Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 92 Items

A 12" outing for the Ø:'s excellent Fermionit + the unreleased Kulmamomentti coming in the form of edits from members of the sähkö recordings crew (Kaukolampi & Jimi Tenor). Huge Tip!

Mika Vainio was recording a new Ø-album since 2014. He almost got it ready before his too early passing in 2017. Mika's girlfriend Rikke Lundgreen from Oslo has been going through Mika's notes, numerous versions and takes of the album tracks. Now the collection of the tracks is completed, there were two tracks that Mika thought should not be included the album. They make this release. The shoter track Kulmamomentti is edited slightly longer by Jimi Tenor and Timo Kaukolampi.

Track order on pressing (side A) swapped

The "Sula Bassana" project marks the fusion of two distinct but complementary musical worlds: that of 20syl, electro-hip hop producer and DJ, and that of Christophe Panzani, versatile jazz musician. The album is an ode to contemplation, an immobile voyage embodied by the Gannet, the symbol of their creativity as they fly across styles and soundscapes.

The duo affirm their complicity with the eponymous track "Sula Bassana", where 20syl's sophisticated electro production blends with Christophe Panzani's melodious instruments. The track was accompanied on its release by a remarkable interactive video that poetically retraces the journey of a gannet.

The album also features a number of enriching collaborations. On "Dreams", they invite Yael Naim with her haunting voice and poignant harmonies. "Nuevo Mundo" invites La Chica to take us into a vibrant and eclectic atmosphere, fusing electro rhythms with Latin influences. Finally, "Playtime" features jazz pianist Eric Legnini, whose subtle chords and virtuoso improvisation infuse the album with a refined energy.

"Sula Bassana" is a space where the duo asserts itself with confidence, a rich and varied musical exploration, transcending the boundaries of genres to offer a unique and captivating sonic experience.

Unstoppable elders of the L'Entourloop collective, King James and Sir Johnny, are proud to present on June 10, 2022 their long-awaited third and new album entitled "Clarity in Confusion". Featuring Alborosie, Promoe, Degiheugi, General Levy, The Architect ...

It is now official, 2022 will mark the return of the tireless seniors of the collective L'ENTOURLOOP! After a break to devote themselves to the creation of a new album and a new live show that promises to be exceptional, they are back on the road, more determined than ever!
The success of their last albums "Chickens in Your Town" (2015) and "Le Savoir-Faire" (2017), with their unique "Banging hip-hop inna Yardie Style" never cease to seduce sound-system, vinyl and French classics fans, all over the world.

Repress

Themed around events in nthng's life, Unfinished is a deeply personal journey, yet there's something very relatable to the world he has conjured. Lockdown has forced us to look inward, explore realities within ourselves and the fragility of our forgotten world. The album is a series of peaks and troughs - hopeful words, ominous tones and other-worldly soundscapes, giving way to a journey in no way linear - but a true reflection of our times.

The title track sets the scene perfectly, while Son features deep bass notes, dreamy keys and spoken word - creating a visceral and unsettling scene. Subnautica resides in the fringes of ambient and techno - as tribalistic drums are suspended in our new rendered reality.

The marching bass and howling synths of Wrath of the Demon lull conspicuously in a vacuum, while the hauntingly beautiful vocals featured on Disappeared But Not Forgotten evoke a poignant, powerful reaction across the record's B-side - "Everything stopped, you just disappeared..."

At its most tranquil Our Time offers a sense of rest - a space to appreciate, as we leave the window open, peer outside and feel the gentle breeze brush across our face. Saafe continues this theme, and feels like a warm embrace - "She saved my life in a matter of speaking, when she gave me back the power to believe."

Ending Theme is beautifully organic as you hear the sound of the piano pedal touch the floor, tones are introspective and vulnerable - while the looming presence of uncertainty subtly takes form in thinly layered pads.

The album also sees the release of a digi only bonus track Only a Flash of Light and invites you outside while the stars are at their brightest.

The relationship between Bryn Jones’ music as Muslimgauze and the track/abum titles he would provide (sometimes right on the tapes he would send in for release, but often determined later, sometimes even giving two different pieces months apart the same title, accidentally or not) has always been a little mysterious. Jones himself can no longer be asked, and as we continue to investigate the swathes of material he provided, you hit sources like the DAT or DATs that make up the contents of the new double LP »Turn On Arab American Radio«. Nine tracks, the first LP/four tracks titled »Turn On Arabic American Radio,« and the other LP/five tracks labelled only »Arabic American Radio.« None of them sound particularly radio-esque, although given the simultaneous vastness and ornate focus of Jones’ Muslimgauze work that gap between name and sound is far from atypical.

Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti have worked together on a powerful hybrid album, where taut rhythms fuse with haunted vocal melodies and spoken word, and field recordings meld with extended ambient pieces. As part of Umor Rex’s 15th anniversary, we here present an album that builds a dialogue between two lands and two unique artists. Mexico is the origin and conceptual residence of our label, while Germany is where we produce and manufacture our records (Berlin functions as the center of distribution and logistics, thanks to our friends at Morr Music). The intertwining imaginations belong to German producer Gudrun Gut (Malaria!) —a notable figure of the subculture and the German music scene since the early 80s, and also a founder of Monika Enterprise and recipient of the ‘Listen to Berlin’ Award in 2019— and singer, multi-instrumentalist and composer Mabe Fratti (originally from Guatemala, now based in Mexico City). We knew about "Let's Talk About The Weather" from the beginning, and since the moment Gudrun and Mabe made us part of their project, our excitement could not be greater. The process started with Gudrun and Mabe having long distance conversations, asking about their whereabouts and discussing the weather. This might seem rather commonplace, but it works as a key thematic component for the entire album. The weather as the new great unknown, perceived through the optics of everyday life. Sound files were methodically exchanged, with Mabe exploring words and vocals, and Gudrun working with field recordings taken from each city. In the end, this joint musical venture would provide a healing effect for both artists during life in quarantine. "Aufregend", the opening track of the album, reflects upon a general lack of excitement in modern life. It wonders what the future might hold. Is it cold? Is it warm? Will it be the same? "Air Condition" is an eerie, dazzling collision of climates: the hazy warmth of Mexico City, the deep cold of Uckermark. The last track, which gives the album its name, is a long ambient piece composed of four parts: sound sculptures, field recordings of city life, news and weather forecasts, and private conversations about the climate. It's kind of a collaborative diary, obsessed with a single, all-encompassing subject. Produced and recorded by Gudrun Gut and Mabe Fratti between Berlin, Uckermark, Veracruz and Mexico City. Mixed by GGut at Stern Studio Mastered by John Tejada in Sherman Oaks, USA. Artwork & photos by Daniel Castrejón in Mexico City.

A decade after releasing their debut EP through Planet Mu's Timesig imprint, Speed Dealer Moms—a collaborative electronic music project with a fluid line-up commonly made up of Aaron Funk, John Frusciante and Chris McDonald—are set to make their long-awaited return this summer with a new offering entitled Sdm-la8-441-114-211. The 3-track EP, arriving June 11 through Evar Records, offers a glimpse into the treasure trove of Speed Dealer Moms' unreleased material, with each song title alluding to the date in which it was recorded and in how many takes.

Over the years, Speed Dealer Moms have considered various ideas on how to release more of their unorthodox recordings in unconventional ways, with their latest to arrive in the format of a limited edition vinyl pressing. Although a lot has changed since first sharing their intricate creations with the world in 2010, Speed Dealer Moms have routinely gotten together whenever schedules and circumstances allowed, picking up wherever they last left off creatively and adding to their growing archive of recordings. While there are plenty of reminders that time is both irrelevant and an illusion—especially in the fickle music business where trends are fleeting—the chemistry these collaborators exhibit in the studio has no expiration date, offering a purity in approach that reflects the cherished importance of creating in the moment and subsequently celebrating timeless music.

During the writing process, which includes in-depth discussions and days of programming, Speed Dealer Moms record live to stereo with no overdubs or edits, improvising arrangements that often feel composed. In the same spirit of prodigal IDM acts such as Autechre and Luke Vibert, each Speed Dealer Moms session pushes the limits of what an arsenal of modular synthesizers and other machines are capable of, creating tracks that are driven by mathematics, mechanical understanding and musical spontaneity alike. As exemplified by their forthcoming Evar release, each recorded session captures an undeniable magic that is both distinctive and hard to describe, creating a listening experience that transcends genre lines and sonic boundaries.

Biosphere is the main recording name of Geir Jenssen, a Norwegian musician who has released a notable catalogue of ambient electronic music. He is well known for his works on ambient techno and arctic themed pieces, his use of music loops, and peculiar samples from sci-fi sources. His 1997 album Substrata was voted by the users of the Hyperreal website in 2001 as the best all-time classic ambient album.

The Petrified Forest mini-album is inspired by the movie of the same name, released in 1936 and directed by Archie Mayo.

Buttering Trio, founded in 2010, consists of KerenDun on vocals and tenor saxophone, Rejoicer on loops and synths and Beno Hendler on bass. All three band members are also producers, mostly active between Tel Aviv and Berlin. Combining colourful studio productions with sweet yet poignant lyrics, the trio rearranges the definition of beat making, mixing up all genres.

The new album 'Threesome' was recorded in three different studios in three different cities - London, Berlin and Tel Aviv, during 2015 and 2016. It is the band's 3rd LP released on Raw Tapes Records (not including their 1st EP 'Party Bear').

Electronic musician Ryan West's latest release as Rival Consoles has a level of warmth and humanity missing from his earlier records. This is his most expressive and emotional music yet. - pitchfork.com

Highly anticipated follow up LP to her two EPs! Janet Jackson meets The XX meets Massive Attack.

Furthering the passionate exploration of cinema that has guided her two previous LPs the Milanese guitarist/composer, Alessandra Novaga, returns with two sides off shimmering, tense compositions – culminating as one of her most creatively ambitious and conceptually rich outings to date – freely inspired by the life and work of Andrej Tarkovsky and Johann Sebastian Bach. Over the last decade Alessandra Novaga has emerged as one of the leading figures within northern Italy’s thriving new, experimental, and improvised music scene

On The Sport of Love, seasoned collaborators Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga and Tapiwa Svosve consider the language, competition and contradiction of modern romance: its yearning, incomprehensible vastness and the inevitable darkness and fleeting fragility. For the trio, love is the emotion that propels all of us whether we acknowledge it or not, and its expression can be realized in many forms.

