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In our oversaturated digital age, where ubiquitous media connections enable instant gratification and a continuous flood of competing interests, we often make snap judgments as we multitask through masses of incoming information. Technological advances were supposed to unleash creative thinking, but this deluge has instead led to an erosion of our creativity and attention. In many ways, the idea of a 'long-form' music is unsuitable for and out of phase with our times. In counterbalance to our fast-paced society, with our music we want to create (listening) space and space for contemplation and reflection - 'deep listening’.

The project Maapallo, consists of Antti Tolvi (fi) on large orchestral gongs and Christian Skjødt Hasselstrøm on self-built synthesizer. With the works, they to set up sonic (electro-acoustic) situations with extremely slow and minimal form development. AT and CSH met during a residency at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in Stockholm, where the material was recorded.

Antti Tolvi is a self-taught multi-instrumentalist born in Panelia, a small village on the Finnish west coast. Has played more than 200 concerts all over the world including China, Japan and the USA. There are 13 solo records to Antti's name and he has contributed to more than 50 releases as a composer and/or musician.

Voices From the Lake (consisting of Donato Dozzy and Neel) mark the 10th anniversary of their influential self-titled album with a fully remastered reissue on Spazio Disponibile. It arrives in full on vinyl for the first time, as well as on digital formats, first quarter of 2023 as the pair continues to play select live shows around the world. The release will see the light of day as a 4-set vinyl LP release, including download. Italians Dozzy and Neel have been friends united by a shared vision of music since their teenage years. They are immaculate sculptors of sound who fuse evocative ambient and leftfield techno into multi-layered soundscapes. For many years they worked as established solo artists but came together in 2011 to craft what is now regarded as one of techno's most pure and absorbing listening experiences. It's often said that the best music comes about as a happy accident, and that is certainly true of Voices From the Lake. The career-defining album first arose in the thoughts of Dozzy and Neel when the latter was preparing a mix for the former's wedding and named it Voices From The Lake. It was a pertinent title that stuck in the mind: both grew up by waters around the coast of Italy, and in their early days the pair even held private parties on the shores of a lake. Fittingly, Japan's celebrated Labyrinth festival at that time was also held by a river and a lake in the middle of a forest on a serene mountainside. It was that exact setting the pair envisaged when making music to play live on stage. During preparations, they "accidentally" wrote an entire album. It has only ever been performed live a few times - once at Japan's Labyrinth festival in 2011, at London's Barbican, Barcelona's Mira Festival, Paris' Marathon Festival and once during 2022's Amsterdam Dance Event. Those shows saw the pair using banks of analogue and digital equipment to improvise in the moment and essentially remix the album live on stage. That spontaneity is captured in the original Voices From the Lake recordings and on later LPs such as Live at Maxxi in 2015, and the most recent EP Quarto Freddo from 2020. But the debut album remains a standout achievement. A decade on, it's quiet intensity, musical storytelling and slowly unfolding tension remain in a class of one. Each sound is meticulously designed and placed, and the spaces left behind are just as important in conveying such a captivating mood and emotion. Rather than traditional kick drums, hi-hats or snares, this is music crafted from layers of real-world sound - dripping water, chirping birds, rustling leaves or a distant breeze - and it's that which defines the album's organic allure. From deeply contemplative to cautiously optimistic, pastoral organic scenes to more underwater worlds, Voices From the Lake is a cohesive collection of tracks that add up to one inseparable whole.

