoteric texts, inherited over many generations. The power of words goes far beyond their mere pronunciation. I think there is something that words alone cannot really convey. If I recite prayers in a musical way, the feeling transmitted will be even stronger than if I say it normally, in everyday language. I think that the musicality of a work carries a hidden power that cannot be expressed in words alone. The setting of the music has an additional power for you and for those around you who listen to it. The words of a song are not just words set to music. They carry an additional hidden power that cannot be expressed in any other way. Listening to Midori Takada's musical performance, the words truly seem to come alive."

Original recordings of the Buddhist chants are held in the International Archives of Folk Music (iafm) at the MEG Museum in Geneva. The album sleeve features an artwork by famed Japanese sculptor Katsura Funakoshi selected by Midori Takada. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is released in conjunction with Midori Takada's Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, also available on LP and CD on Wrwtfww Records.

Wrwtfww Records is proud to announce the worldwide reissue of Midori Takada’s solo album from 1999, Tree of Life, available on vinyl for the first time ever in a new audiophile mix by the Japanese percussionist herself, and in full half-speed-mastered glory. The 180g LP comes in a heavy sleeve with a beautiful design by Kohei Sugiura. Tree of Life is also available in CD (digipack) and digital formats.

Originally recorded in September 1998 at legendary Ginza (Tokyo) studio Onkio Haus (founded in 1974 and where Ryuichi Sakamoto’s "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" and many more were recorded) and released on CD only for the Japan market in 1999, Tree of Life is Midori Takada’s best kept secret, a lost gem of minimalism and percussive ambient. The album is separated in two parts, the first one finds Takada exploring her trademark environmental soundscapes with precise mastery of marimba, drums, and bells, notably on the magnificent fan-favorite "Love Song Of Urfa". The second half is a collaboration with Chinese virtuoso Erhu player Jiang Jian Hua, allowing Midori Takada to unveil new layers of her artistic mind with a slightly more theatrical approach and a beautiful crystallization of complex simplicity.

The entire album was given a fresh new audiophile mix by Midori Takada herself and was mastered at Emil Berliner Studios, with half speed cutting for the vinyl version, to ensure an audio presentation aligned with the Japanese pioneer’s vision.

This Tree of Life reissue follows two newly recorded Midori Takada albums, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter and You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, both available on Wrwtfww Records, along with her 1983 masterpiece, Through The Looking Glass.

Wrwtfww Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are honored to present the first new solo album by renowned Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass) in 23 years, Cutting Branches From A Temporary Shelter, available on vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD.

Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter is Midori Takada’s very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe, well known worldwide, thanks notably to its version by Paul F. Berliner included on the famed 1973 album The Soul of Mbira.

The choice of this title by Midori Takada evokes the links between traditional African and contemporary music which are the foundation of this work, and it also translates the resolutely multicultural vision of the artist.

Midori Takada explains: "African music is remarkable for its polyrhythms. Not only are there simultaneously several rhythmic motifs, sometimes as many as ten, but furthermore it may be that the part played by each musician has its own starting point and its own pace, all combining to form a cycle. All the cycles progress at the same time according to a single metrical structure which functions as a reference point, but which is not played by any one person from beginning to end. The structure emerges out of the multi-level parts, all different. With the Shona, the musical system is based on the polymelody: one performs simultaneously several melodic lines which are superimposed, each having its own rhythmic organization. It is truly captivating. In Western classical music, one four-beat rhythm induces some precise temporal framework and regular reference points, which come on the strong beats 1 and 3. But in the logic of the Shona musical system, and in other African music, the melody can begin in the very middle of the cycle and be continued up to some other place in an autonomous manner, as if it had its own personality. It’s very rich."

The album comes with in-depth liner notes that include an interview by Midori Takada, a point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and activist Forward Mazuruse, and background information on the project by Isabel Garcia Gomez and Madeleine Leclair from MEG Museum. The sleeve features an artwork by celebrated Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera. Part of the budget for the album was donated to Forward Mazuruse’s Music For Development Foundation whose aim is to identify, nurture, and record young but underprivileged musicians in Zimbabwe.

The album is released in conjunction with Midori Takada and Shomyo of Koya-san's You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, also available on LP and CD on Wrwtfww Records.

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.'

First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983.

Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is Pure Merz.

