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Scored for Maurice Béjart's choreography to the 'Orphée Ballet', based on the Greek god Orpheus, this is one of Pierre Henry's finest works of musique concrète, the genre in which Henry was an early innovator and to which he devoted his career. After years working for the French national radio (RTF) and honing his studio chops on radio spots and editing/composition, Henry formed his own studio in 1958 and began working on modern dance and ballet and soundtrack work. Incorporating percussion, industrial soundscapes, nature sounds, spoken French narrative, and synthesized tones, 'Orphée Ballet' is a beautiful piece that, while less known than what is perhaps his most famous work, also for Béjart's ballet production, 1967's 'Les Jerks Électroniques De La Messe Pour Le Temps Présent Et Musiques Concrètes Pour Maurice Béjart', is equally compelling and groundbreaking. Following his passing in 2017 at age 89, Henry's work has found renewed interest, and this is a welcome reissue of one of his rarest and finest works. Truly brilliant.

After the 2021 Re-Release of “Schwingungen” (MG.ART612) we proudly announce “Seven Up” as Part 2 of the authorised 50th Anniversary “A.R.T.” Re-Edition Series. “Seven Up” is the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel and their only album recorded in collaboration with American Ph.D. in psychology, Dr. Timothy Leary. The Coverart for “Seven Up” was designed by famous Swiss Artist Walter Wegmüller. Recorded in August 1972 at Sinus Studio in Berne, Switzerland, remixed September 1972 at Dierks Studios in Stommeln, Germany.

First release in spring 1973 by OHR Musik - the first release on the new sub-label "Kosmische Kuriere", Kat-Nr. KK 58001. We release “Seven Up” in a Re-Cut carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself, on September 9th 2022, also being Manuel Göttsching´s 70th Birthday. Our Edition features the full original text for the “7 levels of consciousness” by Timothy Leary in English, i.e. “Instruction Manual for Pleasure Panel” plus a previously unreleased glimpse view of the original scripts incl. notes and mark ups as well as partly unreleased photos from the recording session.

As for the music itself we again refer to Julian Cope´s review and remarks from his book “Krautrocksampler” (published by Head Heritage, 1st ed. 1995): “When the Leary Mob met the Kaiser Gang, the sparks flew ever Up-wards. 7up is a stone classic in every way. Yes, it is unlikely to find Timothy Leary singing lead vocal in a cosmic group, but even weirder that he chose to sing a wild yelping freaked out blues ! Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke had begun their careers in The Steeple Chase Blues Band back in the mid-'60ies, and they quickly felt their way through what Barritt and Leary were aiming for. They reconciled it all as a kind of West Coast chordless psychedelia, where blues riffs sparkle out of nowhere and the sheer weight of synthesizers renders everything with an unreal Pere Ubu/early Roxy Music quality. The greatness of Ash Ra Tempel burned so brightly on 7Up that there is really nothing else like it.

Hartmut Enke and Manuel Gottsching here returned to their riffy roots. It can hardly be called a retro act, though, as the context of music is everything. And with Dierks at the controls, even the New Kids on the Block would have sounded psychedelic. 7Up is like a late night radio show glimpsed through a shattered tuner where all but the most truly dangerous sounds have been allowed to stay, to drift and to dance around the performers. The result is an extreme gem, a flash of hysterical white lightning, and a pre-punk Technicolour yawn in the grandest of traditions. In typical Ash Ra Tempel style, the record is divided into two pieces, “Space” and "Time”. Within this, though, Timothy Leary’s ideas are allowed to free-flow and the two sides are therefore divided into mini-songs all segued together. The highlight of Side 1 is “Power Drive”, a West Coast burn-up that transcends any W. Coast music I ever did hear. Leary and Barritt present the greatest twin-vocal of all time, coming on like Jagger and Morrison but too caught up in their own maelstrom to be anything less than Heralds of the Punkfuture still five years away. In chaos it was conceived and in chaos it was recorded. Yet Dieter Dierks, the great Aural Architect of the Cosmic Couriers, turned 7Up into a personal triumph and a Kosmische dream.”

