Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 176 Items

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.

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.

Michel Banabila is an indispensable part of the Dutch experimental music scene, where he has acquired a special place with many, in the 40 years that he has been releasing music. Michel is also just as active as a composer for the theater and ballet world, as well as for TV productions, to considerable fame. The threat of drowning in the sea of his oeuvre is real in view of the unprecedented amount of output, but once sailing unmissable monolithic rock formations loom up rapidly. 'Echo Transformations' is one of them. It's a magical album, where everything falls into place in a rich domain inspired by the Fourth World dimension. A world of sound arises from our imagination, stimulating the senses. A concept album where every sigh has its place and where no superfluous tone can be heard. What remains is to embrace the inevitable surrender that accompanies unstoppable change. This is Banabila at his best.

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

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.

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.

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."

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.

black flood print inside. synthwave

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

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.

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.

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.

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').

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

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

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...

"The first and last Inga Copeland album"

The 2013 album, pressed in a limited qty. Features: Scratcha DVA / Scratchclart .

Premium material from the artist now recording as Lolina. Big TIP!!!

Left Ear re-surface with a compilation of music from Italy’s original “homewave” band the ‘Influenza Prods.’. TIP!!!! Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello unwittingly met in London in the late 70’s, after being introduced by a mutual friend. Both Bruno and Giovanna arrived with varying ambitions. Giovanna wanted to learn English or be a painter, while Bruno found work at the Royal Post Office, which he found testing. It wasn’t until Bruno rescued Giovanna from an awkward date that the pair became a couple. At the time, music was just something they did for fun. Bruno already had an acoustic guitar and G bought a bass. Those were the days when you could start a new band, whether you could play or not, and new independent labels were springing up. Rough Trade Records was literally around the corner. In 1981 the pair moved back to Italy and found an apartment in Rome. It’s here that they began to focus on their music and where they started ‘recording’ their tracks. First, they would record the rhythm, maybe add the Gigster (the name of their “cheap drum machine”), the bass, and then, as they made a copy of the first cassette onto a second cassette they would add guitar, more synth, or both at the same time. After that, it was not unusual to copy from the second cassette back into the first cassette adding even more “stuff”. As with many artists during the early 80’s, the Influenza Prods’ sound was the direct result of the accessibility of emerging electronic instruments and the recording equipment available to them. The duo was resourceful and inventive, acquiring new equipment as resources allowed. They recorded dialogue from British Soap Operas on their TV set, which were later added to their tracks, while further making use of their family’s cutlery sets, which were used to fill in certain percussion sections The duo’s homespun recordings found a web of admirers in the unofficial distribution of tape trading and mail-art scenes. Despite the DIY ethos and the fact that most tapes were handmade, the Influenza Prods managed to ‘release’ three tapes which comprised of the Greatest Tits (1983), Cheek-A-Bomba (1984) and Quasi Solo (1985). Bruno and Giovanna were sadly subjected to serious family problems, including the loss of loved ones in their lives and eventually parted ways, concluding the Influenza Prods. However, to this day they remain close friends who keep in touch regularly.

Agoria’s ‘.dev’ album saw the French polymath known for his forays into visual arts and tech, as well as electronic music production and DJing, deliver a project that dropped on vinyl, digital formats, and an AI player created by Arca and Jai Paul collaborators Bronze.

It got away! The hounds are back on the leash for another session, as Montel makes a bid for better days with this all-out charm offensive of serenades, blissed up patter and emotional blackmail, Palmer-style.

The result is 12 tracks steeped in mind games, romance power plays and neurotoxin rollercoasters, with additional bonus strategies to dissociate with minimum dignity. Big up Kiwi’s Kiosk..