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

This debut full-length album by Stockholm-based composer and electroacoustic experimentalist Theodor Kentros, could easily be interpreted as 'just' an assemblage of pieces written between 2021-2024. Named after the paranoid hallucination (or, if said hallucination is real, the underground secret mail system) figuring in the 1966 Thomas Pynchon novel ‘The Crying of Lot 49’, it should rather be perceived as a very distinct, coherent stream running through his output during these years.

The six tracks – ranging in sound and disposition from serialised organ drones constructed to reach screeching and beautiful culminations, to minimalist, repetitive studies in tape loops and string synthesis – were composed and recorded in Stockholm and Visby at different occasions during down-time from his many other projects, which include a myriad of other commissions, co-running labels XKatedral and Kalkatraz Cassettes and touring with punk groups and solo shows.

Brainticket was an obscure Krautrock band born out of a 60's jazz group featuring Belgian born keyboardist Joel Vandroogenbroeck, based in Switzerland. The leader went for a fortunate solo career after the former group disbanded, reaching a cult status especially in Italy with a series of sought after libraries. Released in 1978 on Cenacolo, Images Of Flute In Nature is pure magic translated in music. Conceived by Joel with a little help from vocalist Carole Muriel (an American performer already involved in Brainticket and Drum Circus), the album is literally a deep connection between kosmische music, ambient and ethno-global rhythms.

With 'Parallel Light', AndrewWasylyk offers an alternative mix album to 2020's spiritual-jazz and neo-classical masterclass in melody, 'Fugitive Light And Themes Of Consolation'. This new LP, his third with Athens Of North Records, is as much a different perspective as a companion piece.

The ten songs still circle landscapes for meaning, channelling half-heard melodies and misremembered memories; caught somewhere between settling down and setting out towards the shining levels of the estuary and beyond. Each magnifying the bold, expansive arrangements of Fl&toc with layers are lifted and peeled away.

The soft-focus glow of gently pressed piano keys, the well and wash of strings and brass remain, but the deduction of instrumentation serves to highlight the ornate and offers comfort with this new found space. In the warmth reshaped, a romanticism illuminated.

At the essence of these reframed compositions Wasylyk's blue and gold, mellifluous refrains prevail. It's a seamless, sublime flow from a restless artists and an album quietly reawakened.

In celebration of the label's 15th year anniversary Sacred Bones is repressing this second collaborative album on new silver Color Vinyl. Comprised of an amalgam of abrasive influence that spans Swans-y dirge and purge, Whitehouse's clenched-jaw noise, middle-period Ministry's penchant for metallic post-industrial everything, New Order's nose for melodic emotionality, and Juicy J-inspired beats, Uniform & The Body's approach delves deeper down the rabbit hole than before, igniting a sonic world of terror and bliss poised to grip the throats of fans yet again. Much like the collective's bombastic debut, the second album was built over a series of collaborative sessions with Seth Manchester at Machines with Magnets in Rhode Island, mixing industrial-influenced synths, squalls of harsh noise, manipulated guitar, oodles of samples along with hard rock-inspired riffs, saccharine pop, and the alternately antagonistic and harrowing vocals of Michael Berdan and Chip King. The result is nine tracks of ear-bleeding and confrontational fury with defined moments of beauty that bring to mind equal parts No Trend, Merzbow, and Information Society while forging a path that is distinctly their own.

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.

The musical vortexes of Caterina Barbieri rewire time and space. Listening to the Italian composer and modular synth virtuoso has felt like traveling at light-speed and slow-motion all at once since 2017's breakthrough double-album Patterns Of Consciousness. 2019's acclaimed Ecstatic Computation pushed even further with the lead single "Fantas", where a haunting melody hurtling towards its supernova climax felt like witnessing the life and death of a burning star. Far beyond any new age trope or modern synth trend, her music stands alone in its ecstatic intensity and cataclysmic emotional impact. Marking the debut album on her new label light-years, Barbieri now delivers her most profound work yet - a journey through inner-space as vast as a universe and as intimate as a heartbeat. The Spirit Exit opens and we fall in.

'You Are Eternity' is the third album to be released on Stroboscopic Artefacts and comes from two of the minds who have shaped the label since its earliest days: Dadub. Recorded over a period of two years, but containing fragments and ideas that stretch back a decade 'You Are Eternity' has been mixed together to form a continuous piece rather than twelve discreet tracks. The effect? An immersive journey that encompasses the descriptors brutal, ferocious, ambient and aqueous.

Faitiche presents, for the first time on vinyl, a selection from the 84-track (!!) remix project originally released in 2013 as a three-tape set by Trip Shrubb aka kptmichigan aka Michael Beckett. Known to many from bands like Tuesday Weld or The Schneider TM Experience, Beckett remixed his way through Harry Smith’s famous Anthology of American Folk Music – a compilation of American folk, blues and country recordings released in 1952, soon to become key point of reference for the emerging folk revival movement. Having translated the title into the local dialect of the part of Germany where he lives, Beckett began reinterpreting all of its 84 tracks using sampler, effect pedals and loops – sometimes making several tracks in a single day. A colossal undertaking whose results are beyond accomplished and that is summed up in the selection of thirteen tracks on 'Trewwer, Leud un Danz'.