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

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.

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.

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.

CD Jewel Case With 8 pages Booklet, Pictures , Notes In anticipation of the 35th anniversary next year one of electronic music´s most influential recordings, the legendary E2-E4, from 12.12.1981 does get an official rerelease by Manuel Göttsching on his own Label MG.ART. Carefully overseen by the Master himself

A companion album to 2022's restrained 'Spectral', 'Bodies' blurs the boundaries between bodies of water and human bodies, provoking presence by emulating wave cycles and heartbeats with deft electronic rhythms and obscuring vocals and field recordings with tense synths.

Cocolas headed to the Australian coast and explored the creeks and waterfalls of Far North Queensland to source environmental sounds for 'Bodies'. And although these recordings are mostly hidden, they provide the album with its backbone, over which Cocolas lavishes concealed chorals and orchestral waves of powerful, distorted electronics. There's a palpable tension to the material; we can hear Cocolas' cries on opening track 'Bodies I', but it's buried beneath saturated, cinematic washes that might be strings, and might be synths.

She wanted her collages to evoke memories and emotions rather than represent something more tangible, and handles this by drifting from digital to analog, electronic to acoustic, concealing everything almost beyond recognition. On 'A Current Runs Through', Cocolas turns her instrumentation into crashing, cinematic drones that emerge like bubbling waters, and on 'Exhale' it sounds as if she's sunk beneath the surface, her ensemble drowned by filtered bubbles and ominous groans.

With Lucifer, Kompakt presents an album of rare beauty from two masters of modern music. A family affair, it’s a collaboration between the Italian father-and-son duo of Luciano Michelini and Lorenzo Dada, whose combined histories bring to Lucifer a depth of experience alongside clarity of vision and a finely tuned, neatly developed combined compositional voice. A lovely, beguiling suite of music that combines the electronic and the acoustic, the urban and the pastoral, its gorgeous night-eye vision and tender melancholy sits neatly within the Kompakt universe, while offering the curious listener some rich new perspectives.

There is already plenty to know both artists by. Lorenzo Dada creates across multiple fields – a techno producer and DJ who has already worked with the likes of Jay Haze, Fete, Leo Benassi, and Der, he’s released a small clutch of stylish, smartly designed EPs, and a solo album, Second Life (2018). His complementary background in classical music and composition informs his ensemble project, Tears Of Blue (who appear on Lucifer), where Dada paints with neo-classical tones for a quartet of violin, viola, cello and grand piano, supplemented by electronics for live performance.

Luciano Michelini’s history is yet richer. He may be best known, to many, for his piece “Frolic”, the theme to Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm series; it was also sampled by Snoop Dogg for 2022’s “Crip Ya Enthusiasm”. But there’s much more to Michelini’s story. A successful soundtrack composer, Michelini both studied and taught at the Conservatoro di Santa Cecilia, and worked for RCA from the sixties to the eighties; his soundtracks from this period are gorgeous examples of the form, particularly his work for Il Decamerone Nero (1972), L’Isola Degli Uomini Pesce (1979), and the devastatingly gorgeous Dimensione Donna (1977).

In the eighties, Michelini and his wife Anna Gutling founded the Electronic Music Division studio and academy in Rome, which is where the majority of Lucifer was recorded. Dada reflects on the experience: “We never worked together before, so it was all new for both of us,” with Michelini adding, “I truly love this experience with my son. He’s a talented pianist and composer. I am not very familiar with electronic music nowadays, but we did it fluently.” There’s certainly a familial energy at play through Lucifer, and you can hear how Dada and Michelini, through exploration and experiment, find a shared language, balancing Dada’s tendency toward minimalism, and Michelini’s composerly voice.

Lucifer flows as a suite that interweaves electronic music with acoustic instruments: the lonely sigh of saxophone; Michelini’s lush, verdant piano; the weeping strings of Tears Of Blue (recorded at the studio of Michelini’s friend, the late Maestro, Ennio Morricone). These multiple voices are located within the electronic sighs and swarms from Dada’s kit; there are moments of propulsion, and passages of lambent drift, where the album revels in its tonal sweetness. If it flows so effortlessly, that’s because Lucifer was designed that way, as a suite or a sonata of sorts.