Keplar presents the first-ever vinyl edition of the 2003 album »From Tokyo to Naiagara« by Tujiko Noriko. This reissue with new artwork by Joji Koyama is an abridged version of the album as Tomlab label owner Tom Steinle and producer Aki Onda had originally intended to publish it alongside the original CD version. Written by the France-based Tujiko while she still lived in Japan, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« followed up on her two seminal Mego albums and marked a turning point in both the artist’s career and personal life: While she was preparing to leave Japan behind, she succinctly connected the dots between her experiments in pop music and her interest for more abstract sounds. Tujiko worked primarily with a Yamaha synthesizer and an MPC sampler while also incorporating contributions by other musicians such as Onda, Riow Arai and Sakana Hosomi into the pieces. Sometimes approaching an IDM and clicks’n’cuts-style production or working with trip-hop and hip-hop beats while using conventional song structures in the most unconventional of ways, the album showcases her multifaceted influences and skills as a singer and musician to full effect. Tujiko fondly remembers the time when she made the album. »I had a lot of time for myself back then and I didn’t even feel like I was very busy,« she says today. She describes producing it in close collaboration with Onda, who would relocate to New York City shortly after, as »quite Tokyo and very local.« They explored parts of the city that they hadn’t yet been to for a photography project (finding, among other things, a coin laundry called Naiagara—a transliteration of Niagara). This left its mark on a record that mixes melancholia with joy. The driving opener »Narita Made,« named after one of Tokyo’s airports, already makes this clear: Tujiko’s wistful vocals and lyrics like »I miss you terribly« emphasises the sense of bittersweetness that forms the common thread for a sonically diverse and stylistically open-ended album—this music is looking back while moving forward. It is probably no surprise that its reissue too evokes tender memories of Onda and Steinle in Tujiko, while also reminding her of what lies ahead. »I have so much more to do and not enough time for that,« she muses, before quickly adding: »But I also feel less alone having that album again.« Influenced in equal parts by the experience of strolling through previously unknown Tokyoite back alleys and thinking about the paths not (yet) taken, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« is precisely that: the perfect travel companion for a journey that leads its listeners from past to future.

Pimao's debut album, 'Duangkamol,' is set to hit the shelves on March 22, 2024. The Berlin-based producer, DJ, and avid vinyl collector, Pimao skillfully weaves together samples from Thai, Chinese, Japanese, and Indonesian rarities, framing them with a cinematic sound design. The title, 'Duangkamol,' means ‘straight from the heart' in Thai, reflecting the album's deeply personal essence. It embodies the culmination of Pimao's long musical journey and his deep thirst for exploring diverse sounds and cultures. From the striking melodies of Southeast Asia to the bass heavy undercurrents of Berlin, 'Duangkamol' encompasses a rich sonic tapestry. The music flows effortlessly, taking unexpected turns but always remaining tethered to a soulful core, as heard on the captivating single 'Suay Isan.' With a musical career spanning back to 2005, Pimao's sound is both forward-looking and nostalgic, evoking the depth of iconic releases from labels like Ninja Tune and Stones Throw Records. Scheduled for release on March 22, 2024, 'Duangkamol' was polished by Blanka at Kasablanka Mastering Studio in France. The album's artwork, crafted by Subwway, features the imposing figure of 'Yaksha,' a protector deity whose calling into ward off malevolent forces. Pimao's 'Duangkamol' is a captivating musical journey, blending traditional influences with contemporary innovation, delivered uncut straight from the heart.

More abstract cinematique than the roiling rhythms gathered on the first instalment, this next volume breaks down between passages of atmospheric filmic dialogue and feral no-wave industrial that cuts layers deeper into Geins’t Naït’s uncompromising oeuvre. Vacillating between chilling vignettes and rowdy churn, it portrays more disturbed and oblique aspects of an artist whose 30-odd years of work links the most errant ends of french industrial musick to soundtracks for Wim Wenders, to collaborations with Scanner - with a big fan in Vladimir Ivkovic, whose Offen Music also issued a key retrospective ‘Make Dogs Sing’ in 2019. ‘Archives 2-3’ is defined by its restless variegation and asymmetric juxtapositions. The set veers from short form shots of film-like cues such as the excellent ‘Georgette’ answer machine ruckus and the cold, ceramic ambience, or the shattered rhythms of his ‘Casse’ parts, to proper ruthless gobs of industrial gristle in the likes of ‘J’Ai Apprise Hier’ and more full bodied works to get your teeth into. We’re talking a queasy fever dream scene in ‘Inkel’, and the GRM-on-a-budget soundscaping of ‘Jévus’, thru to crazed pieces resembling cyberpunk soundtracks in what could be the German- language dubbing of Tetsuo Iron Man on ‘Hans’, and, for the crankiest nuts, a sweltering nine minutes of atonal clang and motorik drive like Vivid Oblivion jamming with a Japanese noise beast on ‘Chiken Kitchen’.