Murray Royston-Ward writes about 'Trewwer, Leud un Danz':

"Total sacrilege ... A collection of remixes of tracks from Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music which was originally released in its entirety. The album is titled Trewwer, Leud un Danz (sorrow, song and dance) which is drawn from an endangered ‘Low German’ dialect (lippisch Platt) and is poetically approximating Smith’s volumes Ballads, Social Music and Songs.

The hardware employed encompasses analogue, virtual analogue and digital. A primordial soup of electrical fields, striated granulation, micro-circuitry, molecular oscillations and mathematical manipulation; communicating directly with the guitars, zithers, mountain dulcimers, fiddles, jaw harps, banjos, harmonicas and human voices of 1930’s America: itself a reterritorialization of African and European folk traditions that reach back farther and farther into our collective pasts. (…)"

Following the release of 'The Weight Of The Sun' LP, Modern Studies shift from light to dark over two new EPs brought together as six track 12-inch 'Life Flows In Endless Song / The Body Is A Tide', a record that further cements their reputation for innovative craftsmanship.

'Life Flows In Endless Song' showcases the band's increasingly expansive sound, swelling with orchestrated drama behind the rich vocal pairing of Emily Scott and Rob St John, before their otherworldly dreaminess is pin-pricked at its height by Emily's beautiful alto on 'The Failing Light'.

'The Body Is A Tide' hails from ominous darker terrains, scratching further into their own psyche; it's heady and baroque, ornate and super-detailed, an opus that climaxes with 'High Hymn Summers' and its slowly-rolling drone, created by processing all the songs from 'The Weight of the Sun' played at once.

"The EP nods at the idea of our collective bodies weathering rough times, played out with massed strings, prepared guitars, slow bass grooves, hypnotic drums, wobbling saw, xaphoon and mellotron.

We shook off our usual song structures in favour of something repetitive, slow and heavy; life flows in endless song." Modern Studies // "Utterly enchanting." Mojo magazine // "Modern Studies make mood music of the highest order, drawing on the members' collective experience in the folk, pop and improvisational realms." The Scotsman // "There's a charm within Modern Studies' DNA which makes them, without fanfare or clamour, one of today's most mesmerising outfits." Prog magazine // "Melancholic magic." Uncut magazine // Track List Side A - Life Flows in Endless Song EP A1 - Endless Song A2 - Slow, then Sudden A3 - The Failing Light Side B - The Body is a Tide EP B1 - The Body is a Tide B2 - The Naked Eye B3 - High Hymn Summers

In the afterglow of her acclaimed 2020 album Silver Ladders, Los Angeles-based harpist Mary Lattimore returns with a culminating counterpart release, Collected Pieces: 2015- 2020. The limited-edition LP features new and previously unreleased material, Bandcamp-only singles, and other obscurities alongside standouts from her 2017 tape Collected Pieces. Beyond the vinyl compendium, an expanded tracklist on the cassette/digital version brings more of Lattimore's archives together for the first time. Lattimore has described the process of arranging these releases as akin to "opening a box filled with memories," and here that box continues to populate, accessible for both the artist and fans. Evocative material separated by years, framed as a portrait of an instrumental storyteller who rarely pauses, recording and often sharing music as soon as it strikes her. Seemingly in constant forward motion for the last five years since her Ghostly debut, Lattimore glances back for a breath, inviting new chances to live in these fleeting moments and emotions; all the beauty, sorrow, sunshine, and darkness housed within. A trove of pieces are collected here, most recorded in the moment, just Lattimore and her Lyon and Healy Concert Grand Harp, contact mics, and pedals. Like her most affecting work, these songs showcase Lattimore's gifts as an observer, able to shape her craft around emotional frequencies and scenes. Her power as a musician is rooted in how she sees the world: in vivid detail, profoundly empathic, with deep gratitude for nature and nuance.

We Jazz Records is delighted to share the first edition of our new series of reworks with you . Our aim is to invite some of our favourite artists to take a fresh look at our album releases with the interval of 10 full length album releases. In other words, the invited artist has complete freedom to choose (or not to choose) any sample material from their allocated range of ten We Jazz Records albums, and there are no artistic boundaries of what they should do with the material. Each artist will then create a new musical piece based on the sample material and whatever instrumentation they wish to add to it.

As our first guest, we have the great Finnish producer Timo Kaukolampi who goes by his last name only when creating deep and mobile soundscapes, that never fail to evoke emotions and thoughts in the listener. We have long been fans of his work, released under Kaukolampi, Kaukolampi & Puranen (a duo with Tuomo Puranen), and on the vast discography of kraut-informed space rockers K-X-P.

As this is the first of our new series, Kaukolampi's task at hand is to dive deep into the first 10 We Jazz LPs, ranging from WJLP01 Bowman Trio released in 2016 to the 2018 release WJLP10 Alder Ego "II".

With the initial edition of any series comes the freedom and necessity of defining a new direction. We trusted Kaukolampi would be the right person to show us what the idea will be, and we were right. He premiered this piece at the We Jazz Festival back in 2018 and developed his ideas further during several studio sessions later on. The finished product opens things up with a bang and shows the value in going deep. Kaukolampi manages to distill new music from the source material, twisted and strecthed into dimensions beyond what is usually there. "Ambient Dub"? Perhaps at times. "Drone"? Maybe also. And then some.

To complete the idea, we invited the visionary graphic designer (and K-X-P drummer) Tomi Leppänen to "rework" the graphics of the source albums to construct the base of the design, which you see envelop the LP sleeve.

