Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 185 Items

Three introspective instrumental compositions for English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, Hammond organ. Performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk at Kulta Saha, 2010-2012.

Edition of 400 copies. 3 introspective instrumental (English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, Hammond organ) compositions performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk during 2010 - 2012 at Kulta Saha. In memory of Hugo Billens, Anja Hiilesmaa, Dirk de Hollander, Ger Boeske, Ourgon and Tosca.

Last copies, re-imported from the US.

Otto’s Bangalore Whispers gets finally repressed. The psychedelic track which he recorded together with the Indian singer MD Pallavi in 2016 has become a hit in the downtempo scene around the globe (“Saaaa - resa nisa”). Pingipung press a new edition of the much sought after single on the occasion of their 20th label anniversary. In this 2022 edition the original track is paired with the Peter Power remix which has not seen the light of day on vinyl before.The Brazil-based producer slows the track down a notch and adds even more space. A perfect tune both for the dancefloor or meditation.

2021 Repress, limited 500 copies. 'Tristes Tropiques' – named after & dealing with Claude Lévi-Strauss' landmark ethnographic writing of the same name – is an album of "synthetic exotica & pseudo-ethnographic music". Sounding like the field recording from an imaginary landscape, Tristes Tropiques deals with the meaning of Exotica & ethnographic recordings (without using them) as well as with cultural categories like "Otherness". As smart as it is, it's also totally stunning, free-floating music, Riyl Dolphins Into The Future or Jan Jelinek.

Reissue, in vinyl format only, of the last Androcell album released in 2014.

300 copies pressed in double 180 grams black vinyl, remastered for this special release.

Andy Moor (guitar) and Yannis Kyriakides (computer) lovingly deconstruct and reassemble their favourite Rebetika music in a set of 9 pieces that encompass a wide scope of musical vision. This is an unusual and original take on the so called "blues" music of the Greek diaspora of the early 20th century. Originally recorded and released as an exclusive download for seven things, this live set recorded in Glasgow’s CCA in 2006 is a re-release collaboration between discrepant & unsounds. On vinyl for the first time after the cd release on Unsounds in 2010.

Apichat Pakwan is a music collective put together by Olivier Schreuder, an Amsterdam-based musician, DJ & producer.

Together they produce “Isantronics” - a hybrid approach to blending Molam (folkmusic of the ethnic Lao, of whom the largest population is living in Isan, another name for Northeast-Thailand), electronic music, Dub & Hip Hop.

Apichat Pakwan consists of Olivier Schreuder (electronics, production, percussion), Pongsapon Upani (Kaen), Artit Krajangsree (Phin, bass), Robin Koek (drums), Angkanang Pimwankum (percussion) and is based in Amsterdam (the Netherlands) and Khon Kaen (Thailand). TIP!!!

After the exploit of Osmose in 1978, Kalma returns into the studio in 1980 with Interfrequence a library record on space ambients. A continuation of his personal research based on the combination of electronic machines with natural sounds and acoustic instrumentation. The french musician fully wears the robe of master of ceremonies of the synths. However, the path taken is not that symphonic of the minimalist and galactic suites composed by other standard bearers like Richard Pinas and Klaus Schulze. Here, we find 18 short pictures sound (few of them in collaboration of M. Saclays) that emanate a variety of ideas and ethno-cultural influences unparalleled. A distinctive compositional style always returns an crescendo of ecstatic emotions, a reflection on the hidden and secret aspects of the micro and macro cosmos. If in Osmose the sampling sound from the mother Gaia was more explicit, here the Nature is investigated not only in terms of pure tones, but especially in the dynamics of flows and movements dictated by the frequency of moogs and organs and embellished with hyper-space flutes trumpets and clarinets. Kalma so writes yet another chapter of his personal saga of a new world of sound imagery.

One of ASC's finest musical moments, repressed for 2018 on crystal clear vinyl.