Ash Ra Tempel – “Seven Up”
TIMOTHY LEARY - voice
BRIAN BARRITT - voice
MICKY DUWE - voice & flute
LIZ ELLIOTT - voice
BETTINA HOHLS - voice
PORTIA NKOMO - voice
HARTMUT "HAWK" ENKE - bass, guitar & electronics
MANUEL GÖTTSCHING - guitar & electronics
STEVE A. - organ & electronics
DIETMAR BURMEISTER - drums
TOMMY ENGEL - drums
DIETER DIERKS - synthesizer & Radio Downtown

“Seven Up” is the third studio album by Ash Ra Tempel and their only album recorded in collaboration with
American Ph.D. in psychology, Dr. Timothy Leary. The Coverart for “Seven Up” was designed by famous
Swiss Artist Walter Wegmüller. Recorded in August 1972 at Sinus Studio in Berne, Switzerland, remixed
September 1972 at Dierks Studios in Stommeln, Germany. First release in spring 1973 by OHR Musik - the
first release on the new sub-label "Kosmische Kuriere", Kat-Nr. KK 58001.
We release “Seven Up” in a Re-Cut carefully overseen by Manuel Göttsching himself, on September 9th
2022, also being Manuel Göttsching´s 70th Birthday. Our Edition features the full original text for the “7 levels
of consciousness” by Timothy Leary in English, i.e. “Instruction Manual for Pleasure Panel” plus a previously
unreleased glimpse view of the original scripts incl. notes and mark ups as well as partly unreleased photos
from the recording session. ->continued on page 2->continued on page 2
As for the music itself we again refer to Julian Cope´s review and remarks from his book “Krautrocksampler”
(published by Head Heritage, 1st ed. 1995):
“When the Leary Mob met the Kaiser Gang, the sparks flew ever Up-wards...
7up is a stone classic in every way. Yes, it is unlikely to find Timothy Leary singing lead vocal in a cosmic
group, but even weirder that he chose to sing a wild yelping freaked out blues !
Manuel Göttsching and Hartmut Enke had begun their careers in The Steeple Chase Blues Band back in the
mid-'60ies, and they quickly felt their way through what Barritt and Leary were aiming for. They reconciled it
all as a kind of West Coast chordless psychedelia, where blues riffs sparkle out of nowhere and the sheer
weight of synthesizers renders everything with an unreal Pere Ubu/early Roxy Music quality.
The greatness of Ash Ra Tempel burned so brightly on 7Up that there is really nothing else like it. Hartmut
Enke and Manuel Gottsching here returned to their riffy roots. It can hardly be called a retro act, though, as
the context of music is everything. And with Dierks at the controls, even the New Kids on the Block would
have sounded psychedelic.
7Up is like a late night radio show glimpsed through a shattered tuner where all but the most truly dangerous
sounds have been allowed to stay, to drift and to dance around the performers.
The result is an extreme gem, a flash of hysterical white lightning, and a pre-punk Technicolour yawn in the
grandest of traditions.
In typical Ash Ra Tempel style, the record is divided into two pieces, “Space” and "Time”. Within this, though,
Timothy Leary’s ideas are allowed to free-flow and the two sides are therefore divided into mini-songs all
segued together. The highlight of Side 1 is “Power Drive”, a West Coast burn-up that transcends any W.
Coast music I ever did hear. Leary and Barritt present the greatest twin-vocal of all time, coming on like
Jagger and Morrison but too caught up in their own maelstrom to be anything less than Heralds of the Punkfuture still five years away.
In chaos it was conceived and in chaos it was recorded. Yet Dieter Dierks, the great Aural Architect of the
Cosmic Couriers, turned 7Up into a personal triumph and a Kosmische dream.”

Ash Ra Tempel – “Seven Up”
TIMOTHY LEARY - voice
BRIAN BARRITT - voice
MICKY DUWE - voice & flute
LIZ ELLIOTT - voice
BETTINA HOHLS - voice
PORTIA NKOMO - voice
HARTMUT "HAWK" ENKE - bass, guitar & electronics
MANUEL GÖTTSCHING - guitar & electronics
STEVE A. - organ & electronics
DIETMAR BURMEISTER - drums
TOMMY ENGEL - drums
DIETER DIERKS - synthesizer & Radio Downtown

The newly established label Cat in the Room, created by Goodheart Productions, re-releases for the first time after almost fifty years the legendary work Smog by Kyriakos Sfetsas, one of the most important Greek contemporary composers. At the same time, in collaboration with the composer and The Hubsters, which is responsible for the digital distribution, it presents for the first time the majority of his discography in digital format.

