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In the late 1960s, Ursula Bogner started to record her own music on reel-to-reel tapes. With some of these titles, we only found individual tracks of pieces recorded on a four-track-recorder – in these cases, I had to recombine the separate tracks to recreate the original piece. Unfortunately, I could not involve Ursula Bogner in the mixing process as she passed away in 1994. Invoking the original’s authenticity might seem insensitive, yet there was no other way to release them in their entirety. Ultimately, only three of the tracks featured on this CD/LP are such ‘reworkings’. All other titles were taken straight from the original reels. Covering a fairly short period of her creative career, they also convey a peculiar coherence in both form and content. A coherence that reflects her accessible, rhythmic and sometimes even ‘poppy’ side. Naturally, my own preference played a part in the selection process. All my personal favourites made it on the CD/LP, and whenever I listen to this collection, I invariably succumb to the titles’ light-hearted nonchalance. This might leave many hours of undiscovered gems, but a further compilation is already in the works.
My thanks go out to the Bogner family, especially Sebastian Bogner, who was generous enough to grant me access to the reels and supply me with invaluable insights into his mother’s life. I hope that listeners will enjoy the same exhilaration I experienced on discovery of Ursula Bogner’s music.

Jan Jelinek

Pascal Gaigne, born in France in 1958 and installed in San Sebastian since 1985, is a musician with a vast trajectory composing music for films. He has composed for more than 50 movies, won 16 awards (including a Goya award, Spanish Oscar equivalent) and had 15 nominations. He has worked with some of the most interesting new directors in Spanish cinema (Víctor Erice, Icíar Bolláin, Salvador García Ruíz, Daniel Sánchez Arévalo, Montxo Armendáriz), and foreign directors like France (Le cou de la girafe), Finland (Matka Edeniin) or Cuba (Omerta).

Early in his career, before working in cinema, he collaborated with some of the most interesting artists and voices in the short history of Basque folk music, including well known Amaia Zubiria (check the two records he made with her “Egun Argi Hartan” & “Kolorez eta Ametsez”), as well as Basque traditional chant avant-gardist Beñat Achiary. It is together with Amaia & Beñat that he paired himself up to create “music pour le ballet du Iguzki Hauskara”, an entire album of compositions made for the 80’s French Basque Ballet group “Ekarle”. Originally released on cassette only in 1984, it is now reissued by Hegoa including three unreleased pieces taken from a second album that was never published.

Limited edition of 250 black vinyl LP’s housed in a coloured reverse board cover recreating the original hand painted artwork.

"Pulso de la Madera" comes as the definitive official reissue of the first album by the legendary band, along with previously unreleased remastered material, on a double LP with extensive liner notes and previously unseen pictures of the band. Essential to revisit the work of a band that inspired fourth world and organic ambient as we know it today; these tunes sound immersive and still contemporary.

On their short but influential career, Finis Africae proposed an informal and decentralized model of creativity that was decades ahead of current practices linked to technological advances; they explored unknown worlds and imagined landscapes of the “fourth world” apart from their present; they neither affirmed nor denied any of the labels they were to assign to them (“New Age”, “ethnic music”, “world music”, etc.); they recreated, used, and nourished foreign cultures without fear.

And most importantly - they shaped a sound “finis”. Your own space. Where there were no rules. A dimension in which the collective was submerged in long sessions of improvisation; where they could be goblins and magical entities; a place where they could imagine scales and structures unreal; where they could play any instrument in the known world; where they could tour the Mediterranean, Africa, and the Middle East in a blink of an eye; where they could be themselves without caring about anything that happened outside.

The unreleased tracks come as a careful selection of a deep-dive over hundred tracks and demos, compiled by Urba and Glossy Mario. The license comes from Juan Alberto Arteche's family.

When the first Placid Angels album dropped in 1997, Jon Beltran was already an established force within dance music’s then-emerging scene. He had a knack for both the melodic side as well as intricately designed rhythmic programming. A signature style that went for his early records in the 1990s as much as it does for this new installment of the Placid Angles series. The blissful synths, Aphex Twin-era IDM and loose percussive patterns take you right back to where it all began when genres didn’t mean anything and Beltran was just starting out to experiment with any sound that would elevate your consciousness. The Michigan-born artist since has spanned a career of nearly four decades, remaining relevant all the while, by playing the music he found himself most drawn to express. By working with artists like Detroit veteran Carl Craig, labels such as R&S or more recently his LPs for Delsin or his joint work with Four Tet. Whether it be his more Techno-leaning or New Wave-inspired works, his takes on Ambient, or the more Latin-influenced productions - he has always stayed active and re-invented himself while painting his records with a clearly own palette that is full of beautiful melodies and a timeless sound-design. The album Touch The Earth itself comes as diverse as the artist’s own legacy, ranging from skittish, colorful UKG to proper pulsing sub-basslines as it progresses deeper into intelligent drum programming and further into the melodic ventures of what’s at the core of Beltran’s work.

Wrwtfww Records is ecstatic to announce the first ever best-of compilation of Soichi Terada’s amazing project Omodaka. including 14 songs never released on vinyl before. The 18-track Zentsuu: Collected Works 2001-2019 album is available on double LP in heavy 350gsm sleeve with printed inner sleeves, as well as in CD and digital formats.

Initiated in 2001 while trying to create a "boat racing song", the Omodaka project features sublime music by veteran electronic/house/jungle/video game music producer/DJ Soichi Terada and the vocals of Japanese folk min'yo & enka singer Akiko Kanazawa for a never-heard-before colorful blend of retro game 8bit/chiptune sounds and traditional Japanese music with wet electro rhythms, joyful 90s house grooves, and slick downtempo vibes. Feel-good, sexy, and fun, Terada’s project brings forth one of the most unique sounds in recent memory. The smile-inducing sonic adventure is packed with irresistible hits and a good dose of dancefloor-ready gems: a well deserved delivery of good times for 2022 and beyond!

Tokyo born genius Soichi Terada has built an impressive career in different music genres. He co-founded respected label Far East Recording with Shinchiro Yokata, composed the soundtrack for cult video game series Ape Escape, released tons of amazing house music records (some included in the beautiful compilation Sounds from the Far East released by Rush Hour in 2015), and has been a celebrated world-touring DJ.

Machines of Loving Grace, available in half speed mastered 180g double lp housed in a heavy sleeve with UV spot varnish. Machines of Loving Grace, the new album by Para One, whose real name is Jean-Baptiste de Laubier could be called fiction. It is an object freed from constraints, formats, genres, territories: the gospel of a new world. Six years after Club, eight years after Passion, his previous LP, this lover of electronic music, who has also been putting his sensitivity to the service of movies (soundtracks for Céline Sciamma in particular) opens with this record a new dimension in his artistic career. “I needed to break away from patterns and systematisms of formats, and take unexpected turns. To do so, I had first to allow myself to do so”. Allow oneself and maybe above all confront oneself – with one’s childhood, with one’s childhood’s ghosts, and what fantasies, ideals, memories, and grey areas they harbor. He had to go back – without giving up on his position as an adult, as a full-fledged artist – to the sources of his imagination, to the moment when music was holding almost mystical power. And then revisit it to make something new out of it. Just like Sanity, Madness & the Family (the feature film directed by Para One that he just finished and of which it is a consubstantial part), Machines of Loving Grace has an investigation around a family secret and the father figure as its starting point. “When you go down the path – of a work, of a person, of the past – you never really find out what was.

It’s not easy to summarize any band whose career has stretched over two decades. In the case of Growing, though, it’s all in the name: since 2001, the core duo of Kevin Doria and Joe DeNardo have been making vibrating, explorative experimental music that is in a forever state of evolution. In that time, they have amassed a hard-to-define and influential body of work, and Diptych sees the band operating at the height of their “big amp ambient” powers. Diptych is a masterclass in slowly undulating ambient drift, and quite possibly the definitive headphone album of the year. Guitars that sound like organs pointed at the heavens are cut with subtly damaged electronic moves, the end result being a record that is at once ecstatic, transportive and gritty. Ambient and new age music have become part of the larger indie vocabulary. Things were different over twenty years ago in the Olympia, Washington punk community where Doria and DeNardo got their start. Both veterans of aggressive music by the time the band began, Growing emerged like a rainbow at the other end of the heavy music tunnel: loud as ever, but with a sonic and aesthetic position that ran counter to punk rock norms. Created over the past year and a half, Diptych extrapolates on Growing’s formative drone-based work, showing a unit in full control of a language that they have built and reconfigured over time. The music here continues to be an intuitive outgrowth of a friendship that started in late-90s Olympia and still bears fruit today—even as each member lives in a different city.

Romare—real name Archie Fairhurst—returns with his new album “Home”, marking his 3rd on Ninja Tune and first full length album since 2016’s critically acclaimed “Love Songs: Part Two”. It follows the recently released ‘Gone / Danger’ 12”, his most direct dancefloor record to date, which Resident Advisor described as “An engrossing eight minutes of cinematic house music”.

Romare’s music has always sat comfortably in both the dancefloor world and a more relaxed environment, “Home” being no exception. With euphoric, uplifting moments on ‘Sunshine’ and ‘Heaven’ through to more meditative and melancholy moments on ‘Deliverance’. “For me, the sweet point in music is when happy and sad come together” comments Fairhurst, “when they meet in the middle, that’s what I try to create”.

The release of “Home” comes after a lifetime of being on the move for Fairhurst, he spent his childhood travelling constantly with his family as his parents moved around the world for work, before finally settling in the UK. This nomadic lifestyle would continue with his burgeoning career as a musician taking him off touring the world (playing over 150 shows in the last 2 years alone). Which brings us to “Home”, The new album marks a new chapter in Fairhust’s life with a move out of London to the countryside and starting a family, a move which has “given me peace and quiet” he comments. The new addition of his own home-built studio adds to this feeling of being content and settled, having worked from various bedroom studios in the past.