CD Jewel Case. In 1975 I was doing a series of concerts in France with Lutz Ulbrich, where we were presenting "Inventions for Electric Guitar” and other compositions, which we developed together that year. In August, we were invited for two concerts in the South of France, one in the wonderful Roman theater in Arles, the other at the Festival Palace in Cannes.This is where we met the musicians of the German band CAN and the singer Nico, who also played at the festival. After the concerts we stayed together a few days in the beautiful city of Arles. Nico's friend, the French director Philippe Garrel, was working at that time on a film starring Nico, Anita Pallenberg and Dominique Sanda and was looking for music to make you dream. I always recorded most of our concerts, that's how we were able to offer him the piece that we had performed as "encore” in Cannes. It became the main theme of the film. Other parts were recorded during several sessions throughout 1975 in my studio in Berlin. Instruments and electronic devices were relatively simple compared to today's technology: four-track tape recorder, an old Farfisa organ, the beautiful EKO Rhythm Computer (Italian machines controlled by punched cards), the EMS superb guitar-Synthi HiFli and of course, our "usual” guitars. All this combined with the patching, the filtering and echo has produced its own unique sound to "electronic dreams” of the 70s. , Manuel Göttsching 1993 Recorded in 1975 at Studio ROMA, Berlin, with the exception of "Le Berceau de Cristal", recorded during the concert on August 7, 1975 at the Palais du Festival in Cannes.

From Detroit techno and hip-hop's early sampling experiments to Terre Thaemlitz, electronic music has long proven its political potential, even in instrumental form. With "OstWest", Berlin-based electronic-kraut-dub trio Automat complete their LP trilogy with a deep and entrancing take on the failures of neoliberalism.

Automatic Tasty tells a tale through his machines of a lonely Wicklow field. Disco-tinged House with an electronica touch!
field from dawn till dusk….disco-tinged House with an electronica touch!

Disco-tinged House with an electronica touch!

Compilation with remixes of songs from Björk's album "Biophilia". At the time of release all the tracks were previously released in The Crystalline Series and Biophilia Remix Series but they were remastered specially for this compilation. "Sacrifice (Matthew Herbert's Pins And Needles Mix Edit)" is just an excerpt of the original remix by Herbert and it works as an interlude in this compilation.

Marc Richter aka Black To Comm released his debut record 20 years ago. In 2023 he is still busy releasing music under various disguises and is currently signed to the Thrill Jockey label. To celebrate this anniversary his own Cellule 75 label is re-releasing some classic out-of-print vinyl albums that originally came out on the defunct Type and De Stijl labels. The LP will feature a full-colour lyric sheet / poster exclusive to this edition. After releasing the critically acclaimed Alphabet 1968 on the seminal Type label (Grouper, Jóhann Jóhannsson, Yellow Swans), Richter chose De Stijl for this 2012 album, an American label that had just put out future classics by the likes of Circuit Des Yeux, Hype Williams and Wolf Eyes. Earth is a 2009 silent film by Ho Tzu Nyen, one of Singapore's foremost visual artists. After hearing Black To Comm's Alphabet 1968 Ho Tzu Nyen invited Richter to accompany the film at Berlin's Asian Film Festival, Unsound in Krakow and several other art biennals and music festivals around the world. In his own words: "Most of the music was composed under the influence of heavy pain killers while recovering from a broken leg (the recordings literally took place in bed). The music (like the film) is about slowness and decay, states of unconsciousness, sleeping and waking up, dying and being reborn. The film is a post-apocalyptic collage based on paintings by classical European painters (Caravaggio, Delacroix, Rembrandt, Gericault) -- the music translates this concept employing corresponding collage-based sampling techniques using loops made from vintage vinyl and shellac records combined with acoustic and electronic instrumentation and voice." From the original De Stijl one-sheet: "Richter’s already formidable expressive power stretches over all of Earth. Reflecting the countless cyclical forces that make up, oh, more or less everything we know and are, the music on Earth is bracing, lovely, bustling and still, and at times bittersweet, a commingling of sensations and emotions that can’t be neatly separated from one another. (Earth is complex, as you know.) Guests on Earth include David Aird, a.k.a Vindicatrix (on the Mordant Music label), contributing startling vocal work; Renate Nikolaus on an array of instruments and noise devices; Rutger Zuydervelt (singing bowls); and Christopher Kline (singing saw). Earth is Black to Comm’s seventh album and his debut for De Stijl, following the acclaimed Alphabet 1968 (on Type) and last year’s vinyl-only collaboration with Mike Kelley of Destroy All Monsters (on the En/Of label)." Alex Neilson in The Wire: "The most marked aspect of Earth is the voice of David Aird, aka Vindicatrix. Imperious and dolorous, he has the gravity of post-Climate Of Hunter Scott Walker, David Sylvain or Klaus Nomi stripped of the pathetic ritz. This is something that's easy to do badly, but Aird pulls it off with aplomb. On "The Children" he breaks into a morose yodel, rolling the words around his palate and colouring each syllable black before gifting them to the air. The meaning isn't understood verbally as much as viscerally. Beneath Aird's ululations, Richter casts handfuls of angelic debris from keyboards and digital devices, generating a celestial electronic tapestry reminiscent of Japanese musician Nobukazu Takemura. Sounds vie and twist at frequencies you can't so much hear as feel in the bridge of your nose, and the variety and full-bloodedness of the accompaniment is what prevents Aird's vocal from occassionally lapsing into shtick."