And the title? Dada reflects, “Lucifer was an angel who decided not to be one anymore. The miracle of life is that we can decide what we want to be, even if we are born as angels or vice versa.” This feels somehow apposite: there’s certainly something of the transformative, and the transportive, in Lucifer, a unique family collaboration of rare poetry and sensitivity, where two generations meet in the modern crucible that is the electronic music studio.

‘Kellion’ is the story of a young boy who was born into a mysterious world he explores with his curious eyes, ears and hands. Every new experience lets him grow as a person and also expands his knowledge of the world that surrounds him. His young mind is sometimes blurrying the lines between imagination and reality, dreaming and being awake, reality and fantasy. Making sense of this world in its very own unique way, his world is filled with fantastic and surreal magical creatures and quirky characters.

Over the course of the ten songs many different little adventures unfold and await the young boy, slowly building his character while he explores nature in all its varieties and learns to appreciate it. He lives through new emotions and gets to learn about his own feelings during the process. The title track ‘Kellion’ represents the very inner world of the kid – it is his cocoon where he can always return to and be safe after his journeys and adventures.

„I was trying to live his life with him together and feel what he felt. I tried to understand and recollect what it feels like as a little boy walking around in this big world. I attempted to see the world through his eyes, to experience his fears and happiness and in doing that, just helping him to be a kid.“ – Long Arm

‘Kellion’ is the long awaited sophomore full length album by Long Arm and will come out worldwide on double vinyl in a beautiful gatefold cover as well as on CD and cassette tape, all including download codes.

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.

Definitive career-spanning anthology
Includes previously unreleased tracks, inspired collaborations, and material from Leslie’s groundbreaking 1990 solo debut, Witch
Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie, Christophe Van Huffel, Jay Glass Dubs, Mari G. Mooney, and Diamond Version, amongst others
Newly remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin
24-page booklet featuring a new, extensive interview with Leslie and liner notes by acclaimed author, critic and compilation co-producer Wyndham Wallace, along with an essay by award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei
Cover collage by renowned British artist Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon

“The definition of a hidden gem” – John Peel

“The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life.” – Max Richter

“She might just be the coolest woman on the planet!” – Boy George

Light in the Attic is ecstatic to announce When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It: a 16-track anthology that celebrates the extraordinary work of musician, poet, and author, Leslie Winer. When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It spans Winer’s three-decade-long musical career: from her groundbreaking solo work in the early ‘90s to her latest inspired projects. Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie, and others, the collection also spotlights Winer’s diverse collaborations, and unearths previously-unreleased recordings.

Newly remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin, When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It will be available in multiple special 2xLP editions, on CD, and across digital platforms. The album includes a new interview with Winer, captured by the compilation’s co-producer, acclaimed author and critic Wyndham Wallace. Rounding out the package is an insightful essay by the award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei and an original cover collage by the renowned British photographer and artist, Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon.

MORE ABOUT LESLIE WINER….

Musician, poet, iconoclast, model, artist, enigma. Leslie Winer is many things.

Born to a teenage mother and sold for $10,000 in a black market adoption when she was just hours old, Winer has always lived an uncommon life. She grew up in Boston with a voracious appetite for music and the written word and embraced the city’s lively jazz and folk scene in the ‘70s. Moving to New York for art school, she gravitated towards a vibrant crowd of intellectuals, artists, and radical thinkers—or perhaps they gravitated towards her.

There, Winer formed an unlikely friendship with writer and artist William S. Burroughs and lived on-and-off with Jean-Michel Basquiat. In London, where Winer began her musical ventures in earnest, she was a regular at Leigh Bowery’s underground club Taboo, where she met many of her collaborators, including filmmaker John Maybury, Kevin Mooney (of Adam and the Ants), and Boy George, who once declared that Winer “might just be the coolest woman on the planet!”

Winer’s striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early ‘80s, she was an in-demand model—appearing in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior, and Yohji Yamamoto, and serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed Winer “the first androgynous model.” She posed for Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Pierre et Gilles, and graced the covers of The Face, French and Italian editions of Vogue, and Mademoiselle.

But music was Winer’s true passion and, at the turn of the ‘90s, she would unknowingly help invent the massively popular genre known today as trip-hop.

