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`Astro-Darien' is a 26-minute sonic fiction about the break-up of Britain, narrated by synthetic Scottish voices and framed as an eponymous video game. It is the second release on Hyperdub sub-label Flatlines; a dark green 10" in triple gatefold sleeve, with artwork by Kode9's long-time collaborators Lawrence Lek and Optigram, presented as a limited edition of 500 copies. From a Caledonian heart of darkness to a supernova Scotia? The documentary fiction spirals between the role of the catastrophic Darien Scheme in the late 17th century in the founding of the UK, when Scotland failed to colonise part of present-day Panama, and the contemporary disintegration of the Union. In a somewhat wild extrapolation of the race to become the Scotland's first vertical satellite launch station currently playing out between Sutherland Space Port and the Shetland Space Centre, independence is speculatively framed as an exercise of escapology, a jailbreak and exodus to an orbital space habitat, with all the risks and dangers that entails. The loose plot follows a game designer from the fictional `Trancestar North' company who, in attempting to lift the dark spell cast by Darien, models a counter-future by ingesting cosmism, the history of racial capitalism and the demise of Empire into T-Divine, the geopolitics simulator of the game engine. She follows the Brexit algorithm as it runs to its logical conclusion. Initially conceived as an audio essay for diffusion on François Bayle's 50-speaker Acousmonium for Ina-grm in Paris in March 2020, but subsequently postponed by the pandemic, `Astro-Darien' first surfaced as a three-screen A/V installation on the dance floor of Corsica Studios in June 2021, finally reaching the Acousmonium the following October. In July 2022, an instrumental rhythmic version entitled `Escapology' was released on Hyperdub. A live A/V set relating to the `Astro-Darien' game universe will debut at Unsound Festival in October 2022.

Limited edition of 300 copies on curaçao blue wax.

Galvanica: a voice with unusual qualities, refined and balanced, also high-pitched, sensual, embellished by an orgasmic inspiration with fluid and spaced solos in hypnotic rhythms that often change scenery. ‘Nightlights in Japan’: an extraordinary piece of pure and profound creativity where each version seems to have been built apart and where the West meets the East. A splendid interpreter for a truly stunning piece, as fresh and far-sighted as the day it was recorded at Studio Emme in Calenzano by Marzio Benelli with the Yamaha DX7 synth and Linn 9000 drum sequencer that are at the base of the piece - made and re-interpreted in the four original versions, all sung in the Eastern Asian pentatonic scale. ‘Nightlights in Japan’ was also written by Massimiliano Orfei, at the time collaborator in the advertising projects from label Smash One Music of Pino Toma, the producer who drew new inspiration to venture into the record market, which, in 1987 became everyday more difficult and this song was considered out of fashion - even if each version seems to have been built as a unique composition, and it was expertly arranged by the talented Giorgio Costantini (Giokost as composer). We’ve clarified as to whom Galvanica's velopendulus belongs, to rightly consider this artist as a contributive voice of disco music, despite being part of the ‘second wave’ of the Italo-Disco scene having contributed to it as Otero, Belen Thomas, Angelby and previously with the disco-project Plustwo creating ‘Melody’ (which after 40 years gets a new extraordinary success with 134 million plays on TikTok and around 18 million streaming).

Galvanica: a voice with unusual qualities, refined and balanced, also high-pitched, sensual, embellished by an orgasmic inspiration with fluid and spaced solos in hypnotic rhythms that often change scenery. ‘Nightlights in Japan’: an extraordinary piece of pure and profound creativity where each version seems to have been built apart and where the West meets the East. A splendid interpreter for a truly stunning piece, as fresh and far-sighted as the day it was recorded at Studio Emme in Calenzano by Marzio Benelli with the Yamaha DX7 synth and Linn 9000 drum sequencer that are at the base of the piece - made and re-interpreted in the four original versions, all sung in the Eastern Asian pentatonic scale. ‘Nightlights in Japan’ was also written by Massimiliano Orfei, at the time collaborator in the advertising projects from label Smash One Music of Pino Toma, the producer who drew new inspiration to venture into the record market, which, in 1987 became everyday more difficult and this song was considered out of fashion - even if each version seems to have been built as a unique composition and it was expertly arranged by the talented Giorgio Costantini (Giokost as composer). We’ve clarified as to whom Galvanica's velopendulus belongs, to rightly consider this artist as a contributive voice of disco music, despite being part of the ‘second wave’ of the Italo-Disco scene having contributed to it as Otero, Belen Thomas, Angelby and previously with the disco-project Plustwo creating ‘Melody’ (which after 40 years gets a new extraordinary success with 134 million plays on TikTok and around 18 million streaming).