Violettes Doppelvinyl (180g) Reissue des Blockhead Klassikers ’Interludes After Midnight’ (2012) inklusive Downloadcode.

First split LP in a brand new series of collaborations, pairing artists working on the fringes - or not at all. This first split pairs Brighton’s Blood Stereo's tape “Gonk” with Hair & Treasure's “Farm Life Loops”. Blood Stereo are Dylan Nyoukis and Karen Constance, a British institution, the sound complete immersion for people who don't immerse easily. Idiot twins Burchill and Slim may behave as though they own Sussex, but Constance and Nyoukis are immune to their surroundings, making livid eyes at confused glitter vixens up and down this squalid isle. Hair & Treasure are Alex Jones and Goncalo F. Cardoso, a prankster randy dust duo from nowhere dwelling on tape loops and webbed finger piano ballads. The material was pulled from a mound of who cares electro-acoustic improvised sessions as an offering to the associated deities of the zwieback buttermilk trade.

New music from Simon Green aka Bonobo is always an event, but when it heralds the arrival of a whole new album (his first since 2013’s “The North Borders”), it’s really something to get excited about. The masterful, magisterial “Migration” is Green’s sixth album and it’s a record which cements his place in the very highest echelons of electronic music and beyond.
It might be difficult to imagine it, but “Migration” will take his beautiful, emotive, intricate music to an even bigger audience. “My own personal idea of identity has played into this record and the theme of migration,” Green explains. “Is home where you are or where you are from, when you move around?” The personal, it seems, can also be universal.

Boris Blenn from Berlin releases a Nu Jazz Downtempo full-length album, ‘Berlin Future Lounge’ on Cold Busted. A seasoned producer with a colorful background, Boris Blenn delivers with this 14-track album, a fruitful and joyful collection of sounds. Fans of Prefuse73, Pole, Mark Farina and Gotan Project will likely dig this album.

Welcome 2023 re-press of this sweet post-punk vocalist's heartfelt reggae/funk with analogue dubs. A unique slice of late-70s/early-80s niceness from Brenda Ray, whose previous EM release, Walatta [EM1071CD], has been embraced by a large number of listeners. Recorded in North West England, D'Ya Hear Me! is warm-hearted, open, fresh and slyly experimental. With a true D.I.Y. soul, these thirteen tracks, originally released in various formats by Ray a.k.a. Brenda Kenny a.k.a. Natalie Sand a.k.a. Polly Rith'm, and her musical friends under the moniker(s) Naffi/Naffi Sandwich, were recorded in a simple home-made studio, to tape. Far from media-crazed London, Naffi created a musical world free from lust for the spotlight, focusing solely on the music, and the results are fittingly pure. D'Ya Hear Me! is a wide-ranging release, with lovely vocal tracks, warm dubs and pleasingly odd instrumentals, all knitted together with a special trans-Atlantic rhythmic sense. Two songs of special interest here are "Moonbeams" and the Young Marble Giants-esque "Everyday Just Another Dream", which are early versions of "Starlight" and "Another Dream" from Walatta. Also noteworthy are several previously unissued longer versions of some songs. A year-round collection of summery breezes.

Limited edition of 500 for the world! Nice remix action by Jonti, Peanut Butter Wolf, James Pants, Vex Ruffin, Prince Language, Jonwayne, The Stepkids & Samiyam!

Subtle killer grooves derived from Friedman’s outernational percussions & musics infected works.

Industrially minimalistic, generously coherent & truly acidic LP in the vain of techno, EBM & true underground electronic music. Dark droned ambience and skeletal rhythms but also beautifull and trippy pieces spaceously cut for sonically heavy playback on soundsystems & home stereos. From the rigid & non-confirmist ideology of General Elektro & Sex Tags Mani

"Day Of My Death" by Pavel Milyakov, also known as Buttechno, is his 8th release coming out this year. It consists of 6 pieces which were composed for Gosha Rubchinskiy S/S 17 show and performed in a extraordinary place in Florence which is depicted on the front cover. Mostly ambient, overdriving noise soundscapes and spoken word collages referring to the dreamy mood of the show. This work is more serious and mature than Milyakov's previous releases, exploring deeper and sacred images of his world.

