Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield 292 Items

Originally released on Studio !K7 Records in 1998, Peter Kruder and
Richard Dorfmeister's groundbreaking release, 'The K&D Sessions'
reset the bar for what could be achieved in a compilation. Across an
array of original tracks, dubs and infamous K&D Session remixes, the
DJ and producer duo took the listener on a smoke-filled blunted journey
that flowed flawlessly. Often compared to DJ Shadow's 'Endtroducing'
for it's similarly deft craft of rhythm and quoted by Allmusic as "the
most blissfully blunted music the world has ever heard", the album has
sold over 1,000,000 copies to date and was included in Spin s Top 20
albums of 1999 .
The album has long since been deleted on Vinyl
with original 4LP sets changing hands for 300+ on the collectors market
and even a bootleg vinyl copy will set a buyer back over 100. Sixteen
years later, this legendary album will be available as a long overdue
5LP reissue remastered by Bernie Grundman Mastering in Hollywood.
Finally back in print in 180g vinyl.

Since 2012 Erased Tapes peers Ólafur Arnalds and Nils Frahm have spent many hours together in their studios across Berlin and Reykjavik, freely improvising and occasionally capturing the music for their fans. The duo's sound is an astoundingly rich, tonally pure example of synth-driven experimentation, conceived and performed by two prolific collaborators.

During a session at Nils's Durton Studio in Berlin last summer the two specially invited photographer Alexander Schneider to capture one of their unique improvised sessions. Lasting long into the night, the pair gradually and organically formed several individual songs – each contributing to the narrative of a larger, transformative piece of music. Recorded in eight hours with no overdubs or edits, 'Trance Frendz' is a captivating journey through grand soundscapes and droning crescendos which crash and recede back, making way for delicate piano notes and swirling synthesizers.

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.

At first glance, Carpenter Brut's influences are '80s TV shows amd B-movies, loaded with synthesizer music. Listening to his home made EP's, however, one would rather bet on a black metal background, a crush for Dario Argento and a force-fed religious education. This would explain his satanic mood, his passion for kitsch sounds and his adoration for all kinds of enjoyment. Whatever his influences may be, Carpenter Brut does not lack the talent to create in-your-face vintage killer tracks. This is the long-awaited reissue of Carpenter Brut's self released EP trilogy, presented as a luxurious 3LP.

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.

LP includes download card!

For the past ten years, all roads Shepherd has followed have been slowly leading to Elaenia - an album with roots deep in his formative years, and one that draws upon everything Shepherd has done so far. An album that provides context to the music that Shepherd has been making to date. Every DJ set he’s performed, every talent he has produced, every composition he has written are thought of as precursors to Elaenia - a dazzling score which puts Shepherd in the spotlight as a composer who has produced an album that bridges the gap between his rapturous dance music and formative classical roots. Drawing inspiration from classical, jazz, electronic music, soul and even Brazilian popular music, Elaenia - named after the bird of the same name - is the epitome of the forward-thinking Floating Points vision in 2015.

Swedish producer HNNY (real name Johan Cederberg) releases his debut album 'Sunday' on Omena Records, a label set up by Tobias 'Tooli' Lidstrom. The ten track debut album continues an ongoing partnership between HNNY and Omena Records that started in April 2014 when the 12" 'Always' was released which also marked the starting point of the label. Sunday is released as a 180 g vinyl edition in gatefold sleeve.