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

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

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

Medieval Femme, Fatima Al Qadiri's new ten track suite inspired by the classical poems of Arab women, invokes a daydream through the metaphor of an Islamic garden, at the border between depression and desire, where the present temporarily dissolves, leaving only past and future. Mixing neon drones and the faint outlines of Arabesque melody, `Medieval Femme' reveals a fully-realised, dreamlike setting, shaded with colour and subtle friction. Conveying a thematic state of melancholic longing, Fatima seeks to transport the listener to a place of reverie and desolation, to question the line between two seemingly opposite states and rejoice in celestial sorrow. `Medieval Femme' takes instrumentation from music of the Middle Ages, recast in a futuristic setting; soft-synth lutes, organs and pipes reverberate in space while gauzy pulses ripple in response. Fatima's vocals of repeated, mantra-like phrases are sometimes pitched and altered, drawing out increasingly intense peaks, angelic choruses and yearning incantations. On `Tasakuba', Kaltham Jassim's recitation of a couplet from the 7th century poet Al-Khansa', the sorrow of her words are given a turbulent, hallucinatory setting, before the album resolves on the final song, the limpid, airy `Zandaq'.

2018 Repress limited to 500 copies in gatefold sleeve.

Patterns Of Consciousness is the powerful second full length from analog synth composer Caterina Barbieri. Highly recommended to fans of Alessandro Cortini and Eleh; Barbieri can be seen/heard/felt live at major electronic music events across Europe and beyond.

black flood print inside. synthwave

Don't be mislead from the name, the enigmatic M. Zalla, is one of the numerous alter ego of the italian maestro Piero Umiliani. Umiliani, during his period of fascination for psychedelic and electronic atmospheres, starts to compose a good number of musical portraits dedicated, as the title reveals, to the problems of his time. We are at the beginning of '70 and italians are worried by mafia, terrorism and social conflicts: so it has sense that the music choosen to represent this anxious problems has a sperimental nature; dark and disturbing a sort of unicum in the long and extremly productive Umiliani career.And if, in 2015, titles as “Mondo in Crisi”, “Problemi Sociali”, “Azione Sindacale” and “Mafia Oggi” sounds still sadly actual, it's even more surprising find that the music of “Problemi d'Oggi” (Today Problems) is projected on the future, sounding still alien and uniques.
The record presents various styles: from Pink Floyd atmospheres (or Braen's Machine if you prefer...) to compositions characterized by a great use of drum machines and synthetizer (MOOG and Sinthy). We just have to listen the begginning of the opening track “Produzione” to give sense to the words of Sean Canty (Demdike Stare) that defines the music the first techno/trance track of the history; but between the grooves of this vinyl it's easy to find intuitions that many other artist and musicians – from Residents to Aphex Twin and Four Tet – will be able to catch during their carrers.

Heavyweight soul providers Fat Freddy’s Drop are about to take flight once again with the worldwide release of new album Blackbird!

Ever-evolving the mythologies and magic of Dialect's sonic sphere, Andrew PM Hunt returns with Atlas of Green, elegantly molding unexacting details of memory and mistranslation into the framework of the British musician and composer's creative pursuit. The album imagines a young musician named Green working in a future dawning era where lost signals and enduring impulses are unearthed from the sediments of technology and time. Across twelve compositions, Green becomes the compass in an epoch of transition; one shaded with pastoral patinas and studded with the fragments of allegorical ruin. As tattered as it is tender, Atlas of Green is a patchwork of scavenged relics and bygone hues, cast through the iridescent shimmers of a mid-future in flux.Growing up on the Wirral Peninsula in North West England, Hunt was surrounded by stone age landmarks and rock carvings that infused the landscape with legend. It was beside those carvings on a residency at Bidston Artistic Research Center where he began the journey of Atlas of Green, experimenting with tape loops and exploring the center's library of sci-fi. Here Hunt also encountered the work of Italian philosopher Federico Campagna, a writer who believes we're at the end of our current world. This encouraged Hunt's exploration of how the fabric and fantasies of our current era might endure into the future of Green, as they try to make sense of the riddles of the past, utilizing broken electronics and simple acoustic instruments to create new mythic forms.This question of endurance led Hunt to inscribe Atlas of Green with its own lucid markings - sometimes almost anthemic adornments - which unfurl through the album's melancholic air as possible new metaphors for how the human spirit might persist through dark days and regain lost wisdom. As Hunt reflects, "We're not just on an endless procession through constantly better worlds. Our lack of action (on climate and inequality) feels hopeless at times. I find some comfort in the idea that maybe the world needs a new so...

"Té De Flores Silvestres" is the result of the dialogue between the Belgium photographer Michael Roemers and the Argentinian musician Federico Durand initiated by Iikki, between February 2023 and May 2024.

Federico Durand’s music is a weave of sound searching introspection and delight through simple melodies, made in the heart of Argentina. Federico likes music, gardens, John Keats’ poetry, collecting stamps and Earl Grey tea. Since 2010 he has been released on some labels such as 12k, Home Normal, Iikki, Spekk, White Paddy Mountain, Laaps and more.