Electronic-folk toy-instrument live-looping craziness a la The Microphones, Tunng, Psapp, or Múm.

An anthology of Cédric Stevens' compositions between 1997 & 2005 under the S.E.L. moniker. Limited to 300 Copies.

Field Records takes a look into the vast catalogue of Celer, the prolific ambient project from Tokyo-based artist Will Long. Perfectly Beneath Us was originally released in 2012 as a Cd-r on Still*Sleep, and now it’s being presented as a vinyl release remastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Celer began in California as a collaborative project in 2005 between Long and Danielle Baquet, resulting in reams of self-released work up until Baquet passed away in 2009. Long opted to keep their project going, and Celer has continued to grow as an expansive exploration of purest ambient. Meanwhile Long’s solo work under his own name has been equally accomplished, with scores of releases on DJ Sprinkles’ Comatonse Recordings and respected Norwegian leftfield label Smalltown Supersound.

With such a sizable library of sounds to explore, the reissue of Perfectly Beneath Us serves as an ideal entry point into the Celer catalogue, presenting four pieces of sustained, glacial movement wreaking profound emotional impact from the subtlest methods. Long exercises the utmost patience from the shorter ‘Distressing Sensations’ and ‘Ultra-terrestrial Yearning’ through to the 10-minutes-plus stretches of ‘Slightly Apart, Almost Touching’ and ‘Absolute Receptivity Of All The Senses’.

It’s truly immersive, captivating drone music that rewards the attentive listener as much as it soothes the casual drifter. Originally limited to just 100 copies in 2012, it’s now beautifully framed on a carefully considered reissue which adds to Field’s own repertoire of evocative, subliminal electronics.

About Field Records Field Records has been publishing versatile electronic music from a string of high-principled artists since 2008. Firmly rooted in minimalism and modesty, the label gained a reputation for its versatile and atmospheric output - which includes works from the likes of Artefakt, ENA, Imaginary Softwoods, Monolake and Sugai KEN.

Charbel Haber is a Lebanese musician, performer & composer from Beirut. Co-founder and member of longstanding Lebanese post-rock group, scrambled eggs Haber’s work encompasses a wide range of disciplines and styles such as film, video art and theatre, both as a solo artist and as a member of Scrambled Eggs, Malayeen and Johnny Kafta anti vegetarian orchestra.

Chris Hooson of Dakota Suite asked Emanuele Errante to work with him on a project composed for the death of his sister-in-law. Chris had composed a series of themes around the loss of his sister-in-law and in Emanuele found a partner to create the sounds which would evoke loss, the temporary nature of life and the stillness to get through. The powerful result 'The North Green Down' was originally released on Lidar in 2012 as a limited CD which is long since sold out. Now Karaoke Kalk makes this heartfelt and poignant album available again and for the first time ever on vinyl, including one additional previously unreleased track.

Idee 1', published (but never released) by Team in February 1972, is filled with experimental sparks, staggering orchestrations, breakbeat, funk, mournful atmospheres and world music influences.

Delia Derbyshire is one of the most innovative electronic musicians of the 20th Century. She is best known for her pioneering work for the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, and for composing the classic theme song for the original Doctor Who, believed to be the earliest "electronic" theme song in television history. A brilliant composer and one of the few women operating in the early era of electronic music, In the early '60s she collaborated with the British artist and playwright Barry Bermange for the BBC's Third Programme to produce four Inventions for Radio, a collage of people describing their dreams, set to a background of electronic sound. This is the first, simply titled Dreams, an attempt to represent, in sound, the sensation of dreaming. Derbyshire's electronic and musique concrete soundbed is the perfect underscore to the narration, simultaneously jarring, dissonant, and terrifying. An amazing piece of work from one of the legendary pioneers of electronic music.