Finders Keepers invite you to witness these incredible earl Buchla synthesiser concerts/demonstrations providing a distinctive feminine alternative to The Silver Apples Of The Moon if they had ever been presented in phonographic form. This is history in the remaking. This spring Finders Keepers Records are proud to release an archival project that not only redefines musical history but boasts genuine claim to the overused buzzwords such as pioneering, maverick, experimental, groundbreaking and esoteric, while questioning social politics and the evolution of music technology as we’ve come to understand it. To describe this records as a game-changer is an understatement. This record represents a musical revolution, a scientific benchmark and a trophy in the cabinet of counter culture creativity. This record is a triumphant yardstick in the synthesiser space race and the untold story of the first woman on the proverbial moon. While pondering the early accolades of this record it’s daunting to learn that this record was in fact not a record at all… It was a manifesto and a gateway to a new world, that somehow never quite opened. If the unfamiliar, modernistic, melodic, pulses, tones and harmonics found on this 1975 live presentation/grant application/educational demonstration had been placed in a phonographic context alongside the promoted work of Morton Subotnick, Walter Carlos or Tomita then the name Suzanne Ciani and her influence would have already radically changed the shape, sound and gender of our record collections. Hopefully there is still chance. In short, Suzanne was a self-imposed twenty-year-old employee of the Buchla modular synthesiser company, San Francisco’s neck and neck contender to New York’s Moog. Buchla was run by a community of festival freaks and academic acid eaters whose roots in new age lifestyles and the reinvention of art and music replaced the business acumen enjoyed by its likeminded East Coasters. In the eyes of the consumer the creative refusal to adopt rudimentary facets like a piano keyboard controller rendered the Buchla synthesiser the more obscure stubborn sister of the synth marathon, steering these incredible units away from the mainstream into the homes and studios of free music aficionados, art house composers and die-hard revolutionaries. Championed and semi-showcased by composer Morton Subotnick on his albums The Bull and Silver Apples Of The Moon, Buchla’s versatility began to open the minds of a new generation, but the high-end design features and no-compromise modus operandi was often confused with incompatibility and, in the pulsating shadow of Moog’s marketing, the revolution would not be televised nor patronised. Suzanne Ciani, as one of the very few female composers on the frontline (and also providing the back line) did not lose faith. These “concerts” are the epitome of rare music technology historic documents, performed by a real musician whose skills and academic education in classical composition already outweighed her male synthesiser contemporaries of twice her age. At the very start of her fragile career these recordings are nothing short of sacrificial ode to her mentor and machine, sonic pickets of the revolution and love letters to an absolutely genuine vision of and ‘alternative’ musical future. In denouncing her own precocious polymathmatic past in a bid to persuade the world to sing from a new hymn sheet, Suzanne Ciani created a bi-product of never before heard music that would render the pigeon holes “ambient” and “futuristic” utterly inadequate. Providing nothing short of an entirely different feminine take on the experimental “records” of Morton Subotnick and proving to a small, judgmental audience and jury the true versatility of one of the most radical and idiosyncratic musical instruments of the 20th century. These recordings have not been heard since then. The importance of these genuinely lost pieces of electronic musics puzzle almost eclipses the glaring detail of Suzanne’s gender as a distinct minority in an almost exclusively male dominated, faceless, coldly scientific landscape. Those familiar with Suzanne’s work, a vast vault of previously unpublished “nonrecords”, will already know how the creative politics in her art of “being” simultaneously reshaped the worlds of synth design, advertising and film composition before anyone had even dropped a stylus in her groove. Needless to say this record, finally commanding the archival format of choice, courtesy of the Ciani and Finders Keepers longstanding unison, was not the last “first” with which this hugely important composer would gift society, and the future of a wide range of exciting evolving creative disciplines. You have found a holy grail of electronic music and a female musical pioneer who was too proactive to take the trophies. With the light of Buchla and Ciani’s initial flame Finders Keepers continues to take a torch through the vaults of this lesser-celebrated music legacy shining a beam on these “non-records” that evaded the limelight for almost half a century. You can’t write history when you are too busy making it. With fresh ink in the bottomless well, let’s start at the beginning. Again. You, are invited!

With his friendly and sometimes melancholic manner, DJ Koze is one of the most remarkable players in today's club landscape and one of the few internationally active DJs who are also relevant outside of dance music. For his 70-minute journey for the anniversary edition of the "DJ Kicks" series, "Kosi Kos" manages to give the mix its own timbre despite the various styles represented: be it the pared-down hip-hop of Madlib, brutal Berghain techno, timeless songwriting, flowing indie pop and tracks that oscillate between absurdity and melancholy. "I didn't want to shine with knowledge," Koze says, "but rather bring together some gems that make sense to people who aren't necessarily music nerds." It should fit together harmoniously: "The idea was to create the impression of a radio show, like John Peel used to do. A huge cosmos of music rushing through my filter." For fans of DJ Koze, Recondite, Mount Kimbie, Four Tet, Caribou, Matthew Dear, Simian Mobile Disco, Apparat, Efdemin.