Selwa Abd (originally from Morocco, currently residing in Brooklyn) uses the fictional character Bergsonist, from Brooklyn, Slovakia, as her musical guise. Derived from Deleuze's Bergsonism, Bergsonist uses intuition as a method to deliver her/his instinctive psychoanalytic theories. A blend of different audio sources and samples are used as a way to capture the essence of the 'present' moment, manipulating found sounds along with self-concocted digital fragments to combine in in the span of a set, given time. Bergsonist allows inspiration to come from anywhere, yet she/he limits themselves by the gear/tools that are used. The approach consists of inhaling all the energy of the city - influenced by trips to museums, galleries, shows, talking to people. and sensing nature - and exhaling it sonically. Bergsonist reacts to this energy and inspiration without any specific rules, styles, or genres - extending the array of possibilities by always pushing preconceived uses of the tools. Following a slew of cassette-only releases from labels across the global map and a split 12" with Isabella on Borft Records last year, Selwa shares her most twisted and considered compositions to date with Mutation. Four fire-stoking tracks of electro convulsions sparked from indecipherable depths inflame new terrains for an artist whose output is inextinguishable - prolific barely covers the rapidity with which Bergsonist shares new jams to a lucky few - proffering Mutation as an indelible moment in Selwa's blossoming career. Mutation features a ripped / thrashed remix from in-the-cut edit wizard, Murray CY. Mutation will be available in a limited vinyl edition of 200 with artwork designed and conceived by Selwa and Benoit Canaud Studio.

The composer, percussionist and instrument builder Limpe Fuchs has spent six decades exploring the outer limits of sound and its effects on the listener. Born in Munich in 1941, Fuchs is part of a generation of German artists who sought radical new approaches to art, music and social organisation in the period following the Second World War.

Alloa, Bavarian for alone. Limpe likes to be alone, because she is never lonely. When she is not on concert tours, she cultivates the garden in front of the door or playfully handles her instruments in the house. Among these has recently been a restored concert grand piano, which she found orphaned at a performance venue in Switzerland and rescued from being scrapped in Peterskirchen. Since then it has been the center of Limpe's attention, is played daily, and can be heard on the recordings of this LP.

The music alternates between free improvisation and impromptu compositions, played also around fragmented recited poems. Beyond the boundaries of jazz, art song and classical music lies the freedom Limpe takes at the piano, laughingly commenting on her unorthodox, even carefree way of making music with a quote from Friedrich Gulda: "From seventy on, all pianists are bad."

Well, so what, Limpe is not a pianist anyway, she is much more than that. She is the most vivid proof of a long-lasting, versatile and intrepid musical career, the next chapter of which will also consist of Limpe no longer exclusively traveling through Europe heavily laden with all her self-made instruments, but every now and then light-heartedly from grand piano to grand piano, to then make music for everyone, as always but not necessarily alone.

Soon after the release in 2022 of a triple album dedicated to electronic language, Principles of Geometry continues their orbiting journey that began exactly 20 years ago with "Penta," a Maxi composed of five electro-geometric vignettes that confirm what we already knew: the discreet French duo pilots one of the most underestimated projects in European IDM.

By returning just one year after a massive fifth album (26 tracks), Principles of Geometry makes a clear artistic move: shifting from electronic language unfolded on ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ to gesture, as one would associate intellect with manual, actions with words. On "Penta," to be visualized as the five fingers of a hand sketching the immediate and spontaneous pleasure of a hand pressing a chord, Guillaume Grosso and Jeremy Duval thus combine two essential concepts of their electronic music: the need to make the listener dance with their brains, and to touch with their mental images.

With nods to the godfathers of the genre (Autechre and Boards of Canada) or crossing paths with Aphex Twin in a Michael Mann film, "Penta" is therefore a beauty of gesture first conceived with the fingers, and without the need for words to evoke either the romance or the violence of a chord on a Roland Juno 60.

Mastered by the legend Noel Summerville (Boards of Canada, Kraftwerk, My Bloody Valentine) and designed by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic (responsible for the graphics of the cult WipEout and many collaborations with the Warp label), this Maxi is therefore listened to as much as a recreational return to the future of the 90s as it is a concise summary of the equilateral career of Principles of Geometry; equally distant between pure emotion and the need to ponder the notes played in this very special ship.

Pioneering Scottish-Canadian animator Norman McLaren (1914-1987) - creator of seminal short films Dots, Neighbours, Synchromy and many more - is remembered in first ever release of soundtrack works, self-composed from the 1940’s to 1970’s and forecasting the following half-century of electronic music.

Norman McLaren was once described by composer, music theorist, and mathematician Milton Babbitt as “the first electronic musician.” In addition to his pioneering work in animation, the electronic soundtracks McLaren created for his own films employ astonishing foresight and a characteristically precise methodology. They also crystallise boundless creativity, wit and whimsy, and illuminative brilliance into a unique insight to his remarkable mind, with or without visual accompaniment.

Rythmetic: The Compositions of Norman McLaren marks the first time his soundtracks have been released on record, carefully curated from his most important film works, hours of archival tapes, and multiple versions of the same key compositions. It represents an essential overview of McLaren as a composer, in neat dovetail with McLaren the filmmaker. Both are crucial figures in the respective developments of their fields, opening doors to a future that might not have existed without McLaren.

As an animator, McLaren was renowned for utilising or inventing techniques at their very vanguard and shaping to his needs the rudimentary technology of the era. Many of these techniques and technological adaptations, developed at the National Film Board of Canada over the 1940’s and 50’s, would eventually become adopted into standard practice for animation. He also blazed new trails for soundtrack composition: having heard the glue of spliced film reel produce sound as it passed through his equipment, he began meticulously applying his own cuts and notches to the tape and measuring the frequency values of the tones these striations would emit. Over years of refinement, he created a series of cards to correspond to eight octaves of musical notes, frequency by frequency, and to recruit these cards to compose his soundtracks. It was a way to maintain total creative control and freedom over his own work - every single frame would be processed “the McLaren way”.

“He could have used a synthesiser,” writes long-term assistant, friend, and filmmaker of McLaren documentaries Don McWilliams, also at the National Film Board, “but he had his own method and he stuck with it.” John Cage was an ardent fan, inviting McLaren to his infamous downtown NYC socials and once even writing to McLaren to beg a recommendation for his recruitment at the National Film Board.

Unsurprisingly, McLaren was musically capable and aware throughout his career. He was an inquisitive listener, often drawn to rhythmic expression found outside western music, and he collected records for both reference and enjoyment. West African and Chinese music were particular pleasures, as well as the gypsy jigs that in his youth had informed his own practice as a violin player.

The opening piece to this compilation, “Now Is The Time”, is crafted from trilling, birdsong arpeggiations of dulcet high frequency tones that chatter and warble in scattered dialogue. Accompanying the clouds, multiple suns, and dancing figures of the film, the soundtrack is alive with joy and wonderment. Next, “Rythmetic”, soundtracking McLaren’s famed numeric sequence visualisation, pitters and patters with the types of glitching rhythms so coveted by contemporary electronic music almost a century later. Even from these first pieces alone, it is readily apparent that McLaren could not have achieved the effect he desired with scored instrumentation. The “McLaren way”, so crucial to his process, is as much foundational to his soundtracks as it is to the films themselves.

Despite his acclaim and recognition within the world of film and animation - he won an Oscar, a Palme d’Or, is a favourite of George Lucas’, and is recorded in UNESCO’s cultural heritage archives (none of which interested him) - Norman McLaren is not a Walt Disney, Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, or an Ub Iwerks. His work is unflinchingly outré. Seeking out experimental, innovative, and unconventional modes of storytelling, his creative expression went even deeper than pioneering methodology and a prolific output, becoming part of the man himself as his working hours in the studio became longer and longer as his career blossomed. Even his straightest films are decidedly odd at their core, revealing not only a playful and joyously childlike sense of humour, but also the perpetual pursuit of perfection that fuelled his filmmaking throughout his life.

A gay man, McLaren also resisted the normative social structures of the day in his personal life, acutely aware of the legal implications of his relationship with lifelong partner and fellow NFB director Guy Glover. He also remains revered as the most generous and trusting of teachers, bringing under his wing young or inexperienced filmmakers in whom he saw passion and promise. His second protegee George Dunning, who went on to produce Yellow Submarine for the Beatles, had only recently graduated when McLaren brought him to work in the NFB studios.

Towards the end of McLaren’s career, McWilliams asked him how he perceived his own legacy; how Norman McLaren would be remembered in a hundred years’ time. “A filmmaker who made some interesting films,” was his reply. Modest, funny, wise, and yet knowingly sly. An answer most McLaren.

William Norman McLaren was born 11th April 1914 in Stirling, Scotland. He died January 27th 1987 in Hudson, Canada.

Limited Edition of 100 copies of clear vinyl with pink & sea blue splatters. Only at HHV!

His name may not be instantly familiar, but Hideki Matsutake has had a huge influence over Electronic music. Starting his career as the assistant of Japanese Electronic Music master Isao Tomita in the early 70s, he went on to work with Ryuichi Sakamoto and then Yellow Magic Orchestra as their keyboard programmer and unofficial fourth member. In 1981 he started his own Logic System project recording "Venus" that year in Los Angeles with Don Grusin, Nathan East and Michael Boddicker, brilliantly mixing Synth Funk, Ambient and Boogie with a touch of Fusion Jazz predating Vaporwave by a mere 30 years. Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue this visionary album, which
comes remastered from the original tapes and features Pater Sato stunning artwork including the rare beautiful 8-page insert with an exclusive interview of Hideki Matsutake by Hashim Kotaro Bharoocha.
The early 80s were prolific for Hideki Matsutake. As the go-to keyboard programmer for the tokyo music scene, he worked on Akiko Yano's "Gohan Ga Dekitayo", YMO's "BGM", Ryuichi Sakamoto's "B-2 Unit", Mkwaju Ensemble's "Mkwaju" and found time to record two Logic System albums in 1981. While the first album, "Logic" had a harder techno feel, the second one "Venus" was different affair. Recorded in Los Angeles at the new state of the art Yamaha Studio, it was loosely themed on the Greek goddess Venus and had a funkier more organic sound. For the album Matsutake had asked a handful of American musicians to provide songs he would then add his synth magic touch to. Michael Boddicker, Don Grusin, Nathan East and Roger Powell duly complied and also played on the album.