Smog is an electro-acoustic work in five parts of equal duration (18 minutes) divided into several variable sequences. It was composed as the music score for the ballet Smog commissioned by the choreographer Michel Caserta. The work was premiered on October 18, 1974, by the Ensemble chorégraphique de Vitry at the Théâtre Jean-Vilar in Vitry-sur-Seine (Paris).

As a musical work, it has acquired over the years the scope of a legend in the electro-acoustic & avant-garde scene, for its richness and value as a composition, the composer's ingenious use of the means available at the time regarding the production of electric sounds, and their combination with natural sounds, as well as for the four-channel recording and live performance.

A new sound mastering and artwork was developed for this release in collaboration with the composer, whose liner notes are included on the cover.

Smog will be released on December 9, 2022, on a 180gr. double vinyl edition

At long last, after decades out of print, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, dives into the legendary catalog of Cramps, bringing forth the first ever vinyl reissue of Costin Miereanu's "Luna Cinese", part of an ongoing initiative dedicated to bring the imprint’s seminal output back into the light. Easily one of the most singular and important experimental albums of the 1970s that remains as engrossing, creatively riveting, and as ahead of its time today as it was in 1975, this is as exciting as reissues come. Complete with new English translation of their original liner notes, it can’t be missed! Edition of 500 LP on black vinyl. Audiophile pressing. Gatefold cover, including printed inner. Perfect replica of the original packaging (with additional translated liner notes) and newly remastered for optimal sound.** Of all the historic labels associated with experimental music, few have garnered as much affection, or as devoted a following, as the Italian imprint Cramps. Its catalog reads like a who's who of the 1970s musical avant-garde, housing seminal albums by John Cage, Gruppo di Improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, Giusto Pio, Demetrio Stratos, Juan Hidalgo, Robert Ashley, Walter Marchetti, Cornelius Cardew, Raul Lovisoni / Francesco Messina, Alvin Lucier, Derek Bailey, and so many more, the vast majority of which have remained largely out of print and nearly impossible to obtain for decades. Now, at long last, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, has begun a stunning series of vinyl reissues from Cramps' Nova Musicha series - dedicated to contemporary avant-garde composers - beginning with Costin Miereanu’s Luna Cinese, originally released in 1975. Fully remastered and housed in a sleeve that beautifully reproduces the album’s signature design, complete with brand a new English translation of the original liner notes, this is a truly historic event. For its impact, Cramps was a relatively short-lived endeavor, running for roughly seven years between 1973 and 1980. Founded in Milan by the producer, publisher, and graphic designer, Gianni Sassi - publisher of counter-cultural magazines like Bit and Frankenstein, and the designer behind numerous covers for Bla Bla, including Franco Battiato's Fetus and Pollution - Cramps was the pitch perfect emblem of revolutionary Italian temperaments of its era; creatively radical, globally minded, without profit motive, and bridging numerous musical idioms, from progressive rock and jazz, to some of the most forward thinking and singular expression of sonic experimentalism the world has ever seen. Of all the seminal figures that recorded for Cramps, the Romanian / French composer, Costin Miereanu, remains among the most distinct and under-appreciated. The reemergence of his debut LP, Luna Cinese, issued by the label in 1975, will likely change that. Over the last decade or so, Miereanu has developed something of a cult following among experimental fans because of his stunning series of albums issued during the 1980s on his own Poly-Art imprint, skirting the border of ambient music and minimalism in highly individual ways. Luna Cinese, which dives into far more explicitly experimental territory, will undoubtedly be a revelation and expose the true underpinnings of the work that would begin to emerge of the next decade and a half. During his early years, Costin Miereanu was something of a wunderkind of avant-garde and experimental music. Born in Bucharest, between 1960 to 1966 he was a student of Alfred Mendelsohn, Dan Constantinescu, and Lazar Octavian Cosma, before moving to Paris where he earned a Doctor of Letters and a Doctor of Musical Semiotics, winning numerous prizes in writing, analysis, music history, esthetics, orchestration, and composition. Between 1967 and 1969 he was a student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, György Ligeti, and Ehrhard Karkoschka at the Internationale Ferienkurse für neue Musik in Darmstadt, laying the final groundwork for a stunning career as both a composer and noted academic over the years since, often combining techniques drawn from Satie with the abstraction of Romanian traditional music into a sonic fabric that is guided by systems associated with Musique concrète. Luna Cinese, issued as the composer's debut LP by Cramps in 1975, is a stunning combination of all these elements. The work - stretching across the album's two sides, consists of continuous low-density repetitions, build from what the composer describes as “the kind of 'woven' silence you find on mountains – occasionally disturbed by irregular and very dense insertions – the kind of intense noise you find in the city.” The result, combining a vast range of environmental sound, voices chattering in various languages, fragments of acoustic instrumentation, and the pulsing and ambiences of synths and electronics, is about as singular and beautiful as experimental works from the 1970s come, while never for a moment sacrificing rigour or tension. A truly stunning, interwoven sonic expanse that lays pregnant with multiple meaning and interpretations - conceived by the composer to illuminate the complex ways in which meaning and narrative are constructed across time - and imbued with surrealism and the 'schizoid', Luna Cinese stands as an entirely distinct and original gesture within the canon of experimental music, displaying a remarkable density, while open, airy, and encouraging the subjectivity of the listener to play an active part. Easily among the best and important works from the original Cramps catalog, but sinfully overlook over the years since its release, Luna Cinese is as good as they come and an absolutely riveting and immersive listen. Issued by Dialogo in this newly remastered vinyl edition - the first since 1975 - with its original liner notes by Miereanu in a brand-new English translation, this one is impossible to recommend enough and will leave the composer ringing in your mind for a long time to come.

