Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield Tape 413 Items

Their newest release “For Barney, Who Was A Bad Dog, But A Good Boy, And Very Much Loved” comes from Brooklyn-based Dekalb Works (debut ‘Duologue’ on Where To Now? Records), the collaborative project of Austin Peru (Vision Fortune) & Daniel Creahan (Sweat Equity / Alien D).

The release summarizes a series of experimentations between live performance contexts and sample-heavy collage work. Since starting their residency on Radio alHara, Dekalb Works found themselves drawn to the act of performing, whether as a live act or DJing, and the space between these two often overly rigid modes.

“For Barney…” draws heavily on the sonic palette of American country and western music, treated through the lens of heavy studio processing and the production techniques of dub, ambient, and trip-hop. Recording hours-long live improvisations with guitar, piano, or drum machines and samplers, they pillaged these sessions as source material. Whereas previous work focused on the voice and the interaction of text, voice and music, these recordings pulled from the sounds of musicians playing together in a room. The arrangement process remains the same, chopping and manipulating small samples and momentary gestures into dense, rhythmic collages.

Hot suite of crucial House. TIP!

NYC's Sweater on Polo delivers a hammering six track mini lp for L.I.E.S. indebted to the sounds of early-90s psychedelic Chicago house, names like Gherkin and Pierre come to mind but the young producer tastefully and effectively puts his own vision to the forefront with this release.

In the confused world of modern dance music production, Sweater on Polo, throws all trends aside and sticking to the bare essentials...letting the 808s,303s,727s do the job and making this one of the most crucial modern House records to come out of New York City in many years. Many producers these days stake a claim to this music and it falls short, plain and simple, Sweater on Polo is the most promising young producer in the city these days and this record puts it on display. Highly recommended!

This is the first album by Yo, an electronic musician who took over the name from the ink painting artist Sesshu Toyo. While carrying a hint of caricatured folk music in the style of the Geinoh Yamashirogumi, Yo seeks something more virtual and sympathizes with the tribal beats radicalized in the background music of video games such as "evergrace" and "garage". At the same time, he was heavily influenced by dub / bass artist such as Goth-trad, and even swallowed the "ska-core" aesthetic of 54-71.

Originally released in France in 1998, Vibractance is one of the most unique and haunting titles in Merzbow’s vast catalog. It’s unique drone, noise, almost ambient like qualities makes this a great starting point for adventurer ears but also an essential album for the initiated. A true journey into the unknown where pulsating sonar waves swim between a sea of eerie beauty and tangible dreams. Celebrating it’s 25th anniversary, Aurora Central Records proudly presents its first ever vinyl and cassette release.

Transplant Rejection’ is the second in a trilogy of cassette albums released via Muscut in the latter half of 2022. The work of Estonian artist and IDA Radio co-founder Robert Nikolajev, this collection of seven ‘almost’ dark ambient tracks embody the melancholy of autumn whilst hinting at the forthcoming eternal winter. A man with many hats, Nikolajev operates on the fringes of the leftfield house underground for labels such as Incienso, Collect-Call and Sad Fun as well as being one half of the sporadic Dima Disk act with Ragnar Rahouja. Eschewing the more rhythmic side of his productions for this Muscut tape, Nikolajev taps into the fictional soundtrack atmospheres the label is known for and brings his own brand of wistful, introspective world-building by way of machine harmony to the now Tallinn based imprint. There’s a lo-fi, grainy quality running throughout the collection, a kind of sepia-toned nostalgia that envelops the listener and disorientates any perception of time or place. Buried vocal fragments sit in the mix on ‘Stifled’ alongside decaying synthesiser drones whilst ‘ddm’ channels an edgy post-rock dirge with its use of sagged bass guitar. Overall, an inspired look into the more ‘at home’ side of this increasingly prolific Estonian artist.

SIM Card Hã˜lder is not a band. It is the hybrid child of Ian Bruner, Drone Operatør and Gajek. It's procreation date is hard to pin down, but it started 2020 with an Insta chat and one of Ian's piano improvisations recorded in his Colorado living room. From there the album grew in separated covid lockdown wombs at three different locations in Germany. Ian's shadowy instrumentation of light piano and heavily layered and long believed to be dead soundscapes were digested, replanted and grown-over by Drone Operatør's and Gajek's uncompromising and individual sense for song structures and sounds. When finally all body parts were assembled in early 2021 the baby was already fluent in different languages.