The updated sound was achieved by switching from the Moog III to the E-mu modular System (which Matsutake brought over to LA) and other synths like the Prophet 5, the Roland MC-8 and TR 808 and the Yamaha GS-1, a forerunner of the DX7.

The result is an amazing futuristic mix of electronic music and early 80s funk, announcing many genres to come, from techno and house to French electro and Vaporwave. From the breezy ambient synth of "I Love You" to the city pop edge of "Be Yourself" (originally written by Nathan East for Debra Laws) and the vocoder-led Daft Punk-ish "Take A Chance", Venus is a fascinating album that both pushes the boundaries of electronic music and is yet strangely accessible and beautiful.

The other key elements of Venus is the artwork designed by Japanese legendary illustrator Pater Sato. Sato had started in Japan in the early 70s doing many album covers for Japanese artists including Tatsuro Yamashita's cult Spacy LP before moving to New York in 1979 to pursue a career in fashion and advertising. His airbrush style became hugely influential over the years and in 2018, Stella McCartney dedicated a whole Men’s collection based on his Venus. Star make up artist Pat McGrath also regularly posts his artwork to her 3 million fans on her instagram.

The original album came with a beautiful 8-panel insert illustrated by Sato which Wewantsounds has reproduced on this deluxe reissue also featuring remastered sound, OBI strip and a second insert featuring credits and line up plus liner notes by Hashim Bharoocha. The notes will feature an exclusive interview with Hideki Matsutake reminiscing about the making of this visionary album which Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue.

Bonobo will release his new album ‘Fragments' via Ninja Tune on January 14th, 2022. Fragments is the most emotionally intense record that he - aka Simon Green - has ever had to make. It’s no surprise that it’s also his masterpiece. The album features Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation, the album ultimately was fused together in a burst of creativity fuelled by both collaboration and Green’s escape into the wild. The artwork for ‘Fragments" is by Neil Krug who returns after creating the art for 2017’s 'Migration’. Krug has also made a visualiser for ’Rosewood”.

One of the biggest names in dance music, Green’s career includes 3 Grammy nominations and playing to over 2 million people for the tour supporting his 2017 album Migration. Migration was a top ten album in multiple countries, top five at home in the UK and a Billboard dance album number one in the US. He’s also a favourite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals. As part of the tour announced today Bonobo will play three dates at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in addition to dates in Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham.

Fragments is a series of 12 sonic affirmations, featuring some of the hardest and most hip-shaking grooves that Green has ever created. The ballads are perfectly placed throughout; they capture a world in flux and glow with hope. Coaxing the ideas out initially took some hard work. The constantly-touring Green creates best while on the move; the global shutdown forced him to stand still.

Bonobo will release his new album ‘Fragments' via Ninja Tune on January 14th, 2022. Fragments is the most emotionally intense record that he - aka Simon Green - has ever had to make. It’s no surprise that it’s also his masterpiece. The album features Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation, the album ultimately was fused together in a burst of creativity fuelled by both collaboration and Green’s escape into the wild. The artwork for ‘Fragments" is by Neil Krug who returns after creating the art for 2017’s 'Migration’. Krug has also made a visualiser for ’Rosewood”.

One of the biggest names in dance music, Green’s career includes 3 Grammy nominations and playing to over 2 million people for the tour supporting his 2017 album Migration. Migration was a top ten album in multiple countries, top five at home in the UK and a Billboard dance album number one in the US. He’s also a favourite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals. As part of the tour announced today Bonobo will play three dates at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in addition to dates in Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham.

Fragments is a series of 12 sonic affirmations, featuring some of the hardest and most hip-shaking grooves that Green has ever created. The ballads are perfectly placed throughout; they capture a world in flux and glow with hope. Coaxing the ideas out initially took some hard work. The constantly-touring Green creates best while on the move; the global shutdown forced him to stand still.

Wrwtfww Records is thrilled to announce the official reissue of Daisaku Kume's original soundtrack for the highly acclaimed 1989 Japanese crime/drama movie Violent Cop. Available for the first time outside of Japan, the album comes in a limited edition of 500 copies worldwide with a 45 rpm cut providing full audio pleasure and an iconic record sleeve featuring the movie director and star: the one and only "Beat" Takeshi Kitano!

Violent Cop marks Kitano's directorial debut - a gritty neo-noir in which he stars as a rogue detective fighting a sadistic crime syndicate, only to discover widespread internal corruption in the police force. Poetic, minimalistic, with a superb balance between small soothing moments of beauty and vertiginous sudden violence, the film spearheaded a superb international career for the multi-talented filmmaker, actor, and comedian, which includes works such as Sonatine, Hana-Bi, and Battle Royale. The release of the soundtrack on vinyl presents an excellent opportunity for fans to explore the musical underpinnings of one of Kitano's earliest creations. Daisaku Kume, known for his work as the keyboardist for late 70s fusion bands T-Square and Prism, showcases versatile musical prowess on the soundtrack, taking listeners on a sonic journey through a blend of genres including magnificent Erik Satie re-interpretations, melancholic smooth jazz sometimes reminiscent of Taxi Driver, ambient-classical, and modern Western atmospherics. It's the perfect setting for Kitano's stoic but tormented lonesome urban cowboy character. Raw power mixed with timeless elegance.

Violent Cop (Original Soundtrack) by Daisaku Kume follows the recent release of the soundtrack from another groundbreaking Japanese movie, Shin'ya Tsukamoto's Tokyo Fist (1995), with music by industrial visionaries Chu Ishikawa & Der Eisenrost, also currently available on Wrwtfww Records.

Originally released in 2008 on Type Recordings, Caesura by Helios aka Keith Kenniff returns in a new 2022 edition vinyl re-release, remastered by Taylor Deupree.

Keith Kenniff had been with Type from the very beginning, and in the fifth year of the label he offered his fifth gorgeous release. In those five years Keith's style had evolved constantly, with his drifting piano compositions taking the Goldmund label and the Helios sound moving out from underneath the clipped beat-heavy electronics of 'Unomia' and into a more unique place, even incorporating vocals on the 'Ayres' mini album. 'Caesura' however was his 'proper' follow-up to the acclaimed 'Eingya', and has seen Keith return to the instrumental sound he knows so well. In fact in many ways 'Caesura' is a more electronic work than its predecessors, blending layer upon layer of synthesizer and adding his assured drumming to come up with the perfect meeting of indie-pop and ambient music. The haunting cinematic element is still present of course, but these songs are more rounded and confident than any in Keith's career to that point.

From the delicate bliss of 'Hope Valley Hill' which opens up the album with gauzy nostalgia and, as the title promised, hope, through the chunky pop of 'Come With Nothings' it is clear that Keith's music is as arresting as it ever was. Taking cues from the lilting indie-electronics of Ulrich Schnauss and the unfussy ambience of Brian Eno, Keith manages to inject this with his knowledge as a composer. The epic harmonies of 'Backlight' for instance reveal a lightness of touch rarely heard in the genre with sweeping synthesized chords buzzing alongside Keith's signature guitar.

Accompanied by more gorgeous artwork from Matthew Woodson, 'Caesura' still is a glowing record for the winter months, and a glimmer of hope to keep the seasons at bay.

In the past few years, Clarice Jensen has forged her own path. Recently, her focus has shifted to film scoring, successfully recording work for three feature films between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Clarice continues to serve as artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, while continually collaborating with an impressive array of musicians, such as Max Richter, Björk and Stars of the Lid, to name a few.

That being said, it was her 2019 tape release on Geographic North, »Drone Studies«, that initially caught the attention of a wider audience, with the work showcasing a compelling assembly of deeply immersive drones, and elegantly orchestrated compositions, in which neoclassical elements collide with electric density.

Three years later, the work has lost none of its innovative character and appeal. It also documents a turning point in Clarice's career, one where her classically trained background started to converged and overlap with her interests in improvisational electronics and drone music. As a result, the aptly titled »Drone Studies« shows Clarice at her most exploratory, introspective, and daring, channeling her areas of interest into a collage of richly textured timbers and cello movements of sublime tension.

Now for the first time, the original album can be experienced through an expanded vinyl reissue, mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and carefully adjusted for vinyl by Ian Hawgood. The new reissue also features an additional track by Clarice called »Platonic Solids 2«, which was originally conceived around the same time as »Drone Studies«, and which has now been made available exclusively for the vinyl edition.

We hope that this new reissue will aid in introducing Clarice's groundbreaking »Drone Studies« to a new crowd of listeners through this expanded edition.

clear deluxe double vinyl (140g) including 4 art prints and download code.

Bonobo will release his new album ‘Fragments' via Ninja Tune on January 14th, 2022. Fragments is the most emotionally intense record that he - aka Simon Green - has ever had to make. It’s no surprise that it’s also his masterpiece. The album features Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation, the album ultimately was fused together in a burst of creativity fuelled by both collaboration and Green’s escape into the wild. The artwork for ‘Fragments" is by Neil Krug who returns after creating the art for 2017’s 'Migration’. Krug has also made a visualiser for ’Rosewood”.

One of the biggest names in dance music, Green’s career includes 3 Grammy nominations and playing to over 2 million people for the tour supporting his 2017 album Migration. Migration was a top ten album in multiple countries, top five at home in the UK and a Billboard dance album number one in the US. He’s also a favourite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals. As part of the tour announced today Bonobo will play three dates at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in addition to dates in Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham.