Michael Roemers, a child of the borders, was born in 1987 in the Belgian village of Plombières, studying sound at the Institute of Broadcasting Arts in 2008. He discovered the power of the image, and became passionate about photography. He began his photographic career following Belgian underground music bands as they toured Europe, capturing crazy moments on stage and backstage. Then, he decided to devote himself to a personal project, to capture his native Wallonie region, highlighting the richness and a part of these Belgian traditions region while exploring the themes of identity, memory and membership. Since 2021, Michael Roemers has added a new string to his bow by running the Vice Versa podcast with his partner Sébastien Van Malleghem. This podcast explores the themes of photography, art and culture by giving voice to renowned guests in these fields.

Originally from Malaga but a Berlin resident for the past 13 years, Carlo is thrilled to unveil his first album released under his own record label, Bisiesto. This label stands out for its unique approach, releasing just one album every four years on leap day, February 29th. In contrast to his previous style, this album blends all his musical influences into a unique mixtape of instrumentals.

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.

Svitlana Nianio has been active in the Ukrainian and Polish underground music scenes since the early '90's both as a solo artist and a prominent member of the now disbanded avant-rock outfit Cukor Bila Smert (Sugar White Death). Her music draws on aspects of modern composition and traditional Slavic music, with songs and experiments from that early period culminating in the 1999 album Kytytsi (Koka Records, Poland). Prior to that in 1995, Nianio recorded Lisova Kolekciya (Forest Collection) live in a simple home studio setting with Olexander Yurchenko and Konstantin Nazarenko.

Less indebted to folk tradition than Kytytsi, Lisova Kolekciya was performed using Casio keyboards, electronics, and voice, positioning itself more inline with Terry Riley's Shri Camel in its otherworldly reinterpretation of the ancient through modern means. Retaining aspects of traditional music in its use of spare instrumentation and haunting vocal melodies, this previously largely unknown album pushes at the edges of what folk music might be, resulting in music previously described as being "deeply rooted in primeval myths, creating a world of magic realism, in which the temporal dimension and the other world constantly move and permeate."

Issued by Skire officially for the first time in 2017, after an extremely limited private cassette edition handed out to friends in 1996 - where the recording was twinned with the album Znayesh Yak? Rozkazhi (Know How? Tell Me) - this second edition of Lisova Kolekciya comes packaged in a full colour offset printed sleeve featuring artwork by Svitlana Nianio and is limited to 300 copies.

Recorded in Kiev, Ukraine, 1995. Svitlana Nianio: Casio Mt-200, voice, texts. Olexander Yurchenko: Casio Ctk-200. Konstantin Nazarenko: recording engineer, sound effects. Digital master by Sean McCann, 2017. Artwork by Svitlana Nianio. Design by Andrew Chalk and Tom James Scott. Special thanks to Sergii Khotiachuk.

Penguin Cafe return with new album Rain Before Seven.. A sense of optimism infuses Penguin Cafe’s fifth studio album, not the braggadocious, overconfident kind, but more a blithe, self-effacing optimism in keeping with the national character. Even when all signs point to the contrary, it operates within the certainty that things are going to be alright. Probably.

First ever vinyl edition of the landmark 1980 cassette by synth wizard Don Slepian. Utilizing the fabled and notoriously complex Alles digital synthesizer at the Bell Laboratories scientific research center, Sea Of Bliss features two transcendent cascading sidelong tracks, to easily qualify as one of the ultimate pinnacles of the new age genre. Cut with care using the Direct Metal Mastering process, and featuring cover artwork by visionary artist Jonathan Meader.

First rising to global acclaim in the latter half of the dubstep era with 'Ruins Tape', veteran St. Petersburg producer Nocow has fluidly moved across styles in the years since. Moving in a new direction from 2017s 'Ledyanoy Album', which saw the producer channel 90s ambient techno/IDM for GOST ZVUK, these 17 new tracks, and collaborations for the label instead hone in on a vocal-heavy type of ghostly R&B. As an album, Odinocow carries hints of trance, house and polished electronica ('Blizhe') as well as raw broken beat hybrids ('Dengi Ne Sgorayut'), though the primary unifying factor is the voice.

The heavy use of autotune, downtempo arrangements and wistful, machine-distorted human emotion are referenced in the album's title, which translates roughly to lonely Nocow. Whilst past albums have oscillated between steady dance structures and more wildly experimental arrangements, there is a recurring theme of simplicity at play here. Nocow aims to craft memorable songs by harmonising over contrasting ambient soundscapes, from glacial to warm, through to trap/rnb and 4x4 dance-pop.

With such an emphasis on exploring his voice and his songwriting craft, Nocow injects a new level of soul and integrity to his already well-established productions. Odinocow is a departure from his past work in some ways, though is also an example of a musician striving to reflect their truest vision of the self. "By finding yourself, you become able to love yourself, and, as a result, the world. So the album is really about love."

Marcos Díaz has been part of Buenos Aires underground for many years, being in projects like Bosques and making solo music under the pseudonym Entidad Animada (animated entity). Under this project, Marcos has explored sounds that involve a mix of feedback/distortion through synthesizers, guitars and drum machines that hint at the influence of Stereolab, Spacemen 3, and mid-nineties shoegaze. However, there are also ambient soundscapes with a slight rubbed of the ritualistic psychedelia of the Popol Vuh. The display of colours in his music comes together in the midst of a playful, relaxed and optimistic environment that is simultaneously melancholic. Because of the nature of those pieces, but also because in Entidad Animada there is also space for collage sounds that blend randomly with textures of a primitive analog sound, which inevitably causes a paradox between what is alive and what is inert. And it is because Entidad Animada is precisely that, a spectrum or a vision, a ghost. And these sounds are proof of his existence.