Sim Card Hølder grows slowly while meandering through dense and open fields. It switches from calm and dreamy moods to wild fractured outbursts without fragmenting into the arbitrary. A raw spiritual power keeps every part connected and in perfect motion. Each song is a portal into multiple universes that suck you in on thick piano carpets, sharp saxophone spikes and buzzing quadcopter wings, warming insect intestines, blasting raw drums and slow healing winds, screeching synth rhymes, dissonant orchestral tales and floating blue melodies. It's a demanding ride but thoroughly deeply relaxing. The perfect soundtrack to rewind your mind.

Pioneering Parisian weirdo and member of acclaimed, enigmatic collective Ssabæ, Iueke throws down his first “album” for Demdike Stare’s DDS label, following a trio of mixtapes with an hour of warped goo that defies easy categorisation. ​

Photogenic dandy Gwen Jamois, aka Iueke, returns with his queasiest, most lysergic release yet, featuring close to an hour of rubbery, rippling electronics, laconic cinematics and free-falling rhythms frozen somewhere between Autechre, Cluster and Rashad Becker.

Gwen has been immersed in all sorts of fringe business for decades at this point, heading up the Antinote label, releasing on Ron Morelli's L.I.E.S, and contributing to those shadowy Ssabæ records we can't stop banging on about. His trio of mixtapes fully took us to the core of his psyche, all off-kilter blends that puzzled out the covalent bonds between tongue dissolving acid, folk music and discarded sonic debris. He follows that same frayed thread on this boundless, off-the-cuff performance, recorded last year at Saint-Étienne's Positive Education festival using a sparse setup of synths and drum machines, fine-tuned to gatecrash the pineal dimension. Plenty of pros have tried making this kind of trippy racket before, but trust that few have ever managed to get anywhere near the level of puckered lunacy you’ll find inside.

Brain-combing Asmr oscillations and anxious strings draw us in, clouded by hissing white noise that obscures an unnatural rhythm lurking somewhere down there in the grot. There are palpable links to Cluster's earliest experiments and the muckiest basement club workouts, but Iueke focuses on pure texture, using seesawing rhythms to scrape out new neural pathways rather than lock into the grid. It all feels a bit mechanical too, bolting together elements that are as corporeal as a lead pipe - thick, rusty-edged and aggy in a way that sounds a bit like Einsturzende Neubauten on mushies.

On the flip, unbalanced rhythms chase their own tail into a fizzing swamp of viscous bass and shepard tones like some imploding firework, eventually plonging off along impulse vectors only to collapse at half speed into the sort of acrid high-register business Whitehouse would be proud of.

Prize yr third eye open for this, it’s a real one.

What remains when light fades ? Gil Barte, co-founder of Meth O Tapes and Kump Records, brings an answer in sketches with this new release. Faithfull to his previously developped style made of musical miniatures, he draws a diagonal throughout the abyssal void of the unknown.

As a catalogue of apparitions, « Transmutation » turns shadows into presence all along these pages, sometimes breaky, sometimes ritual, haunted with glitches and drones, reminding us enchanting sightings then losing us in sticky dark ambient margins, in a forest of walls with faces, in deep corridors, whispering under. Everything rustles here in spectral encounters, blurry, storyless figures barely named in titles. It's music for sleepwalkers, for those who know how to cross by to the other side, to the black screen of darkness and set what they have to give there.

a dream come true. 2021 edition with 4 bonus tracks.

Everything about Stefano Pilia’s spiritual journey always seemed to point directly towards ‘Spiralis Aurea’, his astounding 2022 release for Die Schachtel, a deeply resonating piece of art that intertwines traces of sacred geometry, collective experience and elusive connections between nature and human kind. ‘Spiralis Aurea Trio’ adds an extra layer, an opera of sheer beauty and execution, will, force and composure. The original cycle of compositions live and breath, adapted and transformed, taking their initial meaning and depth to new heights, while maintaining the concepts of ‘divine geometry’ and their sacred mystique intact, displaying a deep resonance with works by La Monte Young, Arvo Pärt, Pauline Oliveros, Eliane Radigue, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Terry Riley.

Black Cassette Tape, laser printed J-card, transparent plastic case, DL code.