Fragments is a series of 12 sonic affirmations, featuring some of the hardest and most hip-shaking grooves that Green has ever created. The ballads are perfectly placed throughout; they capture a world in flux and glow with hope. Coaxing the ideas out initially took some hard work. The constantly-touring Green creates best while on the move; the global shutdown forced him to stand still.

The fragility and balancing act of creativity is an immeasurable factor in the life of any artist, serving as a commanding force in the choices they make over their careers. If the connection and meaning in creativity becomes devoid, there's a transformation process that either channels an ascension or departure. An internal and external battle that can chase and haunt individuals in every part of their life if one falls into the latter position. In the case of Los Angeles based electronic producer Huxley Anne, ascension was achieved during one of these tests of creative endurance and preservation, entering a phase of her life where the process of feeling art on meaningful levels had subsided for a lengthy period and the eventual reprisal of these natural gifts returned. This led to the creation of her debut album and an expansion in creativity that marks an important beginning for her path as an artist. This work is known as Ilium, representing a moment in Huxley Anne's life that's been one of her most testing yet rewarding mountains to climb. Ilium is Huxley Anne's debut album with Los Angeles indie imprint and Alpha Pup Records affiliate, Dome of Doom. Sonically, Ilium is an orchestrated field of unique beauty, drawing together eight tracks of exotic electronic music that calls upon the darkest and most light driven of emotions. Exploratory textures take on vortexes of shape through cinematic sound designs, fluidly traversing between amorphous undertones, intricate composition mapping and pulsing rhythms. From the submersion of euphoria to the illumination of power, Ilium draws upon as many influences in the realm of mystical antiquity as it does the landscape of experimental music leading us into the future. A sonic portrait of her ascension through creative turmoil, the struggle of sustained determination and a rebirth into timeless artistry. Huxley Anne has created a boldness in sound that was made with the most vulnerable and giving of sides and simply put, Ilium is the continuation of meaningful life.

Editions Mego presents The Psychologist, the sophomore album by the Istanbul born and raised, Berlin based electronic music composer and sound artist Hüma Utku. As the title suggests, The Psychologist, is a series of sonic essays based around themes of psychological phenomena and can be read as a musical enquiry into the human condition. With Utku’s background as a graduate of Psychology and her current practice as a conceptual music composer we see the two main threads in her professional career intertwine on this unique and ambitious release. Including recordings of Buchla 200 from Utku’s Elektronmusikstudion residency in October 2020,The Psychologist is a genre aversive work that embodies elements of synthesiser music, electroacoustic, experimental techno, industrial, modern composition and spoken word. Piano, string compositions and vocals hold weight throughout a number of pieces providing a dramatic acoustic edge to the psychological explorations contained within. The foreboding mood of much of this release is the product of investigation that lends the unsettling theme of anticipatory grief to the mood of the tracks Light of All Lights and Continuing Bonds. Islands of Consciousness refers to Jungian metaphor for consciousness whilst the unnerving Rüya twists around dream analysis in Gestalt psychology. Fuel For The Flames proceeds as a buzzing and swirling representation of alchemy and psychological symbolism. Dissolution of I is haunted by a strange sensation of dissociation whilst defense mechanisms support the sublime Sublimation. The bright shapes of Chironian Wound represent archetypes and analytical psychology whilst the fried soundscapes and rhythms of Ataxia encapture neurological states. The results unravel with both the clockwork rhythms of the human body and the unpredictable nature of the psyche, the pieces follow arrhythmic patterns in a harmonious way. It tells the raw and intimate story of the human experience with a new work whereby the predictable operates in parallel with the unexpected and like human experience itself, is dark and complex.

In Trux We Pux is an editorial project organized by the Porto based label and collective Favela Discos. Focusing on the city’s thriving experimental and improvised music scene, it sets out to portrait in a series of four volumes some of the characteristic sounds and collaborative practices that have been in development in Porto during the last few years.

Milteto is an informal orchestra born out of the Favela Discos collective somewhere in 2014. The idea, that had been around for a while, was materialized for a concert in one of the first events hosted by Favela, in the extinct Picadilly Pub in Porto, a small strip club turned underground venue. It was one of those wet pre-covid nights where the condensation dripped down the mirrored walls, in a loud endurance contest that resulted in a fainted audience member.

For a very large number of reasons, it would be hard to define Milteto’s whole “career” in an album: the band has always inhabited the live context, trying to create massive immersive sound experiences for both the listeners and the musicians, subconsciously seeking to achieve transcendence by volume.

So, in reality this is a momentary reflection of an always mutating entity, instead of trying to define the several years of drastically different experiences in just 45 minutes, they took to the album as just another live presentation where they adapted to the idea of what a record could be as if they would adapt to a venue.

Faced with the idea of creating an album that reflected the project’s mutability, the band looked at the medium itself for inspiration, as the vinyl record has two sides, they thought that maybe it would be a good idea to reflect that on the music. So the recording sessions were split into two days, with two different groups of guests. One side set to recreate a more physical manifestation of the band, the other a more mental side, the first teeming with percussion, the other with electronic devices and synthesisers.

Electronic music pioneer Lustmord released an album titled [other] in 2008, to date the only Lustmord album with guitars on it, performed by Adam Jones (tool), King Buzzo (melvins) and Aaron Turner (isis). The albums The Dark Places of the Earth and Beyond, both released in 2009, areextensions of the ideas explored in [other] and are taken from the same recording sessions, but with the guitars removed and the essence of [other] distilled and reduced.[other] was a journey with friends, whileThe Dark Places of the Earth and Beyond take the concept and listener further, deeper, in-between and beyond. While is some ways [other] is as close to a "rock" album as Lustmord will ever make, The Dark Places of the Earth and Beyond are pure Lustmord, a sound that many others imitate but can never equal. Lustmord is the artistic moniker of Brian Williams. Born in North Wales, he started his musical career in 1980 and soon became a pioneer in the early industrial music scene in the UK. He was a former member of SPK during arguably their most crucial era, and went on to work with Throbbing Gristle members Chris & Cosey as well as appearing on early albums by Current 93, Nurse With Wound and others. After relocating to Los Angeles in 1993, Williams worked on dozens of motion picture soundtracks including The Crow, Underworld and Paul Schrader's First Reformed. Additionally he created several video game soundtracks, television scores and solo albums, as well as collaborating with artists as varied as THE Melvins, Clock DVA, Jarboe, John Balance of Coil, Paul Haslinger (tangerine Dream), Puscifer, Wes Borland and more, including Grammy Award-winners Tool on their much acclaimed effort Fear Inoculum. To this day, Lustmord is actively recording and releasing music, his latest release being the collaborative album Alter with Karin Park of A°rabrot, and he is considered to be the founding father of the dark ambient music genre.

Bonobo will release his new album ‘Fragments' via Ninja Tune on January 14th, 2022. Fragments is the most emotionally intense record that he - aka Simon Green - has ever had to make. It’s no surprise that it’s also his masterpiece. The album features Jamila Woods, Joji, Kadhja Bonet, Jordan Rakei, O’Flynn and Miguel Atwood-Ferguson. Born first out of fragments of ideas and experimentation, the album ultimately was fused together in a burst of creativity fuelled by both collaboration and Green’s escape into the wild. The artwork for ‘Fragments" is by Neil Krug who returns after creating the art for 2017’s 'Migration’. Krug has also made a visualiser for ’Rosewood”.

One of the biggest names in dance music, Green’s career includes 3 Grammy nominations and playing to over 2 million people for the tour supporting his 2017 album Migration. Migration was a top ten album in multiple countries, top five at home in the UK and a Billboard dance album number one in the US. He’s also a favourite mainstage performer at the world’s greatest music festivals. As part of the tour announced today Bonobo will play three dates at the legendary Royal Albert Hall in London in addition to dates in Brighton, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Nottingham.

Fragments is a series of 12 sonic affirmations, featuring some of the hardest and most hip-shaking grooves that Green has ever created. The ballads are perfectly placed throughout; they capture a world in flux and glow with hope. Coaxing the ideas out initially took some hard work. The constantly-touring Green creates best while on the move; the global shutdown forced him to stand still.

This split release unites two female underground acts, both of whom have recently become pivotal parts of the contemporary electronic musical landscape in Japan. Hot on the heels of the acclaimed PAREDO EP compilation (TAL12), which has been released in May 2019 (and also includes contributions from Lena Willikens and Miki Yui), the SUPER MILD split album is the second outing by KOPY and TENTENKO on TAL. Their newest works punctuate their highly individual approaches to contemporary experimental dance music.

TENTENKO is a Tokyo-based electronic music producer. Her career began in 2013 when she joined the mainstream idol group BIS. Immediately after her departure from BIS in 2014 she commenced work on her solo project under her artist name TENTENKO. Since then she has radically reinvented her music away from glossy J-POP towards weird and industrial rooted dancefloor. TENTENKO first made a name for herself on the alternative Japanese music scene with a steady flow of live performances as well as collaborations with members of the legendary Japanese noise band HIJOKAIDAN.

For a few years now KOPY has been an unpredictable and charismatic part of the vital electronic music scene of Osaka. She has quickly garnered a reputation for creating her live sets exclusively with borrowed electronic equipment. Her name KOPY very much originates from this "concept". Apart from a few performances at Düsseldorfs famous nightspot SALON DES AMATEURS, she has been invited by LENA WILLIKENS to her showcase at the MEAKUSMA FESTIVAL in 2018. Her sinister dancefloor mystique is heavily steeped in the free spirited noise and rhythm cultures of her hometown.