Oracolo is Skinshape's second full length originally released in 2015 and now remastered for 2020. The album plays out like the soundtrack to a psychedelic Spaghetti Western. 'Old Days' is one of a handful of vocal-lead tracks on the release that along with 'Summer' and the cinematic album title track, 'Oracolo' conjure references to bands like Can, The Bees or modern pysch pioneers Tame Impala. The instrumentals peppered throughout like the Quentin Tarantino-esque gem 'Mandala' and Motown reminiscing 'Rubber Gloves' highlight Dorey's superb talent as an arranger and composer. Don't let the vintage sound fool you either. All of his magic is original, without a sample in sight. Every instrument either played by Dorey himself, or his array of guest friend musicians. For the Oracolo artwork, Skinshape joined forces with acclaimed New York based artist Jared Buschang. This is one of Buschang's early pieces simply named 'Untitled'. The Picasco-esqe style makes the perfect visual representation for the music within.

The record that started it all is back for a 4th pressing! Available for the first time ever on Neon® Green vinyl. Made from the same master as the 2017 2xLP release with 200% Electronica, this version does not contain any of the digital-only Bonus Tracks listed below, and ends with "Kill You In Bed". Limited to 500 copies.

Still in a zone of its own, ‘The Neurobiology of Moral Decision Making’ is the result of Mark Fell’s trip to Budapest in 2014, where he and his acolyte, Gábor Lázár practically unravelled the vernacular of contemporary computer and club musics and re-stitched them into brilliantly new & devious designs. Decimating elements familiar to 2-step, footwork, electro, flashcore and f*ck knows, they arrived at a mutual conclusion of sleekly turbulent minimalism in 10 jawdropping permutations that dance in the integers of rave music. In the process they effectively re-programmed limbic and motor systems in-the-moment with a wickedly diffractive sense of rhythmic anticipation and shockingly crisp sound for a pinnacle of modern experimental dance music. With benefit of hindsight, we can now hear this album as a watershed moment for both artists, and this style of production. Since its release, Mark has notably moved away from the sound to work with acoustic instrumentalists, while Gábor has firmly picked up the baton and run with it on the likes of 2018’s ‘Unfold’ album, and more recently ‘Boundary Object’ with Planet Mu. It’s not hard to hear it as a logical peak of Mark’s practice in this mode, solo and with SND, as much as a springboard for Gábor’s future work, while also catalysing a new wave of operators ranging from Rian Treanor to Kindohm, Kirk Barley’s Church Andrews, and Rhyw, who’ve all harnessed these sort of energies to their respective wills. No doubt the tunes still scare the shit out of DJs with their spasmodic flux, but brave cnuts will recognise the genius on show and let instinct kick in, finding proper club shockers in the slippery 2.1 step whorl of ‘Track 2’ and the scudding dancehall accelerationism of ‘Track 6’, while advanced adventurers will get theirs in the greased straightjacket laser-intensity of ‘Track 7’ or the devilish dexterities of its closing 12 minute zinger. It’s all just blindingly strong stuff for insatiable ravers and computer music neeks alike, properly future-proofed by its makers’ unyielding tenacity and visionary ingenuity.

Fashion Flesh is a sort of bedroom version of "The Art of Noise." However instead of sampling, most of his sounds are birthed from the guts of hand built exotic electronics and audio devices. Fashion Flesh transcends genre. According to the man himself, "Easily Categorized is predictable. Predictable music is most often boring...Now is the time to illustrate the beauty of confusion and anxiety. Predictability will be used only when it's least expected..."

WM009 is the debut album from White Material co founder Young Male. A collection of dark ambient and textured experimental songs created as a personal soundtrack for life in uncertain times. Paranoia, lust, virtual experience, and tension/release are themes explored in this tour through a dystopian American landscape.

A vinyl edition of Said's 2015 album. It can be said that without Rizan Said a good number of Syrian singers from the 1990s onward -most notably his collaborator for two decades, Omar Souleyman- might never have been heard. Where synthesizers can bring a certain artifice and death to the sound of music, Rizan's torrential speed and flair on the keys bring new life to Syrian and Kurdish sounds respectfully forcing the component sounds of folkloric dabke into the next level.. This is the updated sound of the ages, where hand drums and reed flutes are now emulated and pounded out on Korg keyboards.