Tot Onyx is a solo project of Tommi Tokyo, who loves to work with sound and body. As the founder of the experimental live act group A, Tommi has explored her ideas of breaking the preconceptions of live performance by incorporating use of the body, live-painting, noise and poetry. Adept at bending expectations, the band’s formative early work echoes the experiential vocabulary in which Tommi continues to develop today. A practice in the rejection of tradition and cliché, which in Greil Marcus's words, "Share the principles of negation, rebellion, destruction and détournement”. Her rst self-released EP T.O.1 is a collection of fragments of Onyx's live performances from recent years, recorded in her studio as part of her creative process during the preparations. While her albums (1st album Senno I released in 2022 on iDEAL Recordings, and the forthcoming album in 2024, info tba) are highly conceptual and revolve around specic subjects, this EP serves more as her diary, in which she aims to share with the public how her thoughts are shaped by time through the practice of performing live.

Black Cassette Tape, handmade printed fabric case, riso printed paper cover, DL code. Limited to 40 copies.

Tot Onyx is a solo project of Tommi Tokyo, who loves to work with sound and body. As the founder of the experimental live act group A, Tommi has explored her ideas of breaking the preconceptions of live performance by incorporating use of the body, live-painting, noise and poetry. Adept at bending expectations, the band’s formative early work echoes the experiential vocabulary in which Tommi continues to develop today. A practice in the rejection of tradition and cliché, which in Greil Marcus's words, "Share the principles of negation, rebellion, destruction and détournement”. Her rst self-released EP T.O.1 is a collection of fragments of Onyx's live performances from recent years, recorded in her studio as part of her creative process during the preparations. While her albums (1st album Senno I released in 2022 on iDEAL Recordings, and the forthcoming album in 2024, info tba) are highly conceptual and revolve around specic subjects, this EP serves more as her diary, in which she aims to share with the public how her thoughts are shaped by time through the practice of performing live.

Wind and cars hum in harmony. Ancestors croon in the factories of the future. Hippos in swimming pools, dancing on mechanical milker rhythms. Cows rehash in the melodic air of church bells. A melodeon sobs in a vague radio broadcast. Someone warps a present, while a data processor calculates his own death. Can frogs talk to the machine? Sacred chants sang about their conversation. That night when the jungle cried. That night when whales hummed waves of sadness. A klaxon symphony on tribal grooves, street talks in Brics countries. Someone flushes the gig economy, while the dishwasher gently weeps. Kashual Plastik been in the fields, bringing home the true fake, that surrounds us every day, everywhere, hidden in the sounds of many. A phonography compilation, that comes in two chapters: Document 1 and Document 2. Nothing authentic, yet genuinely realistic. Recorded in the global economy grasslands. On the fly and thoroughly planned. Netted by mindful observers, who respire the ambient noise for a better tomorrow, that might never come. Snow reaches out to the Tuatara, while in Berlin Spandau trains plow through the afternoon. Somebody comes home from a walk, engines squeal, tailpipes buzz in distance. Let’s fill up a glass of rum and toast on organ harmonics, sitting on a random platform at Tokyo’s Chōfu railway station, seduced by train announcements. Does a quiescent room breed noise? Analogue living in old towns, down there, where working on Sunday is the new Monday. At London’s Kingsland High Street religious rhythms cut the street noise. Nearby, in a local pub, a beer concert cheers millions. A Method To Exist, Malvern Brume, Susannah Stark, Jamie Burke, Laura Not, ML, Nika Son, Felix Kubin, or Red Brut, they all listened and absorbed. And many more too. How does the ambient sound to you? Never asked yourself this question? “Field Of Progress” hands out 28 ethnomusicological answers. They can polish the senses. For the fables of the environment. For the folklore of atmosphere. Bio music for data bodies. Wind and cars hum in harmony …

On his crazy solo debut album, Evol’s Roc hails Eurodance x happy hardcore x acid trance as mutant folk music with a 2 hour collection of live recordings, oddities and installation works directly inspired by the contemporary Catalan dance sound of Mákina - a massive tip if yr into Pastis & Buenri, Nana Makina, The New Monkey, Acid in the Style of Peter Beardsley…

Marking 25 years since Evol’s first record, ‘Principio’ (1999) for Mego, the prolific project’s main man, Roc Jiménez de Cisneros, deploys a distinctly personalised conception of Mákina from his Barcelona IP. After 10 years of adding to its special folder, Roc yields 28 psychoactive cuts marinaded in synthetic bath salts and sweat to wickedly skew the sound’s conventions - virulent 303 arpeggios, see-sawing melodies, and in-your-face beats - with the sort of playfully singular bloody-mindedness that has come to define his Evol works with Stephen Sharp and others. However, the sound here is distinguished by Roc’s personalised inflections and warped nuance that locates unique vitality in the viscera of Europe’s most maligned, but equally beloved, hard dance style.