Following celebrated compilations from Motor City Drum Ensemble and Young Marco – and with the second edition of its limited-capacity festival in Croatia right around the corner – Dekmantel’s Selectors series now continues with an edition curated by Marcel Dettmann
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Although he’s now known as one of the world’s most celebrated techno artists, even Marcel Dettmann had to start somewhere. Long before he ever held court at Berghain (or its predecessor, Ostgut), he was just another young boy in Eastern Germany, one whose earliest encounters with capitalism involved spending every penny he could scrape together down at the local record shop. In those days, it wasn’t techno that got him excited, but new wave, post-punk, industrial and EBM acts like Front 242 and Depeche Mode

“It’s music from my childhood,” says Dettmann. “It’s still relevant and still inspires me.” That inspiration can be heard across this edition of the Selectors series, as Dettmann has put together what he describes as a “pre-techno compilation.” Much like the previous Selectors editions, the compilation is not a mix CD, but a collection of tracks hand picked by Dettmann from his own vinyl archives. Freshly remastered – and occasionally reworked or re-edited by Dettmann himself – the songs here are undoubtedly vintage gems, but they also represent a very personal journey into Dettmann’s past.

“It was a great opportunity to dig deeper into my own musical outlook,” he explains. “The tracks come from a time before Marcel Dettmann became a DJ.” Simply put, the songs here are some of the building blocks upon which he’s built an incredibly storied career, and now he’d like to entrust them to future generations.

This is the stunning debut album from Laraaji. ‘Celestial Vibration’ was originally released in 1978 under the name Edward Larry Gordon, and then first issued by Soul Jazz Records/Universal Sound in 2010.
Soul Jazz Records are now issuing this hypnotic piece newly re-mastered album once again in a very limited vinyl edition of 1000 and new CD as a full Laraaji release.
‘Celestial Vibration’ is a cosmic journey sounding unlike anything else when it was first released in 1978.
Laraaji’s album was first issued in New York as a private-pressing record with only very minimal distribution. His distinctive use of the harp-like open-stringed zither and kalimba creates a hypnotic trance like musical landscape.
Laraaji first came to fame in the 1980s as a worldwide ambient artist working with Brian Eno on EG Records. At this time Laraaji worked with a wide range of experimental musicians - Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Michael Brook, Bill Nelson, Roger Eno, Nana Vasconcelos and Bill Laswell.
Since Soul Jazz Records/Universal Sound first released ‘Celestial Vibration’ seven years ago (now long deleted), Laraaji’s career has had a renaissance, releasing a string of new albums including a fascinating collaboration with Blues Control for the FRKYWS label, as well as reissues of earlier albums including a three-album cassette only release last year.
Today Gordon continues his unique musical and spiritual path - performing his music mainly for meditation at yoga global retreats. He runs his own ‘Therapeutic Laughter Workshop’ where he coaches people in the mindful use of laughing for its health benefits.

Marking the start of an exciting new collaborative project, Wolf + Lamb proudly share the debut release of The Waves & Us. Formed out of a creative meeting of minds between Maayan Nidam, Markus Nikolaus and Louis McGuire, theirs is a sound that strengthens the storied approach of a live band with the experimental thrust of analogue electronics. Pop and rock fundamentals lend an earthly hook to the tracks, but these are anything but straight-forward songs. Maayan has already forged a formidable career in electronic music, both under her own name and as part of Mara Trax, scoring releases on such celebrated labels as Perlon. Markus performs his own solo project Cunt Cunt Chanel, while Louis is part of Ballet School, a band releasing on noted indie label Bella Union. The whirlwind of creativity that has whipped up around the trio has yielded an album which will follow this single, made up of one-take recordings that capture the energy and adventure that powers The Waves & Us. Maayan's electronics provide the atmospheric backdrop to the songs, running modular synthesisers and drum machines through detailed chains of processing and effects with an emphasis on a warm, charmingly rough finish. Markus' guitar undergoes a similar fuzzy treatment while his voice calls out introspective, abstract lyrics to set the mind racing. Louis' bass underpins the music with a dubby sensibility, bringing a necessary balance to the frequency range. Making the most of their in-the-room recording approach, the singles will feature alternative takes of the songs that will appear on the album, providing a little insight into the flutters and fluctuations that shape the development of this project. With their eyes fixed on live performances and an arresting sound already formed, this is a vital time for all three artists and the people that listen to them.

Project: Mooncircle & Finest Ego have teamed up to establish a fresh new 12” producer series, entitled “Faces”. On every edition, you will find two different producers. Respectively, each producer will have their own record-side and unique cover artwork by the aspiring Bioniq, known for his surrealistic portraits, blending humans and technology.

Faces number three will invite the two young producers Sekouia and Rain Dog to share sides on this disc and expose their musical crafts. Coming from Denmark and the UK, respectively, they are with certainty looking forward to long-lasting succesful careers. What they share is a an intrinsic feel for tiny musical details which give their music an intimate feel to keep the listener mesmerized for ages. On this record they experiment with different sounds and tempos to create a dynamic collection of unique compositions that congregate an EP of colourful, low slung and ambient tunes or simply ‘chocolatefudgebrownieplasticmusic‘.

Born in Düsseldorf, Germany and grown up in Detroit, Sekuoia is a project by the 19-year old danish producer Patrick Alexander Bech Madsen. His music, based on guitar melodies, deep bass, organic beats, and chopped and screwed vocal samples, is a take on various genres and he is best described as an experimental electronica producer. His debut EP “Trips“ was released in December last year.

Having originally studied as an artist, newcomer Rain Dog has spent the last couple of years experimenting with production software, building speakers, composing music for indie shorts and making beats out of various small bedrooms scattered across the north of England. Recently he has settled in London and with a release on Echodub‘s imprint, Cut and a track featured on Project: Mooncirlce‘s 10th anniversary box LP, he continues to develop his lowslung melodic compositions.

“Biarrezgaur” (not tomorrow, today) is a blissful and misty set of guitar tones entangled with effects and reverberation. Dreamy and reflective proto-blues-folk sketches that suggest a sense of matured serenity that only comes with years of practice. Spontaneous, gentle and free-flowing in equal parts, Biarrezgaur is a perfect autumnal recipe for those looking in the direction of Six Organs of Admittance, Loren Connors with Alan Licht, or even Robbie Basho or Albert Gimenez if you listen to the closing track Itzulera.

Bidai (Trip) is the new collaborative project between two emblematic figures of the rich Basque musical heritage, Xabi Strubell & Mikel Vega. It took more than 30 years for their paths to cross, but we are very pleased they finally did in 2022. Entirely improvised with two guitars and effects, it was recorded at Bonberenea, the independent and self-funded cultural hub housed in an abandoned warehouse in Tolosa (in the valley of the river Oria).

Xabi is a writer, poet and musician from Hondarribia, a fishing village on the border with France. He started his career as a member of Dut, the seminal Post Hardcore band that any Basque kid growing in the 90’s and interested in feedback and distorted guitars will sorely remember, still a cult these days. He formed Zura in 2005, a solo mature project focusing on acoustic guitar.

Mikel is an accomplished musician and all-around cultural activist from Bilbao. Has collaborated in numerous projects (Conteiner, Killerkume, Loan, Orbain Unit) and more recently with Miguel A. Garcia (also a member of Dopelganger, Heg008) and Joseba Agirrezabalaga (Lepok, Urpa i Musell beginning of 2023). Limited edition of 300 black vinyl LP’s housed in a coloured matt laminated cover designed between Xabi Strubell, Mikel Vega & Mikel Acosta.

Band Of Nowhere is a new constellation project by Juanjo Sánchez, together with other collaborators with whom he had previously worked. It is worth mentioning Bob Drake on drums, former member of the legendary formation Thinking Plague (also on Hail, 5UU's, The Science Group) who has also mastered the project from their studio in the Midi-Pyrénées and also to mention the guitarist Jordi Cabayol (Camino al Desván) both Juanjo and Jordi began their career in a significant band of Barcelona of the early eighties, such as Entr'acte.

The becoming of Juanjo Sánchez would take him to other latitudes as a member of Alondra Satori and without losing the lighthouse of his city, he would collaborate with other outstanding musicians such as Quicu Samsó (Koniec, Macromassa).

The fluidity and chromaticism of his previous album Gonza Magilla is still perceived in here, but in a much more electrified way with guitars that are sometimes expansive, other times exuberant wrapped up with contagious synthesizer modulations and very marked rhythms. The production and especially the arrangements are fantastic with those special presences of synthesizers that are not common around here.

Its original improvisation and experimentation is skilfully adjusted by Juanjo Sánchez, giving a much more playful result with unexpected combinations, very much in continuity with a certain European Art Rock such as Aksak Maboul, Etron Fou, Zamla,The Work or the mischievous resonances of The League of Gentlemen; all this mapping the sound transit, to an unpredictable and vibrant non-place.

Housed in it's original hand made artwork with the little upgrade twist of silk-screen printing textured grey cardboard and including a insert colour with photos and text provided by Juanjo Sánchez.

Housed in it's original hand made artwork with the little upgrade twist of silk-screen printing in Plastic clear cover and including a insert colour with photos and text provided by Juanjo Sánchez.

Javier Hernando

The second album in a planned trilogy for Students of Decay, Theodore Cale Schafer’s “Trust” follows 2019’s “Patience,” building upon its motifs and compositional strategies to arrive at a potent document of artistic and personal growth. Recorded between 2020 and 2022, a period in which Schafer relocated to New York City, these arrangements feel like they bear the mark of a change in scale, not abandoning the private, diaristic sensibility of his earlier work so much as imbuing it with a charged atmosphere of vivid, slow-blooming intensity. These songs find the artist tightrope-walking between drama and austerity, narrative and abstraction. Such is the case on both “Luck,” in which a captivating wash of baroque strings slowly recedes into a bed of inky, flickering ambience, and “Best Friend,” wherein snatches of conversation are halted by entrancing piano motifs and hovering drones. This is an album that develops aspects of Schafer’s previous output– the patiently meted out, barely-there piano melodies, the unexpected resonance of off-the-cuff location recordings– working them like raw materials into robust, lyrical compositions. At times almost drifting into the romantic realm of the orchestral, “Trust” is the most generous and expansive offering we’ve heard from Schafer in his young career. Theodore Cale Schafer (b. 1994) is a musician based in New York City. Informed by his occupation as an audio engineer, his work combines digitally sourced audio and manipulated self-recordings to create music that is equally influenced by Playstation OSTs, modern classical composition, confessional narrative, and spoken word. Recently, he has collaborated with Natalia Panzer, Angelo Harmsworth, Claire Rousay, Sydney Spann, and picnic, participated in the Neo-Pastiche: Changes in American Music Festival at the Black Mountain College Museum, and curated the “Casualism” mix series with Retreat Radio in Malmö, Sweden.