For the first 7" record released by Medical Records, we are proud to reissue the long lost and out of print 7" by Disco Volante. Disco Volante was essentially Terry Clarke (aka Terry Tanx) formed in London in 1982. Inspired by the early Bond films and their soundtracks (Disco Volante was a yacht in Thunderball), Tanx played live in a number or small clubs between 1982-1986. Using a small number of Roland instruments (TB 303, TR 606, MC-202, and SH-09), Disco Volante self released a cassette entitled "Traction in Rehash" now which is sadly lost. In 1984, the 7" single "No Motion" with the same title as A side and "Click" and "Punishment Tank (Live)" as the B side on Catalyst Box Records. Terry recollects that the recording only took 2 days, and the engineer had no experience with this style of music. The end result has a very DIY aesthetic despite the use of a professional studio. Unfortunately, the single was not commercially popular and received no publicity due to music press strike at the time. The single began to gain cult underground popularity in the 90s and 00s with the resurgence of new wave which resulted in a spike in prices for the long lost single. The track "No Motion" is a very catchy layered synthpop hit that is quite unique yet capturing the essence of the early 80s new wave sound very nicely. "Click" on the b-side is a march-like track with propulsive synthetic bass textures and monotonous analog drum beats. The final track "Punishment Tank Live!" is a track recorded live at the Red Box, London with a punk feel with intense delayed vocals, guitar and overlayed synth hooks. Beyond out of print and sure to appeal to lovers of the DIY coldwave and synth 7" revival and resurrection. Presented on high-quality thick transparent green 7" vinyl in a limited edition of 500 hand-numbered copies.

The crossover between electronic music and classical composition has never been in more vibrant and dynamic health. Multifarious musician Emika explores this fertile ground on her ambitious new opus 'Melanfonie': her first orchestral composition, some four years in the making.
Funded by a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign that exceeded its target by an impressive €25,000.
While many rebel from their classical training never to return to it explicitly, Emika has always been attracted to the potential and freedoms offered by the symphony form. As well as taking inspiration from her electronic music background in composing the music itself, Emika also applied some of production and playback principles from that realm to create a piece whose every element has been carefully considered.
Emika is on a quest to try and change what we mean when we talk about ‘classical music’. For her, the magic of the ‘genre’ is about the instruments themselves and more importantly the people who play them; not the restricting traditions and conventions of the classical world itself. I want to change the face of classical music and give it a more honest and real image. It is time we had something other than pomp and circumstance and avant-garde squeaks and pops.”

Latency 009, from Tokyo serves us four eerie, multi-rhythmic, bass-heavy excursions, with roots in abstract hip hop and the classic D ‘n’ B of Photek and Source Direct.

Long-awaited second pressing of Erkki Kurenniemi's key recordings and sonic experiments made between 1963-1975. One of the great unsung pioneers of the electronic age, Erkki Kurenniemi (1941-2017) played a central role in the development of electronic music in Finland. In the early 1960s he founded The University of Helsinki Electronic Music Studio, where the most well known of his electroacoustic recordings were realized. "Erkki Kurenniemi, a brilliant, eccentric figure - imagine a Finnish hybrid of Stockhausen, Buckminster Fuller and Steve Jobs." ~Simon Reynolds: 'Retromania - Pop Culture's Addiction To Its Own Past' (2011).

Estasy is the musical alias of Rome, Italy-based installation and performance artist Emiliano Maggi. After a few cassettes and CD-Rs, Estasy is releasing its full-length debut, Wild Songs, on Acéphale (SALEM, Elite Gymnastics, How To Dress Well). Wild Songs doesn't sound like anything else, but it contains echoes from disparate sources. The first thing you'll notice is Maggi's voice, which has the range and timbre of an Italia...

Behind this work lays the evolution of our idea of the human, with all that it entails in current times. This is an effort to reflect with compassion and to experience feelings of helplessness through loss. The cognitive volitional duality of being a human in 2016 - Where do we belong?

A duo can be the most magical of things, and it seems like the meeting of minds between Morr Music veteran F.S.Blumm and contemporary classical darling Nils Frahm was a match made in heaven. The ease in which they perform together is the first noticeable thing on ‘Music for wobbling Music versus gravity’ – there is a discernable weightlessness to their sound as they circle around each other, moving and meeting, touching with their musical fingertips.

Composed, according to Flying Lotus, as “a collage of mystical states, dreams, sleep and lullabies”, Until the Quiet Comes has the distinct feel of this nocturnal trip. From the twitching descent into a subconscious state and the out-of-focus time-ether of the journey that follows, the sound is an unhinged, yet elegant evolution of the melodic and rhythmic interplay that is woven into the DNA of Flying Lotus’ aural personae.

All this stylistic mingling and genre-melting has contributed significantly to shift music in a direction that makes intellectual leaps without forsaking the all-important heft of a bassline or unimpeded ‘swing’ of a drum beat – the same way so many masters of soul music have infused their songs for lovers and dancers with brilliant and heady subtext for decades. Until The Quiet Comes follows this tradition while clearing a path distinctly it’s own, which is a mark of a classic.

The album features guests Erykah Badu, Laura Darlington, Niki Randa, Thundercat & Thom Yorke!