On her debut, Witch, Winer masterfully blended the uninhibited sampling of early hip-hop with dancehall basslines and programmed beats, while weaving mesmerizing—and coolly-detached—spoken-word vocals into her ambient tracks. It was unorthodox in the most delicious ways.

The album was a bold experiment by the self-taught artist, who enlisted a number of talented musicians in the sessions, including Culture Club’s Helen Terry, Karl Bonnie of Renegade Soundwave, former Public Image Ltd. bassist Jah Wobble, and Kevin Mooney, as well as Marco Pirroni and Matthew Ashman (both of Adam and the Ants, among other acts).

While Witch was finished in 1990, it wouldn’t be released for three years, due to the whims of Winer’s label. In the meantime, several tracks made their way out into the world as early as June 1990, thanks to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who later referred to Witch as “the definition of a hidden gem.”

Opening with the laid-back dub beats and soft, sing-songy chorus of “He Was,” Witch features such highlights as the up-tempo “Skin,” the hypnotic, bass-heavy “The Boy Who Used 2 Whistle,” and the album’s closer, “Dream 1,” in which waves of reverb-soaked vocals bounce from one ear the other.

While sonically, Winer was breaking new ground, she was also bringing a fresh, incendiary take on what it means to be a woman in the music business, as embodied by her composition “N1 Ear,” in which she delivers a scorching, feminist manifesto, borrowed from the Women’s Liberation Broadsheet: “If I get raped it must be my fault / And if get bashed I must’ve provoked it / And if I raise my voice I’m a nagging bitch / And if I like fucking I’m a whore…And if I ask my doctor too many questions I’m neurotic and need pills / Because I still can’t get a safe birth control while some fucker’s roaming the moon.”

Winer had every right to vent her frustrations as a woman in music. Despite her fierce demeanor and steadfast focus, she was consistently disregarded and typecast by the industry. Many of her early collaborators failed to credit her work, while others simply overlooked her influence. Witch, for example, was so delayed that by the time the album saw the light of day (released under the pseudonym “©”), trip-hop was gaining mainstream traction via acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Madonna. Although Winer eventually gained wider acknowledgment (prompting the NME to give her the dubious distinction of “The Grandmother of Trip-Hop”), Witch initially went sorely unnoticed.

Following the disappearance of Witch, Winer continued to record, undeterred by the elusive nature of mainstream success in the modern music business. Her network of inspired collaborators continued to grow and expand, yet her influence remained largely a secret except to those in the know, such as Grace Jones and Sinead O’Connor, who would cover her songs.

Today, Winer stays busy on new musical projects in the French countryside, where she has spent the past two decades raising her five daughters. A prolific writer, she has also published two collections of poetry and oversees the literary estate of Herbert Huncke, a defining member of the Beat Generation.

In the modern era, one is hard-pressed to find an artist who continues to push the creative envelope as much as Winer does. And yet, three decades after her revolutionary debut, her work remains just as startling and fresh.

Winer’s influence might best be summed by the award-winning composer Max Richter, who offered the following thoughts to Wyndham Wallace for his extensive liner notes: “The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life. A visionary commentator on the relationship between individuals and society in the mould of Blake or Woolf, Leslie Winer knows things that the culture at large just doesn’t understand yet, and she has never been afraid to let us know that.”

•7" vinyl •Lyric insert •Blue and pink swirled 7" •Download card

Tag this as somewhere between “hospital ambient” and “backwoods industrial.”

Shadow World Archive is proud to present The McClintic Chorus, the second full-length LP from Kristen Gallerneaux. The follow-up to her critically acclaimed debut Strung Figures, The McClintic Chorus finds Gallerneaux in world-building mode, crafting a psychogeographic landscape of folkloric Appalachia through sound. Turning her inimitable, idiosyncratic ear to field recordings and sound sources recorded or re-recorded in and around Point Pleasant, West Virginia and the McClintic Wildlife Area's infamous TNT domes, Gallerneaux performs a sort of alchemy, teasing uncanny and unknowable deep-time histories from post-industrial rubble. Transforming the hyper-local and hyper-personal into something that can be universally felt - in your head, heart, and guts. Literally. 'Cause this gear bangs.

The McClintic Chorus is presented as a digital download and as a luxe 2xCD + zine. The second disc includes Where The Whistles Mingle, an album-length longform track only available with the physical release.