Although technically rooted in the ‘90s megaclubs of Valencia, Mákina (machine) music also became native to its Catalan neighbours, including Roc, based further up the Spanish coast. And with thanks to a bunch of entrepreneurial Mackems who were bitten by the Makina buzz in the late ‘90s, it more unusually sparked a phenomenon in North East England and Scotland, where it alloyed with happy hardcore and rhythmelodic auction-style MCs to form a whole new offshoot in its own right, heard everywhere from the estates to notorious/legendary clubs such as The Blue Monkey/The New Monkey by Charvers trotting their Rockports off in a sword-dance style hyperfolk step. Roc’s ‘Makina Trax 2013-2023’ follows with a celebration of the sound’s role as regional rave soundtrack and folk signifier, paying no concession to “taste” or normality as he isolates, gurns and exaggerates Mákina’s features to a ludicrous yet immediately functional effect as divisive and energetic as marmite-flavoured wizz.

Pinging from gibber-jawed 303 graffiti to durational 14’+ screwball pounders, and even a killer old skool 808 electro variant (‘Makina Trax 22’), Roc really gets under the hood of this sound with results unmistakably comparable to the style and pattern fascinations of his Evol gear, yet surely tweaked out with a notably more live-wire, hands-on, accentuation. We hear it in the 50 seconds of anthemic fanfare to ‘Makina Trax 16’, the pitching, throaty yowl of ‘Makina Trax 03’, and in the scuttling briskness of ‘Makina Trax 04’, with particular standouts in the screwed, almost bloozy Makina sleaze of ‘Makina Trax 06’, the extreme flange of ‘Makina Trax 19’, and a 180bpm goblin bop ‘Makina Trax 28’. Basically some of the most potent tackle by one of the leading rave experimenters of his generation, whose uncompromising, brilliant work links everyone from the dearly departed Peter Rehberg to Florian Hecker, Mark Fell, to Lorenzo Senni.

Aweee the radgies, pasty droppers and pooter hooligans; it’s your time.

Cold neon lights. Dreamy sounds. Pure, hypnotic visuals. Welcome to the brand new, mesmerising universe of synthwave - unlike one you've seen before, where the future is in the past, and the past in the future. If you’re looking for alternative background music to accompany your work/study/chill sessions, you’ve arrived at the right destination. Hazy resonances, lush synth pads and electronic drums with gated reverb will have you gliding through outer space, mixed with nostalgic reverberations reminiscent of the ‘80's - recharging your energy and creative inspiration upon returning to the present. There are mysterious faces to meet thrilling stories to be uncovered on the road ahead; but for now, let your thoughts drift to a place of pure focus and relaxation.

The Bless compilation series is our annual fundraiser to gather artists and beat makers together to raise money for the global community. Bless Volume 2 is a collection of 99 tracks from artists representing 25 different countries, the full album spans nearly 4 hours of incredible music! This year we wanted to do something special and curated a selection of tracks from the full album for this Limited Edition Double LP release.

100% of the proceeds from the sale ofBless Volume 2 will be donated to a variety of Micro Loan programs for Women, Sustainable Water and Agriculture projects, Refugees, Education, Health Care and the Arts. The funds from the Micro Loans are paid back over time and it’s our promise to the supporters of this album that we will perpetually reinvest those funds back into future Micro Loans. This way the funds can continue to support people who need it for many years ahead.

We present the third instalment of our mega compilation album, FUTURES Vol. 3, containing 46 artists with 44 tracks running in at 82 minutes. Fam unite on this ultra chill release, featuring the quality grooves of some lo-fi community favourites and some fresh faces to the scene.

This is one for the people, all the studio dwellers lighting up their SP's providing the soundtrack to the forever chill life.

Our most ambitious project to date, a massive compilation of talented young producers that are shaping the way forward. This release was conceptualized as a means to unite the music community together and be as inclusive as possible. An album by the people, for the people. With over an hour and a half worth of music you can sit back and vibe to this tape all day!

Cass (90) Ukrainian/Estonian archival label Shukai extend unmissable introductions to Valentina Goncharova's incredibly free synthesis of electro-acoustic, noise and new age tropes in a frankly jaw-dropping first compendium of her work -highly recommended to disciples of Pauline Oliveros, Deathprod, Daphne Oram, Michael Ranta, Keiji Haino

A beautiful and distorted dream of drum samples, jazz, swing, noise and bliss by Harsh Noise giant, Masami Akita (Merzbow), remastered for the first time since its original release in 2002. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of this incredible albu we are doing a limited second edition, gatefold, vinyl pressing on white/ pink colored vinyl limited to 300 copies worldwide. It includes updated artwork by the artist. Consider by many a landmark album and a turning point in Merzbow’s discography, Merzbeat serves as a powerful introduction to the world of experimental music.