Dom Maker and Kai Campos have always known how to masterfully synthesise their talents into one singular yet ever changing vision. Since beginning in 2009, their work has morphed from their distinctly British sound of dubstep and techno to the boundaryless and densely packed collaborations of Love What Survives. Five years after that scintillating record, the two take their talents as Mount Kimbie to new extremes by splitting them in half entirely.

Having walked separate paths musically and physically in the world over the years since Love What Survives, Dom and Kai took a literal approach to their latest record, separating it into two distinct, independently produced albums - but linked through shared senses of sonic haziness and melody. Die Cuts shows Dom Maker at a collaborative peak, interspersing vocal cuts, samples, and urban sounds in swiftly stitched vignettes with a slowed down, lo-fi flair. Meanwhile, the chugging beats of City Planning mimic train tracks, as Kai Campos’ album contains rhythmic paintings of urbanity with detailed sonic architecture. These two sides of Mount Kimbie are as different as day and night, yet they inform each other greatly, speaking a simultaneous message from separate locations.

The opening track ‘dvd’ on Die Cuts features a mystical siren song fading in, before slowthai and Danny Brown’s expressive vocals cut through on ‘in your eyes’, trading bittersweet and apoplectic verses. An eerie alarm echoes on ‘heat on, lips on', subsiding with punchy beat and skittering keys, and a scathing, mercurial spoken word spiralling to jazzy loops depicting intimate struggles. City Planning in similar fashion shifts from tense, burrowing bass rumbles to fluttering synth droplets forming rivers of sound. The molten underground beat of ‘Transit Map (Flattened)’ lurches and groans, with piano notes sprawling like the many-coloured intersecting lines of a subway map.

Even when split in two, Mount Kimbie provide yet another total upheaval of their sound, combining their individual strengths for a roaringly creative album on MK 3.5.

Dom Maker and Kai Campos have always known how to masterfully synthesise their talents into one singular yet ever changing vision. Since beginning in 2009, their work has morphed from their distinctly British sound of dubstep and techno to the boundaryless and densely packed collaborations of Love What Survives. Five years after that scintillating record, the two take their talents as Mount Kimbie to new extremes by splitting them in half entirely.

Having walked separate paths musically and physically in the world over the years since Love What Survives, Dom and Kai took a literal approach to their latest record, separating it into two distinct, independently produced albums - but linked through shared senses of sonic haziness and melody. Die Cuts shows Dom Maker at a collaborative peak, interspersing vocal cuts, samples, and urban sounds in swiftly stitched vignettes with a slowed down, lo-fi flair. Meanwhile, the chugging beats of City Planning mimic train tracks, as Kai Campos’ album contains rhythmic paintings of urbanity with detailed sonic architecture. These two sides of Mount Kimbie are as different as day and night, yet they inform each other greatly, speaking a simultaneous message from separate locations.

The opening track ‘dvd’ on Die Cuts features a mystical siren song fading in, before slowthai and Danny Brown’s expressive vocals cut through on ‘in your eyes’, trading bittersweet and apoplectic verses. An eerie alarm echoes on ‘heat on, lips on', subsiding with punchy beat and skittering keys, and a scathing, mercurial spoken word spiralling to jazzy loops depicting intimate struggles. City Planning in similar fashion shifts from tense, burrowing bass rumbles to fluttering synth droplets forming rivers of sound. The molten underground beat of ‘Transit Map (Flattened)’ lurches and groans, with piano notes sprawling like the many-coloured intersecting lines of a subway map.

Even when split in two, Mount Kimbie provide yet another total upheaval of their sound, combining their individual strengths for a roaringly creative album on MK 3.5.