Pruebas de existencia (proofs of existence) is a collection of recordings that Marcos has made in recent years and that we have selected for this album, his first work on Umor Rex. A couple of these pieces were only released digitally, while the others have been on ltd cassette editions through Fuego Amigo Discos in Argentina. Pruebas de existencia is an Umor Rex compilation and remastered edition.

Guitar, sampler, synthesizer, organ, bass, drums & electronic beats, vocals, recording and mixing by Entidad Animada in Buenos Aires. Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio, NY. Cover photography Natch Tablescape (1979) by Langdon Clay. Layout by Daniel Castrejón, Mexico City.

Kato Hideki's Statement: "The Walk is the first collaboration between me and my brother from another mother, Kramer. We started working together in the late summer in 2023, discussing the thematics and the sonic palette of the album. We shared strong connections with the writings by Robert Walser and Basho - both of them walked, dreamed, lived and died on the road. Ambient music was our natural plane for us to transduce the power of their literature into our music as signifiers. Neither of us imagined just to make 'another ambient record', nor a direct translation of their writings. My instinct was to use various modal colors with modulation - slow yet structured music that sounds deceivingly similar to ambient music. Kramer's genius was apparent to me: his ability to elaborate the music as a composer / musician with his keen ears; to frame the album conceptually, sonically and musically as a producer. What you hear in this album is a true collaboration between two artists who trusted each other to let the music transcend. Here you have it, enjoy YOUR walk - dream, live and die well!" Kato Hideki - Brooklyn, NY on April 3rd, 2024Kramer's Statement: "Sometime in the latter 20th Century, I became aware of the art of The Brothers Quay, two American animators living in London and making the most beautiful works of art I'd ever experienced in cinema. I noted that some of their work was inspired by_ 'the writings of Robert Walser'. Fast forward to 2024 and I have now read every word there was to read (translated into English) by this unique Swiss-German writer. I'd waited decades to find the right 'environment' in which to create music in dedication to this great prose writer and poet, and in 2023, I found that it was not 'the right environment' that I'd been waiting for, but rather, the right collaborator. Kato Hideki and his extraordinary work as composer for film, dance and just about every other creative discipline you can imagine, was equally as inspiring to me for this project as the words and worlds of Wa...

Vinyl is close to VG+.

Bridge was to be the Edinburgh-born Kieran Warren’s debut release circa 1994 on Metatone - a short-lived techno label by J. M. Adkins (Electro Music Union) and Damon D'Cruz (Jack Trax, Chill). As fate had it, Metatone folded before the album got printed, and the music was lost in time. That is, until Adkins tipped the Cold Blow boys off while they were working on his anthology, the 2019 double LP "Electro Music Union, Sinoesin & Xonox Works 1993-1994". Atonal’s Cithare EP last year was the world’s first glimpse at the fuzzy, warm techno archives of Kieran Warren. As a sequel, Cold Blow has restored and compiled their vision of the ‘94 “Bridge” while tapping into the same demo archives that were being scoured through by Metatone in their day. Essential for the fans of early Aphex Twin, the album moves between warm melodic techno cuts and nostalgic ambient pieces before reaching the grand finale of Arkanoids, an 8-minute ambient epic straight from the school of Selected Ambient Works 2.

Housed in full, cosmic artwork designed by Ed Cheverton. Mastered by Keith Tenniswood.

New York painter and musician exploratory industrialist Tor Lundvall initially envisioned his 14th album, Beautiful Illusions, as an entirely instrumental affair, "inspired by memories of sitting in a church or cathedral watching the shifting sunlight through stained glass." Although he ultimately chose to wreath the majority of the tracks with hushed, poetic vocals, his original muse still resonates. These are certainly songs of shadowplay and vaulted skies, the quiet grandeur of dusk deepening on the horizon. Lundvall characterizes the lyrical subject matter, too, in ways both specific and surreal, exploring "the doubts, the anxieties and even the bleak fantasies the mind spirals into during moments of isolation, separation and distance." Tricks of the eye, mind, and ear, magnified by silence and the looming long winter. Shivering pulses and muted bass lines tread the twilight while icicle synths and wiry guitar map the melody until the voice enters, narrating oblique moods of essence and absence, tenderness and truth. Glimpses of dark humor flicker in the wordplay but the greater sonic landscape is one of falling leaves and failing light, small gestures rendered as revelation, cloaked in reverb and spatial fog. Lundvall's mastery of nuance and negative space continues to heighten, whispered brushstrokes of the invisible and the unsaid, what lies beneath and what lies beyond: "Behind the shields and false fronts is usually a sadness. The heartbreaking reflections of what might have been."

Beyond the Cycle', is the first LP of Sunhiilow, also known as Valerie Magisson, a french musician who is living in Finland. The tracks were recorded with a warm sounding synth, Moog Mother-32. 'Beyond the Cycle' is an ethereal ambient music, following the earlier album ‘Whispers of a Dream Wind’, which was her first step into the analog synth music. Sunhiilow has learned how to catch the emotions and transpose it through the music. The artworks on the sleeve are also made by her.