Albert Alan Owen was born in Wales in 1948 to parents of Welsh and Latvian heritage. His family later moved to Zimbabwe, where his father took up a teaching position. There, Owen was deeply influenced by local music and culture, while also exploring American RnB and jazz. It was during this period that he became acutely aware of the harsh inequalities under British colonial rule, which instilled in him a lifelong aversion to discrimination and racism.

In 1967, Owen returned to Europe to pursue his studies and enrolled at the Royal Academy of Music in London. He went on to spend time in Paris, studying composition with the eminent Nadia Boulanger and piano under Jacques Février, a favorite pianist of Ravel’s and Poulenc’s. Owen's focus shifted almost entirely to composition, and the acquisition of a Fender Rhodes electric piano marked the beginning of a divorce from his classical Western training. This transition allowed him to merge his passion for African and African-American music with the impressionistic styles of Ravel and Debussy while exploring the innovative realm of electroacoustic composition. These formative experiences framed Owen’s career as a composer and educator at the Royal Academy of Music and London’s Working Men’s College. He eventually returned to Wales, where he continues to reside. In 1979, 29-year-old Albert Alan Owen released “Keyboards & Strings”, a light magical chamber music masterpiece. Transcending the formal conventions of its era, “Keyboard & Strings” is an acoustic and electric piano piece, where the violin is met by synths and electronics.

As is often the case in Albert Alan Owen’s most intimate works, there is a sense of ethereal beauty that emerges from the music, akin to the emotional state one might experience while contemplating a Félix Vallotton landscape or the unfathomable mystery of dawn’s first light. Quiet, profound, and immersive, “Keyboard & Strings” stands out as an electronic-age tone poem, a rare gem that transcends time and place.

Beautiful seductive modern electronix alert!!! Vector Lovers has remained a firm favourite of the underground electronic music scene and holds a coveted place among the most hallowed of record shelves, and with good reason. Since the early 2000s Martin Wheeler has explored a sparse audio wasteland in order to develop a new sonic palette that looks outward to electro, IDM and ambient. After self-releasing a handful of his own productions on the Iwari label, Wheeler's career defining album was signed by British label Soma in 2005, leading to the first great revival of 90s IDM. Capsule for One' was an unrivalled masterpiece that perfectly synthesised the heritage of the Hardcore Continuum with renewed airs and degree of clarity that ushered in a new millennia and sound. It arrived as a worthy successor to the venerated Warp artists of the time, while embracing new panoramas and technologies. Capsule for One' is a melancholic album, with an almost cosmic spirituality that provokes daydreaming. From its opening track 'City Lights From a Train' it welcomes the listener onto an infinite journey at the speed of light, connecting the past, present and future, folding time and space and painting neon cities populated by cyborgs. The album reaches its zenith with 'Melodies and Memory', featuring Wheeler's very own voice, which has arguably become one of this century's greatest electronic ballads to date. In fact, the impact of 'Capsule for One' was such that Tracey Thorn commissioned him to produce her song 'Easy', from the album 'Out of the Woods' [Virgin, 2007]. For its forthcoming release on Lapsus Records, Martin Wheeler has remixed each and every song on 'Capsule for One', as well as adding two previously unreleased tracks 'A Simulation' and 'Perfect Score', both produced around the same epoch. This extra special release, with artwork redesigned by Josep Basora, features a double marbled vinyl and a limited edition insert print. TIP!!

Beautifully drunken it hums, the piano in “pianopiano”, the last tune of “how to spread lies”, the first ep by roman flügel for the hamburg based label dial from the year 2010. Or take “strich”, a peculiar electrical slow-motion grinder, out on his “mutter” ep for klang electronic in 2006. for a long time, the renowned dj and producer from frankfurt is investigating in spheres beyond the dance, the groove, the ecstasy. zones, where the molecules harmonize, the senses relieve, and the soul quietens. All his last albums, “all the right noises” (dial), “themes i-xiii” (esp institue), “eating darkness” (running back) have moments of tension and relaxation in a deep harmonious connection. Now “balmy evenings”, a sundown record for sunup’s. eleven notions in journey music, embracing the freedom of structure, blurring the musical pulse into harmonic meditation and mysteriously grooving zones, leaving all unnecessary accessories behind. A quality, that many of roman flügel’s solo and project productions in his more than 30 year lasting career comprise. still, most of them squint on the dance floor, where jack is king Not so “balmy evenings”, where real dancefloor bangers are omitted. there are moving tunes like the slow kraftwerk-melody-leaning funkateer “duftschulter”, or the artificially jacking “greenhouse”, where nervous synth patterns ball along soft breaks and decreet kicks. likewise, “super sonne”, an odd, seemingly improvised synth conversation might ask some souls out for a dance. But all others, like “atmosphere”, “frei”, “dolphins”, “goth”, or “ambienteuse”, rather seek for the tranquil in each one’s spirit. Listeners must be ready for surprises. ready for impulsive ideas, linked to a harmonious flow, always ready to grow in an analogue vs digital sound scope. an album full of si-lence, utterly loud, displaying a playful, adventurous artistic facet of a celebrated club music producer, to whom atoms dance in manifold ways.

Ángel Rada is one of the most interesting music experimantalists of Venezuela. He started his career in the late 1960s as a member of The Gas Light, one of the big names on Venezuela's live circuit in the era, sharing the stages with other artists such as Apocalipsis, Un Dos Tres y Fuera, Vytas Brenner, Daniel Grau, Pablo Schneider, Miguel Ángel Fuster... Rada is one of the three basic artists who set an electronic music scene in Venezuela, along with Miguel Ángel Noya and Vinicio Adames.

Rada had attended the Escuela Superior de Música José Ángel Lamas and then continued his studies in Germany, where he was impressed by krautrock music, especially by its more electronic side. He met Kraftwerk when they were recording at Kling Klang Studio, and also knew Klaus Schulze–who would become an example for him to to follow. This contact with the Kraut scene would be the biggest influence on his works from the 1970s, which would end synthesizing in Rada's first record: 1983's Upadesa, originally released on his own independent label Uranium Records. Since then he has released more than 20 albums up to date, making him one of the most prolific experimental musicians not only in his country but also in the whole world.

Rada's aproach to electronic music is based in what he calls ethnosonic music. He is interested in the mixture of various styles which he filters through the use of technology, so in his electronic compositions one can hear echoes of ethnic sounds from all over the globe as well as some jazz influenced improvisation, ambient and synthesized sounds.

The Wah Wah edition is the first ever vinyl reissue of this landmark LP and has been remastered for vinyl by Roger Prades @ Prades Mastering. Includes an insert with liner notes by Salvatore Maldera.

It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only.

For her outing on Patience, Swedish producer Johanna Knutsson departs on a sweeping, drifting electronica dream suite, a cloud-level glide through the subconscious that returns back to reality just before the alarm sounds. Dingsbums Homage is Johanna’s engulfing evocation of eyes shut wonder and a compelling 6th entry into the Patience catalogue of long-form explorations.

Conceived as a single piece, Dingsbums Homage features two distinct movements. The A side Bersteinsee floats into view on a soft breeze, with cosmic keys puncturing the ozone layer, before a gentle, almost tropical rhythm bobs into being and celestial shapes career in and out of view - comets, ufos or other, the truth is out there somewhere. The track settles into a supple groove that cruises on out of range, as whimsical synthesized strings bring part one to a close.

On Side B Beilsteinerstrasse picks up where the A left off, with an array of twinkling electronics, piano and snippets of memories in reverse weightlessly whizzing through the mind. The light sleep state is abruptly transformed by a monumental arpeggio that rises from the depths and propels the mind beyond the clouds and into a deeper inner space. Eventually the track re-enters the atmosphere and gently lowers to earth on some bittersweet strings, leaving a slowly dissolving outline of melancholic silver clouds behind the eyelids on waking.

Recently returned to Sweden after a long stint in Berlin, as a producer Johanna’s music veers between lucid, pumping techno and ethereal ambience. She's released records on Klasse Wrecks, Kontra-Musik, Oscillate Tracks and her own UFO Station Recordings, and she also ran Zodiac44 with Luca Lozano. Her DJ sets of nimble, spacey techno have seen her play sets in some of Europe’s finest outposts, and more recently she has performed ambient live sets at Intonal in Sweden and an all night “sleep set” at ADE, and in addition she composes music for documentaries.