Bill Thompson is a sound artist and composer. His work is concerned with various aspects of perception and embodied presence. Using found objects, field recordings, repurposed electronics and digital media, his installations encourage active attention to each moment. He applies this same strategy within his compositions which often include sustained tones, densely layered textures and indeterminate or improvised structures.
Although trained as a guitarist, Thompson has worked primarily with live electronics for 20 years. In 2016, he returned to guitar (by Moog) combined with miscellaneous tabletop devices, found objects, flashing lights and the occasional vibrator.
His work has been released on Ash International, Burning Harpsichord Records, Mikroton Records, State Sanctioned Records, and/Oar, Autumn Leaves, Phonography and several compilations. Notable recent performances and installations include the Venice Biennal (2020/21), Pauline Oliveros Tribute (Café Oto 2018), Intraspect Concert 2018, Edinburgh Fringe (2016-2018), Nawr 2017, Sonic Atlas 2017, Organ Reframed 2016 (Installation), What Remains Festival 2016, Sound Festival 2016.
"Black Earth Tongue" is based on material composed when working on the project Mushroom! with the contemporary dance group In the Making for the Edinburgh Fringe Festival 2016. Track titles are taken from (mis)translations of Japanese or Latin names for various fungi.

After releasing on record labels like Brooklyn-based Wolf and Lamb (Crew Love), Moodgadget (Ghostly International Sub Label) Digweed’s Bedrock and Satoshi Tomiie's Saw, and having already played at numerous venues in New York City (Output, Coco66, Filter 14), Music Festivals like Okeechobee Music Festival and Aurora Festival in Mendoza, Argentina, Niko Dalagelis, aka One Of Them, is releasing his first Ambient Album "sithabo" on his record label Artificial Owl Recordings. The release will be available on December 2st, 2020 as a limited 300 Clear Vinyl Edition.Niko has been creating music for over 20 years and has numerous Electronic and Ambient EP releases on various record labels. Sithabo will be his first Ambient LP and will be released on his own Artificial Owl Recordings which will be focused on experimental and electronica music. Each track on the album represents a moment inspired by Niko's past 3 years of touring and traveling in places like Tokyo, Berlin, Okinawa, Fiji and more. All 12 tracks in Sithabo (Greek for Dusk) were written, produced and mastered by Niko in New York City using the Yamaha CS, the Roland Tr-8s, Zoia Empress and numerous fx plugins used on live recording taken from nature and indoor recordings (Niko's shitty refrigerator in NY and night birds in Okinawa Japan).

ber mich macht’s traurig ("But It Makes Me Sad") is Kai Althoff’s first regular release after several records as Fanal and before with his band Workshop. The music for the double album was recorded by Kai Althoff between 2016 and 2019 with numerous instruments - including synthesizers and various flutes, guitars and African drums, rattles, cymbals, ratchets and Japanese string instruments.

"Nobody had to bear this music, neither was it thought out by anyone, played by none, nor dedicated to someone. Also, one no longer is, and therefore this utterance generates itself and is music to nobody’s ears.

Organizing the entombed power structures, paving alongside the most beautiful nettle-seamed trickle of remembered civilization on one’s own authority, which eventually gives in to its assumption; its mouth pasted (over) with the dried-up vomit of its intentions, never to open again. It carries this desparate melancholy, always ready to ridicule all of its (own) forms, to get to the bottom of all matter. Poking in the flesh of doggedly pursued gnosis with fingers, with weary despisement, deflating to crinkly tissue after life’s bloating :Oh, seriously! How could I be sad, the way they carry themselves and sing as they do that Alas, those whose fingers these are, just take those flutes and instruments! —- in liberation without the Idol, to no longer play something." A.M.