Producer, songwriter and director Sevdaliza releases her highly anticipated sophomore album 'Shabrang' in 2020. Produced entirely by herself together with long-time collaborator Mucky, the 14-track album is the long awaited follow-up to the 2017 debut album 'ISON'. In just a few years Sevdaliza established herself as an iconic, highly creative, versatile and independent artist who has landed on many celebrity moodboards. Her stunning visual for HUMAN of her debut album ISON has collected over 25 million YouTube views to date and masterpiece Shahmaran about mental slavery, won 2 UK Music Video Awards. Sevdaliza toured 35 countries in the last 2 years and amassed thousands of fans globally (Spotify 200,000, Youtube, 300,000, IG 230,000). In 2020 Sevdaliza returns with her follow up album 'Shabrang'. The word 'Shabrang' is mentioned In Persian mythology, although there is no direct translation to capture it's essence, the Farsi phrase Shabrang literally translates to colour-palette of the night. This 'palette' is visualised in the tones in Sevdaliza's black eye on the album cover. The black eye represents the years of physical and emotional turbulence. In Sevdaliza's words 'This album represents to me that the essence of it all to me is love. It is a deep letter to myself, my own bible I have to write in order to trust and believe in life. Trust in myself and my character as a human being'. Born in Iran and residing in the Netherlands, Sevdaliza has been a strong independent force in the creation of her art. She is a producer and engineer, an independent art director with critical eye for detail and storytelling and a unique songwriter. Her music has been described as 'genre-bending', drawing on various genres including alternative electronic, indie, triphop, alternative R&B and the avant-garde. 'Shabrang' is available on grey vinyl and the package contains a large poster and photograph ID-sheet.

Numbered edition of 60 copies.

Following her debut LP (kraak, 2018) and a string of tapes and 7-inches, Red Brut drops her second album, Cloaked Travels. It is a joined release by the Finnish labels Ikuisuus and Lal Lal Lal. In many aspects, Cloaked Travels is an amazing realisation of what Red Brut does best: molding the absurd, the amateurish, and the crude into beautiful and elegant sound pieces. These eight “songs”, organised in two suites, dwell between abstract avant-garde and pop sensibility. Working with cassette tapes, Red Brut enhances the ambiguous qualities of her sounds with the warm distortion and background hiss typical of the medium. The music leaves the listener to him- or herself, happily lost in small universes that contain many layers of beauty, discomfort, and intimacy. Susan Sontag once claimed that diaries, despite secretly kept by the author, are meant to be read by others. Red Brut’s intimate and highly personal take on musique concrète is characterised by a homely feeling: sounds of doors, kids outside her house, a synth that sounds like a house pet, muffled whispers of her voice. Her compositions sound like you are secretly reading her diary. You are in the uncomfortable position of watching someone chasing her own tail, unaware of the fact that she is being the object of our gaze. Unaware? Cloaked Travels displays on a certain point the sound of a squeaking door. Over and over until it starts sounding like a wild free jazz solo. Is Verbiesen playing tricks on our minds? Is she actually the Unconsciously Watched? Or is she cloaked as that character, and in fact very well aware that we are peeping into her inner emotional universe; maybe she is even projecting a fake version of what sounds like here day-to-day, intimate environment — making us conscious of our own gaze? Again Sontag comes to mind: she deliberately projected a well-constructed character in both her diaries as in public life. Cloaked Travels contains distinct and carefully composed pieces that play upon the tension between the concrete and the abstract. Every song acts like a Cave of Plato: we are unable to see what is actually happening, we only see the shadows of a door moving or the sounds of someone gurgling. The album suggests some fundamental questions: is what we conceive as reality nothing but a derivative of the Ideal? Is there really something behind the shadow, or is the shadow the actual reality?

Sleeve has minimal creases.

close to NM

Originally released on cassette by Corpus Hermeticum (Hermes003), 1994. All sounds by Alastair Galbraith and Bruce Russell.
"New Zealand is on summer holidays all through the month of January. For some reason I had the house to myself, the wife and kids were elsewhere. Alastair Galbraith brought over some instruments and we plugged in a cassette recorder. We spent the sunny afternoon setting up combinations of instruments and seeing what happened.
We had recorded the Concord LP the year before and done two gigs at the Empire tavern that became The Philosophick Mercury. The idea of Dust was taking shape through experimental practice. Some of it worked better than other bits, but it all made sense as a collage of sound, pointing in the direction of freedom. Our collective practice was making leaps and bounds; and starting to get heard abroad. In Australia the young Jon Dale was listening:
'The Eightness Of Adam Qadmon was one of the first releases I heard from A Handful of Dust… I've always been drawn to this cassette for its utterly unique, acroamatic sensibility - it seems less interested in third-eye-rupturing … and more about a late night session, bleeding into early morning, under the influence of heady wisdom and headier substances… What we had here was very much the real deal, collective and solo eviscerations from the heart of sound itself. I love it, unconditionally.'
Jon got the time of day wrong, but not much else. Going back to this session recently, I became aware of the strange, ungainly and unrepeatable shapes our practice assumed during these first forays into total free improvisation. Re-mastered with help from Lasse Marhaug, at the request of some visionary Finns; here Adam Qadmon, the ur-Golem, comes again. Walking from the graveyard of the past, blinking in the autumn sun, and shaking twenty-five years of clay from his coat."

by Kouncil House, 30Hz and Smart Systems