But enough from us. Let's hear from Gallerneaux herself: The McClintic Chorus is a 68-minute composition and multimedia performance created from recordings gathered at the McClintic Wildlife Management Area in Point Pleasant, West Virginia. From 1942-1945, this site was known as the West Virginia Ordnance Works or “tnt Area,” in reference to its history as a WWII-era explosives manufacturing facility. Over 720,000 tons of TNT were produced daily on the grounds. A series of concrete “igloo” storage huts were erected and covered with earth to camouflage them from potential enemy aircraft. These structures are the only architectural clues that remain of this landscape’s former life.

In November 1966, the TNT Area received attention in local newspapers as the place where a mysterious 6-foot-tall, winged humanoid with red eyes known as “Mothman” was first spotted. A flood of reports connected to the TNT Area described Mothman’s penchant to silently glide alongside cars and interfere with telephone calls by emitting shrill blasts of tinny static, beeping, and electronic pulses. Today, many paranormal seekers visiting the site believe the cryptid was a “harbinger of doom” who was attracted to the Point Pleasant area to observe or warn of the fatal December 1967 collapse of the town’s Silver Bridge.

The McClintic Chorus is a biography of place—exploring the tenuous collisions between industrial landscapes, ecological redemption, and contemporary legends embedded in rural Appalachia. While producing this work, the complicated oscillations between the bucolic and the vaguely threatening were visibly and audibly palpable. Searching for the overgrown entrances to abandoned ordnance huts—the deafening sounds of bullfrogs, redwing blackbirds, and other wetland wildlife compete with the rattle of gunfire from the nearby range.

Binaural, contact, and stereo microphones were used to capture the powerful echoes from inside and around the TNT domes. Recognizable recordings of these sounds permeate the work, blended with fragments of recordist stomps, gasps, coughs, and voices—which were transformed into several DAW-based drum kits and instruments.

A bright and colourful scenery: Shrill blinding sights, piercing foreign sounds, a fusion of disparate scents blended into a cocktail of curiosity. Fleeting attempts embrace a thousand senses in one single second. Bustling around in the shadows of buildings as high as mountains, an almost eerily overwhelming sense of contentment is omnipresent - but something doesn't appear to be right...
Stranded on a lonely island in the midst of a chaotic metropolis, disconnected - a feeling of drowning in an ocean of overstimulus and importunities of disproportionately inflated personalities, without ever even being registered or taken notice of.
What's left is nothing more than the ghost of a young soul, wandering about and curiously studying the surrounding, forever looking for answers that would otherwise seem trivial.

After “Kidsuke” the critically acclaimed collaboration project with Daisuke Tanabe, “Tokyorkshire” based producer kidkanevil continues his fascination with Japan and readies his latest solo album My Little Ghost. Inspired by a summer spent in Tokyo collaborating, exploring and generally refusing to grow up, the double vinyl is due May 2nd on Project: Mooncircle and features a wide range of guests including PMC's own submerse and Tokyo vocalist Cuushe.

'My Little Ghost' comes out worldwide on limited gatefold, double, pink vinyl (including download code) as well as a limited edition CD including a bonus track via flau records - http://www.flau.jp/ in Japan.

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.

Limited edition CD!

To forget the pursuit of harmony.
To recall the past to make a future.
Forever seeing yourself reflected, feeding back in eternal repeating cycles.
A dialog with oneself within the natural world.
Choosing a final destination as the journey ceaselessly repeats.
I hope to share what I’ve experienced in this big journey.
I hope you will feel both a sense of nostalgia, and a sense of newness.
That makes our harmony.

– Kazuomi Eshima

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.

Naked feet in warm sand, a gentle breeze, a sweet taste of chocolate on the tip of your tongue - this is the moment before you jump into clear waters. JPattersson brings up eight shimmering pearls from the dubby depths of his repertoire and adds them to this chain of associations. Mood gives expression to an unquenched thirst for musical innovation and growing maturity. While the soul of JPattersson still reverberates through the frequencies of his trumpet and his voice, his third album sounds all new and different again. There are songs with clever lyrics and all the ensuing catchiness. In-between these tunes from tropical tipsiness to hypnotic depth you can hear one thing above all: musical love of detail. In consequence, it’s a wonderful album to listen to from beginning to end - and at the same time made for the dancefloor.