“Earth, Our Planet?”: A call for environmental awareness. This time, Pedro Vian - the
founder of Modern Obscure Music - presents his fourth solo album (following his 2020
release, "Ibillorca").
Due for release in spring 2024, "Earth, Our Planet?" promises to immerse us in a moving
odyssey, crossing the boundaries of musical genres to provoke an urgent meditation on the
protection of our planet. On this occasion Vian has composed the album influenced by the
myth of the eternal return, the compositions are long and repetitive, generating states of pure
trance.
Pedro Vian, singular for his fusion of genres and styles, ventures into even more complex
territories in "Earth, Our Planet?". From the first listen, it is evident that this work treads the
line of convention and breaks the boundaries of electronic and experimental music with
artistic dexterity. The album weaves together texture, hypnotic rhythms and melody. Each
track reveals his distinctive ability to create immersive landscapes, guiding the listener into
deep emotional introspection. This is not just music; it is a transformative experience.
The beauty of this album lies not only in the musical vision. The album features high-calibre
collaborations that add layers of creativity and elegance. Trumpeter Pierre Bastien, whose
early productions left an indelible mark on Aphex Twin's Reflex label, infuses "A Day in
Rotterdam" with a unique emotional resonance. Violinist, Asia, renowned for her avant-garde
approach and ability to conjure unique landscapes, elevates the album's opening tracks
"Urobóros" and "Les Tambours Subterraniens". Their skill and sensitivity intertwine perfectly
with Vian's artistic vision. In addition, Italian producer Daniele Mana, with whom Pedro Vian
collaborated closely on his previous album "Cascades", known for his experimental
approach and talent for creating extraterrestrial atmospheres also contributes to "Les
Tambours Subterraniens". His artistic perspective adds more complexity and texture to the
piece, pushing the boundaries of contemporary electronic music. There is also a
collaboration with Raül Refree, an artist with whom Vian worked with last year, presenting
“Font De la Vera Pau”, an album that The Guardian defined as "a wonderful piece of electroacoustic
music, a captivating mix of strings and analogue synth drones which sometimes
flirts with Alice Coltrane-ish spiritual jazz".
With "Earth, Our Planet?", Pedro Vian not only offers up some of his best work to date, but it
is also a call to reflect on our relationship with the natural world. As a part of a planet where
environmental awareness is more crucial than ever, he urges us to protect and preserve our
world as an extension of ourselves. This extensive work is a statement, Vian addresses the
notion that too often we prioritise immediate needs over the well-being of the planet. It
highlights the fact that we often consider the Earth as a possession when, in reality, we are
but a part of it.

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.

On 11 October 2010, Brainfeeder released the debut album by a 23 year old ex-skater, painter and music producer from Chino Hills called Teebs (real name Mtendere Mandowa). The title 'Ardour' means great enthusiasm, love or passion and was a fitting descriptor for his inherently warm, lushly textured beats. It’s an undisputed classic in the Brainfeeder canon and more widely considered an essential chapter in the ever-evolving puzzle of the global “beat scene”.

Brainfeeder and Teebs are celebrating the 10th anniversary with a limited special edition reissue of this landmark record. Pressed on deep pink 2LP and housed in a beautiful gatefold sleeve with artwork by Teebs himself, the new edition features six previously unreleased bonus tracks.

With roots at the ‘My Hollow Drum’ collective, Dublab and Low End Theory, Teebs has been a staple in Los Angeles music. “My creative family in LA is so important,” he explains. “It’s a part of who I am when I step outside and how others in LA view me. I love the feeling of community and trying to understand how I can be useful in it.”

Following 'Ardour' (2010), Teebs released 'Collections' (2011), 'Estara' (2014) and, after a 5 year hiatus, his most recent album 'Anicca' in 2019, with the help of a host of musical friends including Panda Bear (Animal Collective), Sudan Archives, Ringgo Ancheta aka MNDSGN, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson and Anna Wise. Universally acclaimed, Pitchfork gave 'Anicca' a glowing 7.8 review hailing Mandowa’s “effortless, shape-shifting tracks that make time stand still.” Meanwhile, FADER described the record as “deeply atmospheric... cool-headed and uncanny.”

Essential reissue incl. download code!

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

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

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.

Artwork made in The Designers Republic™

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

Dan Barrett—the man behind Have A Nice Life, Giles Corey, and Enemies List Home Recordings—has unveiled his sophomore album as the electronic project Black Wing on The Flenser. No Moon is a gorgeous chillwave / post-punk record with nine bleak yet blissful songs and is a fitting close out to the year 2020. Written over the course of the last few years, with about half of the songs penned over the last six months (mostly due to pandemic “free time”), No Moon is a heart-wrenchingly honest outpour of emotion. Throughout the writing process, Barrett was having recurring dreams and felt a strange sense of timelessness—that, combined with quarantine is what he simply describes as “a weird experience.” Barrett explains, “Quarantine was profoundly isolating. With writing this record, more than anything I just wanted to prove to myself that I could make something out of it. That ended up being a lot of songs about feeling isolated, a lot of ‘trapped in my own head’ moments. I think that was a lot of people’s experience as well.” Barrett formed Black Wing in the mid-2010s as an opposite to his project Giles Corey; where Giles started as “only acoustic instruments allowed,” Black Wing started with only digital instruments. In 2015, Black Wing released its first proper full length, …Is Doomed, to great critical acclaim. Much like that album, No Moon bubbles with electronica and indie-pop with earworm melodies and affecting lyrics. But No Moon is a transitional change from Black Wing’s debut; the songs here are a bit more experimental and there’s a significantly wider emotional range to them. The lyrics are haunting and personal and resonate deeply with the listener. The nine new tracks on No Moon are gloomy yet glorious, heavy while ambient, overwhelming yet alluring, and offer an earnest and honest look into one’s self during such a troubling and confusing year—something everyone can relate to.