Veteran NYC based Scottish electronic musician Drew McDowall's latest work is his loftiest, most liturgical, and least industrial outing to date - and potentially the apex of his recent discography. Named after an ancient Greek word for votive offering, Agalma exudes a hooded, devotional aura, creaking and keeling under vast rafters of stone, stained glass, and shredded wires. It's a music of majesty and mystery but also modernity, McDowall's refined modular system shape-shifting strings, piano, pipe organ, and choral masses into disorienting synthetic mirages of the sacred. He cites the intersection of "joy, terror, and the elegiac" as a centering inspiration - or, phrased more bluntly, "that 'what the fuck is going on' feeling."As a career collaborator himself, with stints in Coil, Psychic TV, and countless other shorter-lived partnerships, it's telling that McDowall chose this project to gather such an impressive spectrum of peers. Italian synthesist Caterina Barbieri, American drone organist Kali Malone, prolific multi-instrumentalist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe, operatic Humanbeast vocalist Maralie Armstrong-Rial, Saudi producer Msylma, and warped futurist beat-makers Bashar Suleiman and Elvin Brandhi cameo across the album's 42 minutes, contouring McDowall's nuanced negative spaces with shudders, shadows, and shivering flickers of serenity. Each of them shines in their spotlight, elevating these elusive alchemical states into surreal revelations of texture and transcendence.McDowall's original working title for the record is revealing: Ritual Music. He speaks of his creative practice in ceremonial terms, negating binaries by seeking the middle path to a numinous equilibrium that erases the distinction between the inner and outer worlds. These compositions feel similarly processional and intuitive, at the crossroads of holiness and hallucination, the sacred vertigo of yawning naves rising into untouchable night skies. It's a vision of industrial music as enigma and invocation, cryptic hymnals of shrou...

It is hard to believe, but Waldeck´s signature album “Ballroom Stories” is 10 years old. The people at Dope Noir Records feel that this marks the perfect occasion to celebrate its anniversary with the release of a legitimate successor going by the name of “Atlantic Ballroom” - due later in 2018.
For those curious what the new album might sound like the wait will be sweetened by this very “Stay Put” EP available on 150 gr vinyl & digital formats.
Four brilliant downtempo tracks, all of them featuring Waldeck´s new chief-chanteuse Patrizia Ferrara whose extraordinary vocal performance will give you goose bumps right from the beginning all the way through.
Ferrara, being half Sicilian & half Austrian spent the better part of her musical career in Brooklyn, NYC. Asked for a comment Waldeck simply smirks:
“She is a real million-dollar baby”
As with previous releases this one once again hits the spot and highlights Waldeck´s ability to create a whole new sound universe. “Electro-Blues” meets “James Bond- in Casablanca”.
The first track “Stay Put” is quite obviously inspired by the legendary blues & swing icon Fats Waller and captures the mood of the early days of swing, when Al Capone allegedly hi-jacked Waller for a couple of days to play exclusively on one of his private mob parties.
Followed by “So it shall be” – a real beast - that lures with a snake charming seductive Ethiopian groove.
With “Rough Landing” Waldeck then time travels to the 21st century. It could well serve as a title song to the yet to be finished Bond movie “James Bond in Casablanca” (2024).
The last song “Je t´aime beaucoup” is a super slow downtempo blues that haunts you with a longingly whisper for love. A late night in Paris…. no questions asked.
Waldeck dwells on smokey Jazz riffs & bluesy piano lines. He likes to keep the overall electronic feeling subtle, but yet present.

Available digitally and on limited chrome cassettes (with digital download code), we are releasing a series of albums and EP’s from talented and promising artists. Expect all facets of instrumental hip-hop, future beats and electronic beat music….

Good Paul has been searching for that right sound ever since his career started. Never confining to only one genre or branch of music, he has been looking in various genres, but especially in the gray area between hip-hop and house, drum and bass and dub-step, always being attracted by soulful emotion with bass and broken beats. In these last 14 years he was unable to find that one special sound. This EP, however, is his solution for this neverending search.

In his own words:
“To live well we need to learn and know about a lot of different things. Draw your plans in an attempt to consciously create the future. It turns out that often the decisive moments in our life are found. I have never sought music by artists or genres, but instead, I am just trying to find music that gets to me in terms of emotion.
I hope there will be people who find the music from this EP, because that music found me.”
The artwork was created by Mateusz Kolek, who is known for his playful, psychedelic and dreamlike illustrations, heavily influenced by Soviet science fiction flicks and Japanese anime’s.

Bio:
Good Paul from Krakow, Poland, has spent already 14 years behind the decks and is well known for his musical selection and technical skill. Being a Red Bull Music Academy alumni (Toronto, 2007) and lecturer (Warsaw, 2012), he self-released a free EP entitled „One More Time“ and has been remixing various projects in the advanced futuristic music scene in Poland, in particular for U Know Me Records from Warsaw.

Isik Kural returns with Moon in Gemini, a luminous scrapbook of slow-flowing narratives couched in intuitive and symbolic storytelling. Bending a playful take on environmental music to the folk song form, Isik's vocals coo atop pastoral field notes, airy chamber instrumentation and archival recordings culled from a curious musical life. A tender pastiche coalesces across the suite of Moon in Gemini's fourteen pieces, and Isik invites the listener to daydream as-deep-as-possible."The songs on Moon in Gemini don't mind being slower or taking their time to reach the listener," says Isik, who wanted the title to speak to the album's dreamy, liminal nature. "I enjoyed how the phrase could be used to describe an object, a time or a place simultaneously," he explains. Similarly and subsequently, these songs contain a multiplicity of sonic artifacts, moments and spaces that span Isik's rich musical career to date.With the bulk of the album realized between Amasya, Turkey and Isik's current home in Glasgow, in both domestic and studio recording environments, additional tracks unearthed from his personal recording archive lend their lush patina. The record emerged as a fertile space to reimagine a handful of previously unreleased songs and unfinished ideas spanning the past fifteen years of his life and work, including streetside sounds documented while growing up in Turkey and recordings made while studying music engineering in Miami, Helsinki and Glasgow.Looking to the more recent past, Isik found himself wanting to build upon some of the methodologies and textures explored on his 2022 album in february, seeking a newly intimate, vocal-forward sound. He points to the track "film festival" from that album as a door through which to enter Moon in Gemini, where sample-based arrangements are presented in the context of asymmetrical "build ups and progressions" and ambience and vocals intertwine.Inspired in part by listening to iconic, if not sometimes misunderstood, singers such as Nina Simone, Aldous Harding and...

'Kosmos Kino' (1988), Spanish Industrial classic album by Esplendor Geométrico, has been unavailable on vinyl for more than 12 years, now out on limited, numbered, and remastered 2023 edition! - Kosmos Kino is the third album of the influential Spanish Industrial cult band Esplendor Geométrico. Recorded and originally published in 1988 and unavailable on vinyl for many years, now available again in its original format. Remastered in 2023, this release reproduces the original cover but with a different exclusive artwork on the back cover. After a start in which the line of acute distortions and buzzy basses of their previous albums continues, it follows a surprising rhythmic viscerality, reaching its peak in the track "Trybuna Robotnicza", suitable for the most frantic dance and one of the greatest moments in their vast discography.ESPLENDOR GEOMETRICO 1980-2022: Arturo Lanz (only active member since the beginning), Gabriel Riaza (until 1991), Juan Carlos Sastre (until 1982), Saverio Evangelista (since 1991). Andrés Noarbe is considered an E.G. member in the shadows since 1980, working as manager, advisor, designer, and editor (head of Discos E.G. from 1986 to 1990 and currently of Geometrik Records).[ENG]ESPLENDOR GEOMÉTRICO BIOBorn in 1980 as a trio, and currently a duo formed by Arturo Lanz (founding member) and Saverio Evangelista (member since 1991), Esplendor Geométrico is an influential and international cult band and also a rare case in the Spanish music scene, as they have developed their own independent path aside from tags, fashion, or trends, in spite of being often classified as industrial music. Their career during this four decades hasn't had interruptions. They haven't stopped composing, releasing albums or playing live (with more intensity since the nineties), and they have continued for the simple pleasure of making music. E.G. soon achieved a personal and distinct style that can be appreciated from their 80's albums, when they used analog synthesizers and pri...

Black Truffle is pleased to make Oren Ambarchi’s Grapes from The Estate available once more on vinyl. Originally released on CD on Touch in 2004 and reissued on Southern Lord as a limited double LP in 2006 during Ambarchi’s tenure as a member of Sunn O))), Grapes from the Estate was a landmark release for Ambarchi, seeing him expand his sonic palette beyond the clipped, bass-heavy electric guitar tones he was known for at that point. Incorporating subtle layers of strings, keyboards, percussion over a bedrock of his signature guitar tones, in retrospect this album can be seen as the beginning of a broadening and evolution in Ambarchi’s work that would lead to his acclaimed, densely layered epics for Editions Mego, Quixotism (2014) and Hubris (2016). Beginning with the shuddering pure tones of opener ‘Corkscrew’, which looks back to previous guitar-only releases such as Suspension (2001), the album’s next two pieces show a progressive broadening of the instrumental palette and a corresponding move away from textural abstraction and sustained tones towards more traditional notions of musicality. This reached its high point on the album’s third piece, the fifteen-minute long ‘Remedios The Beauty’, where guitars, both acoustic and electric, strings, piano, and bells build from a murmur to an interlockinging web of repeating melodic patterns over gently swinging brushed snare and cymbals. The epic closer, ‘Stars Aligned, Webs Spun’, returns us to a space populated only by the electric guitar, but unlike everything Ambarchi had produced up until this point in his career, the piece has a liquid, psychedelic edge that looks forward to the shimmering harmonics of his more recent work. As Brendan Walls wrote at the time of the original release, this is ‘another outpouring of personal, intimate and enduring music from Oren Ambarchi’. Presented in a stunning gatefold sleeve featuring the original artwork and design by Jon Wozencroft. Redesigned by Stephen O’Malley Remastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.

"Is it too Sam Prekop?", Sam Prekop asked me in an email conversation in which he delivered his wonderful illustrations which would become the front cover artwork. No, it is not too Sam Prekop at all. His drawings as well as the freeform music on this album are subtly different from anything else he has produced in his solo career. Regardless of the style he is working in, Sam Prekop’s music is always imbued with a sense of wide-eyed discovery and unpredictable exploration.

On »The Sparrow« Sam Prekop expands his electronic cosmos with a remarkable expression of timeless simplicity and coherent execution. It's deceptively simple music that feels accessible without abandoning the experimental legacy of the Modular hardware system which serves, besides a polyphonic Prophet 5 synthesizer, as the centre piece of this production.