Piezo’s Ansia imprint returns for its 8th outing ‘Imago’, inviting Berlin’s Unity Vega for a split EP of uptempo dancefloor explorations that mine that fertile space between footwork, drum’n’bass, dancehall and experimental contemporary club sonics.

Unity Vega leads the charge with ‘No Body No Mind’ - a waterlogged darkside skanker that sits somewhere between the half-stepping jungle of the Uvb-76 crew and the kind of oddball dancehall deconstructions often peddled by Ansia's extended circles.
Appearing again on the flip, Vega ups his pace on ‘Set Em’ - a nervy footwork roller that pits gully hip-hop vocal chops against rising bell chords and washes of delayed noise. Think Rashad dubbed out by Kevin Martin and you’re in the right ballpark.

Label head Piezo’s contributions continue along similar lines, albeit in his own unmistakable style. ‘Toughts, Heavy’ also finds the midpoint between d’n’b and dembow, this time marrying a gurgling acid bassline with a euphoric-turned-paranoiac trance lead.
Up next, ‘Nel Frigo Ah’ strips things back to the raw, banging basics: a looping vocal call pinned down by a frenetic crescendoing drum workout.

To close, Japanese legend Foodman delivers a pots-and-pans rework of ‘Thoughts, Heavy’ - a true curveball tool for the adventurous DJs amongst us.

First time reissue by Mark Glynne and Bart Zwier, originally self-released in 1980.

Maybe a bit of an unexpected title to appear in the LSD catalog but my love for this album goes back to my late teenage years and has had an addictive effect since, like a spleen infused magnet. With this album Glynne and Zwier (†), based in the Netherlands and connected to the Ultra scene, drew an insular blend of intimate post-punk and chamber (bedroom) songs with surreal scenic reflections.

Probably its naked singularity defying categorization has left it so unnoticed, even 43 years after the making. It also features a reciting Marlène Dumas still quite unknown at the time. With biggest gratitude to Mark Glynne who instantly felt confident with my proposal to reissue this silent witness of lasting beauty. My long-time Japanese friend You Ishihara (White Heaven, The Stars) who bought the LP when it came out in 1980 still considers it as one of his all-time favourites. This is what he writes about ‘Home Comfort’: “Resignation and fear in a desolate mental landscape. This album, which exists like a shelter for those who have quietly escaped through the backdoor of the world, vividly reflects the inner depths of the devastated Amsterdam of the early 80's. A beautiful and sad, unmistakable masterpiece.”

The first vinyl reissue of Hiroki Ishiguro's masterpiece "koh Maiton", which has been gaining attention from diggers and collectors in recent years after being featured on the groundbreaking compilation album "Heisei no Oto: Japanese Left-Field Pop From the CD Age (1989-1996)" from one of the most renowned label "Music From Memory". Hiroki Ishiguro is a Tokyo-based pianist, synthesizer player, and composer born in Chigasaki City, Kanagawa Prefecture, who has composed and produced numerous studio and support musicians, videos, and event music. This is the first ever analog release of his second solo album, "koh Maiton", released in 1993, while the song "Unity" was also picked up for the aforementioned "Heisei No Oto" and was highly sought after in the context of the New Age revival and beyond. The album was created during a stay on Ko Mai Thon, a small island near Phuket, Thailand, and includes a total of 10 melodic and poetic songs, including "eternal", reminiscent of nostalgic video game music from the early 2000s, "Unity", a gem of city jazz that reflects a sophisticated urban nightscape, and "epilogue", a new age fusion number with an ethereal and transparent feel that echoes the world of Ken Muramatsu's "+blue". This is a must-listen album recommended to a wide range of listeners, from city pop to fusion to new age / ambient fans!!