Lucifer & Lust is a 10-inch mini album by Dmitry Distant, showcasing the diversity of his talent. The 6 tracks by the Russian-born artist who currently resides in Latvia reflect the atmosphere of the Baltic and the mystic sides of electronic music. Showing where his devotion lies, Dmitry experiments on the verge of techno, wave and industrial. On this mini album, he grasps our attention with minimalistic trance-like rhythms covered in fluctuating painful melodies, using wonderful analogue sounds and exotic instruments such as the electric violin.

Shackleton's most expansive, ecstatic and hallucinatory music to date. Four long form pieces developing the free-flowing compositional aesthetic of his recent Deliverance series and Powerplant performances: fiery rhythmic-melodic turbulence channeling Congotronics way to the east - with an aura of restrained mania reminiscent of the feral pomp and gallows humour of Coil's Moon-Musick phase - all earthed by dub wise bass. The pairing with Tomasini - the cult singer, performer and artist whose history spans experimental theatre, cabaret and collaborations with (among many others) Othon, Marc Almond, Sleazy, Julia Kent and David Tibet - is a match made in heaven. With his four-octave voice swooping from deep growl to piercing falsetto, Tomasini's presence both heightens the taste for the theatrical that’s always been integral to Shackleton’s music, and makes explicit the latter’s kinship to the occult energies of the UK’s post-industrial underground. As the record's title suggests, these are shadowy songs rich with allusions to bodily ritual and psychic exploration, with Tomasini’s lyrics framed by luminous whirls of hand-struck drums and synthetic gamelan, bells and tumbling organ melodies. You Are The One escalates from delicate choral chant to full-bore psychedelic organ freak out; Rinse Out All Contaminants is a slow incantation, to purge all negative thoughts; the melodies of Father You Have Left Me are smudged like early Steve Reich, then burned out by snarling subs; and the magnificent Twelve Shared Addictions balances elliptical melodies like spinning plates, gradually unfurling into a breakneck storm of voice and hammered keys. A remarkable collaboration that also, crucially, hints towards new emerging futures in the work of one of this decade’s pioneers in electronic sound and rhythm.

Three killers heralding the next phase of this dazzling expression of a dream Dakar-Berlin nexus. All instrumental - though the opener has snatches of singing - with the vocal versions held back for the new album, out in the autumn.The music just gets deadlier and deadlier - harder-boiled and deeper; more focused, confident and dub wise. Evoking the ancient cultural legacy of the griots, “Walo Walo” is also the name of the Sabar rhythm underlying the opener, which features Ibou Mbaye's percussive synth-work, Mangone Ndiaye Dieng's kit-drumming, and Bada Seck's rigorous jolts of lower-pitched Thiol drum. The “Groove” version is tough as nails; well and truly gnarly. A tribute to the Baye Fall leader, Ndiguel Groove is a sparse, mellow interpretation of the most traditional cut on the album, showcasing Assane Ndoye Cisse’s insinuating guitar lines, Laye Lo’s super-elasticated snare-drumming, and Bada Seck playing the Khine drums associated with the Baye Fall.

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

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.

Incomparably prolific multi-instrumentalist, member of Tortoise, & piller of the Chicago expierimental & jazz music scenes offers new recordings conducted to capture composed passages as well as free playing that used PARKER's beats & sample suites as improvisational criterion