The side long title track opens this album with unpredictable synth dissonances and broken step sequenced patterns. »Palm« brings the set to a close with its irregular fragility while »Fall is Farewell« is build around a yearning brassy fanfare which resembles the noir romance theme of Michael Smalls soundtrack for the 1971 film »Klute«. The sparkling essence of »Step and Stair« seems a suitable space for unforgotten summer holidays of our childhood.

On his first solo release for Düsseldorfs label TAL, electronic experimentalist Sam Prekop offers his most captivating yet stripped down modular music. All compositions on »The Sparrow« were gradually developed piece by piece. Best known for his jazz-leaning tropicalismo with The Sea And Cake, a key part of the Chicago scene with the likes of Tortoise or Chicago Underground Duo, he has in recent years established himself as a modular synthesist, building his instrument meticulously to create a unique system that allows him to create highly individual music through mechanical patterns, repetitions and chance. In this context his widely acclaimed community forming public tutorials on fb should be noted as well.

»The Sparrow« is an exciting new chapter in his development as a constant creative influence.

Stefan Schneider, Düsseldorf August 2022

Unfortunately the last batch of these arrived with some creased corners - so we're giving these away at a reduced price. Vinly is still flawless!

For her outing on Patience, Swedish producer Johanna Knutsson departs on a sweeping, drifting electronica dream suite, a cloud-level glide through the subconscious that returns back to reality just before the alarm sounds. Dingsbums Homage is Johanna’s engulfing evocation of eyes shut wonder and a compelling 6th entry into the Patience catalogue of long-form explorations.

Conceived as a single piece, Dingsbums Homage features two distinct movements. The A side Bersteinsee floats into view on a soft breeze, with cosmic keys puncturing the ozone layer, before a gentle, almost tropical rhythm bobs into being and celestial shapes career in and out of view - comets, ufos or other, the truth is out there somewhere. The track settles into a supple groove that cruises on out of range, as whimsical synthesized strings bring part one to a close.

On Side B Beilsteinerstrasse picks up where the A left off, with an array of twinkling electronics, piano and snippets of memories in reverse weightlessly whizzing through the mind. The light sleep state is abruptly transformed by a monumental arpeggio that rises from the depths and propels the mind beyond the clouds and into a deeper inner space. Eventually the track re-enters the atmosphere and gently lowers to earth on some bittersweet strings, leaving a slowly dissolving outline of melancholic silver clouds behind the eyelids on waking.

Recently returned to Sweden after a long stint in Berlin, as a producer Johanna’s music veers between lucid, pumping techno and ethereal ambience. She's released records on Klasse Wrecks, Kontra-Musik, Oscillate Tracks and her own UFO Station Recordings, and she also ran Zodiac44 with Luca Lozano. Her DJ sets of nimble, spacey techno have seen her play sets in some of Europe’s finest outposts, and more recently she has performed ambient live sets at Intonal in Sweden and an all night “sleep set” at ADE, and in addition she composes music for documentaries.

Hotel Paral.lel, released in 1997, marks the full length debut release from Austrian Christian Fennesz, originally released by Mego, following the twitching drone as found on the 1995 EP Instrument, also included in this deluxe 2LP reissue. Once launched, Hotel Paral.lel was to instigate a sublime exploration of a wide variety of forms, from formal abstraction to shimmering drone around to ground zero glitch pop. Recorded just before mobile computing devices became omnipresent it was an investigation into the sonic possibilities residing in guitar based digital music. Sz launches the career with a constantly buzzing sound that resembles a fax machine encountering a G3 laptop for the first time, realising the game is up. Nebenraum is the first foray into the style for which one would attribute to Fennesz. A glacial drone unexpectedly morphs into a gorgeous melody and microscopic groove. Adding pulse and melody was hearsay in the radical end of experimental music up until this point and with this single gesture, everything changed, for everyone. Blok M nails this trajectory home with a straight up 4/4 beat. Such rhythm also features on Fa with a euphoric mix of a thudding beat, sharp splinters of noise and a devastating exploding melody. Repetition plays heavily through this album as the hyper metronomic beat on traxdata lays a bed for all manner of buzzing electronics. On the closing “Aus” we see a glimpse of what was to come in the future works of Fennesz, an experiment in popping, bubbling pulse pop. A far more darker and experimental work than Fennesz’ subsequent work. This is an exquisite radical field of freeform noise, sliced techno beats and subtle ambient texture all coming together to create a timeless work. There’s little out there in the world of music, still to this day, that sounds remotely like Hotel Paral.lel. With a radical reinvention of music Hotel Paral.lel is an essential addition to collectors of pioneering music in the late 20th Century and sounds as enthralling today as it did to the shocked ears occupying 1997.

Originally recorded in 1977, following a limited release in 1979, Ghedalia Tazartes debut album, Diasporas, introduced listeners to the surreal, mysterious and truly unclassifiable statement of Tazartes and his out-of-time place in the French avant-garde canon. Born in Paris in 1947 to Judaeo-Spanish parents of Greek descent, Tazartes spent his early career as an autodidact utilizing his knowledge of repetition and collage, coupled with his Ladino linguistic heritage, to create some of the most unique recordings of the late 20th century. Interest in the works of Tazartes truly sparked when artist Steve Stapleton included his follow up album, Tazartes' Transports, in his famed "Nurse With Wound List," thus adding endless curiosity to the folklore behind Tazartes and his mystical entree. From the onset of Diasporas, looping incantations seemingly pile up at the behest of Tazartes. In almost a prayer-like decree, Tazartes chants to the gods in an undefined whail that is both haunting and spiritually divine. Tazartes unique use of tape loops to capture the disappearing traditions of his family's past creates an atmospheric texture that unexpectedly complements his cut-up, manipulated vocal experiments. While contemporaries within the French avant-garde maneuvered academic theory and rigid tradition, Diasporas strays away from these boundaries, working in Tazartes' invented practice of 'impromuz', a method in which he endlessly records for hours and edits only the moments that display any sense of spontaneous enlightenment. Further emboldening the obtuse nature of Diasporas are the seemingly random recitation of poet Stephane Mallarme and the traditional 'Parisian-style' piano accompaniment of experimental composer Michel Chion. Since its initial release over 40 years ago, both Dais Records and Alga Marghen have released reissues of Diasporas in various formats, all of which quickly fell out of print. Dais Records presents an official reissue, newly remastered by Josh Bonati, utilizing the original artwork of Diasporas in its sole album form, for the first time in over four decades.

Originally recorded in 1977, following a limited release in 1979, Ghedalia Tazartes debut album, Diasporas, introduced listeners to the surreal, mysterious and truly unclassifiable statement of Tazartes and his out-of-time place in the French avant-garde canon. Born in Paris in 1947 to Judaeo-Spanish parents of Greek descent, Tazartes spent his early career as an autodidact utilizing his knowledge of repetition and collage, coupled with his Ladino linguistic heritage, to create some of the most unique recordings of the late 20th century. Interest in the works of Tazartes truly sparked when artist Steve Stapleton included his follow up album, Tazartes' Transports, in his famed "Nurse With Wound List," thus adding endless curiosity to the folklore behind Tazartes and his mystical entree. From the onset of Diasporas, looping incantations seemingly pile up at the behest of Tazartes. In almost a prayer-like decree, Tazartes chants to the gods in an undefined whail that is both haunting and spiritually divine. Tazartes unique use of tape loops to capture the disappearing traditions of his family's past creates an atmospheric texture that unexpectedly complements his cut-up, manipulated vocal experiments. While contemporaries within the French avant-garde maneuvered academic theory and rigid tradition, Diasporas strays away from these boundaries, working in Tazartes' invented practice of 'impromuz', a method in which he endlessly records for hours and edits only the moments that display any sense of spontaneous enlightenment. Further emboldening the obtuse nature of Diasporas are the seemingly random recitation of poet Stephane Mallarme and the traditional 'Parisian-style' piano accompaniment of experimental composer Michel Chion. Since its initial release over 40 years ago, both Dais Records and Alga Marghen have released reissues of Diasporas in various formats, all of which quickly fell out of print. Dais Records presents an official reissue, newly remastered by Josh Bonati, utilizing the original artwork of Diasporas in its sole album form, for the first time in over four decades.

Originally released in 1983 on Hessian.

Bryn Jones’ work was justly known for its excess—of tracks created, of rhetoric, of volume levels, of repetition, of length—and the sometimes indiscriminate way he produced material as Muslimgauze carried over into his approach to the part of the business that involved getting people to actually hear his music. Known for the deluge of DATs he’d share with the labels he worked with, Jones also didn’t necessarily restrict himself to just one outlet.

Very early in his career, in the same year the first two Muslimgauze LPs came out (1983), Jones released an obscure 7” single with completely blank black sleeve art on a label called Hessian. »Hammer & Sickle« is to date the only release on Hessian (which may have just been Jones himself?). Those two LPs, Kabul and Opaques, are fascinating in the context of the full swath of Jones’ work. They’re much spacier, more drifting, and notably less interested in using the kind of Middle Eastern percussion and other instrumentation that’s such a distinct element on many Muslimgauze releases. »Hammer & Sickle« operates in a similar territory, but if anything a little further out from the main body of Jones’ work.

The side-long title track and the three b-sides here are all cut from the same cloth, spacious productions that mainly play rounded synth percussion against echoing, ›bag of wire‹-style dub hits. After the lengthy examination of »Hammer & Sickle« itself, the other three cuts experiment with altering pitch, duration, tempo, and other elements as if testing the ways Jones could vary the effects of the title track without ever ditching its component parts. His sound was already quickly evolving (even the next year’s Buddhist on Fire is closer to what fans likely picture when they think of the »Muslimgauze sound«), leaving »Hammer & Sickle« an intriguing and valuable portrait of one of Jones’ early side investigations.