DJ Fusiller plumbs the depths of the french avant garde with a mad double tape of dream-woven collage and original material, where the binds of sur/reality get deeply frayed - a strong Riyl Luc Ferrari, Ghédalia Tazartès, Oï les Ox, ÉLG, Bzmc, Dominique Lawalrée

Sister in spirit and scope to the mind-bending mixtape ’Sacrilège Vénération Vol.1’ (2020), this ‘DJ Fusiller vs Fusiller’ double tape clasps the aspects of Jo Tanz’ practice as DJ and musician (with the likes of Reines D’Angleterre and Opéra Mort) in a properly mystifying session of psychedelic storytelling.

The session spreads across 66 minutes of enchanting, glued-together concrète ephemera and wigged-out original material that possesses similarly bewitching, bezzzzonkkkked qualities primed for intrepid listeners. They hail an unmistakeable sense of authority to his mixtapes while betraying a background steeped in the contemporary avant alongside fellow visionaries Ghédalia Tazartès & ÉLG, both carrying a torch of inspiration from classic french philosophy and mindsets that’s long expressed itself thru France’s interrelated, syncretised frameworks of art, literature, film, and music.

On the first tape "Les Prières Liquides" features Fusiller with 30 mins of original music flowing deep into the tenderised subconscious thru its matrix of synth textures and spangled electro-acoustic wizardry. In 10 parts he probes and torments finer integers of emotion, fleeting from horror score organ soused in salty noise to passages of bittersweet noise and rapid ear/eye movements that jog the memory’s nether regions in a persistent flux of wonder. We wager that a dose of your preferred HD goggles will enhance the effect, but are not necessary to get right inside the work, which keenly projects and imprints itself on the fantasy mindset.

The second tape is the 5th volume of DJ Fusiller’s french-music-only mixtape series, here deploying a reverie of allusive sonic signposts that act as an ideal counterpart for the album. Via avant cinematic jump cuts from field recordings to cosmic noise, mythologic alpine sirens and voice-in-your-head intimations, he conjures impossible leaps of the imagination that recall the poetry of Luc Ferrari as much as Trevor Duncan’s ‘La Jetée’ soundtrack in his beguiling, non-linear logic and lushly immersive scene-setting for what’s to come.

super rar limited Tape release from Hollands Dance Drugstore crew! Acid live forever baby!

In tribute and honor to Cesar Alexandre AKA Lindsheaven Virtual Plaza, Mount Shrine, Slow Midnight, and more. Forever a shining light and inspiration in music and vaporwave. All songs are newly created or selected tracks by each artist to celebrate Cesar, his life, and his passion for music. Rest in Peace Cesar

Hand-numbered edition, 250 copies signed by Wolfgang Müller, with download code.

Die Tödliche Doris were always an outlier, a performance art / music project that originally surfaced in early 80s Berlin, on the outer reaches of the post punk / new wave scene that included acts like Einstuzende Neubauten (Collapsing New Buildings) and Deutsch Amerikanische Freundschaft.

Inspired by post-structuralism and modern / post-modern philosophers, they deconstructed the accepted popular format of both the mainstream and the underground with their second release, "Chöre & Soli". To confound the vinyl obsessives of the day, what appeared to be an LP box-set, in fact contained eight tiny plastic toy-records, with their own player. Each disc contained 20 seconds of low grade sound. "We want to become the most independent band of all independent bands–even independent from a usual record player." Wolfgang Müller stated "But also independent from music reviews and critics, which want to put you in her sound- and identity-system."

Kashual Plastik take up Müller's dogma and re-present it for our times, where these issues seem only more compounded. Once again to flummox their audience, old and new, the tape comes as a kit of separate parts with assembly tool - a mini screwdriver. You can listen with the download code as you work. Now that's what I call outsourcing.

The Kashual Plastik tape, digitally enhanced, features contemporary producers including, among others: Aaron Dilloway, Brandstifter, T.V.S.T., Hugo Capablanca, ML, Beau Wanzer, Nika Son, Laura Not, or Saskia Lavaux. They followed a call from the modern-day social network spheres, where Die Tödliche Doris asked the world to reshuffle some old original tape recordings. Out of the millions of submissions, Doris selected works that together shape the Doris of today for a brief moment of time.