If you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for plants. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back to the dawn of time, but apparently, they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.
Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytum comosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”
But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed.
“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.
Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia's new renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

Brainticket was an obscure Krautrock band born out of a 60's jazz group featuring Belgian born keyboardist Joel Vandroogenbroeck, based in Switzerland. The leader went for a fortunate solo career after the former group disbanded, reaching a cult status especially in Italy with a series of sought after libraries. Released in 1978 on Cenacolo, Images Of Flute In Nature is pure magic translated in music. Conceived by Joel with a little help from vocalist Carole Muriel (an American performer already involved in Brainticket and Drum Circus), the album is literally a deep connection between kosmische music, ambient and ethno-global rhythms.

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.

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.

40th anniversary edition of the debut album by the multi-talented musician Carlos Perón. “Impersonator” was originally released in 1981 when he was still a member of Yello. This first solo work represents a desire to conduct daring electronic experiments, to achieve stylistic variety and musical intensity while at the same time it is an example of Mr. Perón’s bizarre sense of humour. Since the beginning of his career he pushed experimentation beyond limits with noise atmospheres, loops and complex textures which he has long used since before the introduction of sampling technology. With the arrival of sound sampling, he was among the first to experiment with equipment such as the Fairlight, Emulator and Mirage. During his time with Yello, Carlos may well have been one of the world’s first sampling masters. This new re-issue of “Impersonator” includes all original tracks with some bonus including the whole Frigorex EP from 1984 and six previously unreleased cuts recorded between 1982 and 1983. Limited edition of 500 copies with gatefold sleeve and an exclusive postcard.

The scottish musician, born in 1953 in Port Glasgow, is one of the most eclectic artist of the so-called minimal wave scene. Alongside german singer Claudia Brücken (vocalist of the hit-makers Propaganda) he formed Act a short-lived synthpop group signed to ZTT Records in the late eighties. Licensed by Cherry Red in 1982, the double album ‘Contradictions’ is the third effort in Leer high and rising career. After the seminal debut on Industrial Records with Robert Rental – The Bridge (1979) – Leer ventured on a solo career with the brave synth wave of ‘Letter From America’ and his personal masterpiece ‘Contradictions’. The latter is such an enigmatic piece of work, with alien melodies as in the case of the ‘Soul Gypsy’ infectious white funk. The whole album was recorded in his living room at home onto 4-track using borrowed equipment ( Korg synth, Ult-sound drum computer & guitars ) from his friend Morgan Fisher. Featuring Leer’s haunting, uncertain vocal – recorded quietly, so as not to wake his girlfriend in their bedsit! – crooning over a minimal bass pulse and discreet whines and washes of primitive Wasp synthesiser, it retains its peculiar lo-fi magic four decades on.