Filed neatly and undisturbed within the micro-genre of 1970s Italian artsploitation, amongst
films soundtracks such as Girl With The Crystal Plumage, A Quiet Place In The Country and
House With The Laughing Windows, this obscure library LP is one of the few fully formed
concept albums from the recently reappraised discography of Rome’s most versatile and
adventurous female production music composer Daniela Casa. Once destined for a shelf life
within the storage rooms of defunct TV studios and educational facilities Daniela’s previously
strictly commercially unavailable music has in recent years been given new focus at the
hands of open-minded disc detectives and sonic salvage hunters earning Casa’s distinctive
feminine take on experimental instrumental mood and movie compositions a place next to
her widely respected masculine counterparts such as Alessandro Alessandroni, AR Luciani,
Pierro Umiliani, Morricone and Nicolai.
Sharing tight studio space and strict syndication schedules with all of the aforementioned
artists (under commission from Romano Di Bari’s fervently independent Flipper music factory)
Daniela Casa embraced a liberating wind change in affordable music technology which opened
doors for uninhabited solo compositions in home studios taking advantage of communal
recording consoles and domestic synthesisers which nurtured a lesser-documented creative
family tree (or rather secret society) and paved the way for individualistic projects from the
likes of Magnetic System’s Fabio Frizzi and Goblin’s Claudio Simonetti. Here, on this repress
of the impossibly rare, one-time subscription-only album, Arte Moderna, we find Daniela at
her versatile best creating a wide thematic suite (based on paintings and sculptures in an
abstract art gallery) for which she would deploy mostly organic and acoustic instruments
to construct a set of unorthodox compositions straddling avant garde, free jazz and Giallo
tension (with some brief moments of brooding electronics and italian pop).
Veering from her stylistic pop interests (which clearly included a fondness for the music of
Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin) Daniela Casa’s Arte Moderna saw her adopt a less era
specific approach combining neo-classical elements and piano improvisations akin to the
likes of France’s Francois Tusques or Burton Greene, or America’s Mal Waldron without
compromising her strong narrative personality for this unique abstracted picture music.
Unintentionally but profoundly political in her prolific existence Daniela Casa’s contribution
to a predominantly male industry earned her a small clutch of inspired idiosyncratic Italian
female bedfellows such as Nora Orlandi, Giullia De Muittis (aka Kema), Fiorella Fratini, Emma
De Angelis and Maria Teresa Luciani, who, with faceless anti-celebrity as its essence, never
benefitted the wider critical focus that much of this music now duly commands on the
collectors circuit.
Finders Keepers Records, in continued collaboration with the Di Barri company, with the
Casa/Ducros family blessing, are now proud to shine new light on this sonic sculptures and
provide a fresh context where educated music listeners are ready to fill the gaps between
Delia Derbyshire, Ennio Morricone, Suzanne Ciani and Harry Partch and patronise a very
welcome considered alternative to the recent rise in popularity of Italian Giallo soundtracks
from a seldom savoured feminine creative vantage point. Daniela’s musical paintings can
now be unveiled to the public for the first time, with Modern Art sounding as contemporary
as it did when it was recorded forty years ago. The gallery is now open for limited sittings,
discerning ears and open minds.

Melissa Guion is Mj Guider. She lives and works in New Orleans and previously released the Green Plastic extended play cassette in early 2014 on the Constellation Tatsu label. Employing heavy washes of bass and a deft touch in mixing, she uses stark contrasts to construct a semi-surreal aural space. What results are songs that exist in a wholly contained sound environment, minimal yet lush, spare yet saturated, and most importantly, entirely compelling. Having recently expanded to a trio, the group will be making select live appearances following Precious Systems release.

Many of you will remember Manuel Göttsching by his Masterpiece “E2-E4? and know the fact it got sampled by far more than once. Think “Sueno Latino” to start with… and the plethora of further re-recordings by Derrick May, Joe Claussell, and a bootleg by Carl Craig that prove how “Now” and Iconic Manuel´s Work is. The 2006 edition “Joaquin Joe Claussell meets Manuel Göttsching” is the first attempt to bring these once illegal mixes finally to a broader and wider audience. It comes with 2 very rare and first time officially released tribute mixes of 1970´s Göttsching Classics, carefully remodeled by Joe Claussell (21.12 minute “Deeper Distance” plus 10.17 Minute “Ain´t No Time For Tears"). The last words, however, are left to MG himself, with “Shuttlecock", a final eighteen minute excursion, which has Manuel improvise over a soft carpet of delayed bell sounds, before the guitar fades away and the track deepens and thickens, like a dark river sweeping along ever more motives and harmonies.

Hailing from Osaka, Japan, and owner of the Daytripper label, seiho is a new producer set to join the Leaving Records family with his debut full-length release.

Pulsating reconstructions of fragmented piano compositions, melded with gritty peripheral field recordings. Transcending from flashbacks, lingering between natural and industrial landscapes. Broken left-field electronica by Maxim Wolzyn for the third Marionette issue.