Wrwtfww Records is very happy to announce the official vinyl reissue of the highly sought-after Haruomi Hosono-produced Interior self-titled debut, originally released in 1982 on legendary label Yen Records. The LP comes in a heavy 350gsm sleeve. Interior is Daisuke Hinata, Eiki Nonaka, Mitsuru Sawamura, and Tsukasa Betto. Their classic 1982 debut, produced by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono, is one of a kind - a very rare breed of feel-good ambient music blending instrumental synth-pop, soft electronic minimalism, and cozy sound design in the most heartwarming ways. It evokes the intimate pleasures of daydreaming in a hotel lobby, holding hands in a museum, or napping by the pool. It depicts the urban landscape as a caring environment, where simplicity and repetition is mind soothing and smile inducing. Interior takes you into an alternate reality, where nostalgic modernism makes the present time feel like the fondest memories. The unique sound of Interior caught the attention of William Ackerman and Anne Robinson who re-released the album in 1985 on their famed label Windham Hill Records (with a slightly different tracklisting) and then proceeded to put out their follow-up, Design, in 1987. After that, members of the group continued their careers separately, Daisuke Hinata notably recording an overlooked but absolutely amazing solo album, Tarzanland, in 1988.

Deux Filles was not, in fact, two girls despite what the group name and its elaborate hoax of a backstory suggest. No, they were not Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, French women who met as teenagers under tragic circumstances and became fast friends, recording two albums together before disappearing into the ether. In reality, Deux Filles was Simon Fisher Turner and Colin Lloyd Tucker, a UK duo who first worked together in an early incarnation of The The.

Straddling the line between experimental and pop, Turner was an actor and teen singing star who later composed soundtracks for the iconic queer filmmaker Derek Jarman while Tucker’s career began as an engineer for the famed UK library music studio, De Wolfe, before forming experimental wave group The Gadgets. In Deux Filles, the duo found an outlet for their least commercial tendencies, combining lo-fi proto-dream-pop instrumentals with samples, tape experiments, ambient textures, and drum machines. Even in the vibrant, seemingly endless well of UK DIY, Deux Filles stand out.

Silence & Wisdom – the duo’s 1982 debut – is a series of musical vignettes, like the score of an unrealized arthouse film. Blending processed guitars, sheets of synthesizers, echoey pianos, and washed-out vocal snippets to surprisingly varied effect, the album is recommended for fans of Durutti Column and Virginia Astley’s From Gardens Where We Feel Secure.

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.

Deux Filles was not, in fact, two girls despite what the group name and its elaborate hoax of a backstory suggest. No, they were not Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, French women who met as teenagers under tragic circumstances and became fast friends, recording two albums together before disappearing into the ether. In reality, Deux Filles was Simon Fisher Turner and Colin Lloyd Tucker, a UK duo who first worked together in an early incarnation of The The.

Straddling the line between experimental and pop, Turner was an actor and teen singing star who later composed soundtracks for the iconic queer filmmaker Derek Jarman while Tucker’s career began as an engineer for the famed UK library music studio, De Wolfe, before forming experimental wave group The Gadgets. In Deux Filles, the duo found an outlet for their least commercial tendencies, combining lo-fi proto-dream-pop instrumentals with samples, tape experiments, ambient textures, and drum machines. Even in the vibrant, seemingly endless well of UK DIY, Deux Filles stand out.

Double Happiness is the duo’s second album, originally released in 1983 on their own imprint, Papier Maché. Full of meandering guitar and with a more ominous tone than the debut, the album is recommended for fans of Durutti Column and Thomas Leer & Robert Rental’s The Bridge.

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.

"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.

Japanese composer Hiroko Matsuzaki began her classic music career as a flutist, and from 1985 to 1987 she worked as a studio musician as a flute/synthesiser player based in London, gaining an excellent reputation abroad without passing through the Japanese music scene. Simon Jeffs of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra heard this work and decided to participate in German electronic musician Rhodelius' Pink, Blue and Amber. This is the first time reissuing the lost work she produced only 100 copies before she left for the UK in 1985 , entitled Mother-Of-Pearl Box. This world-standard masterpiece was born in Japan during the rise of ambient music in the late 1980s, when house and techno were expanding globally with the rise of house and techno.

Ryuichi Sakamoto's first world release, released in 1987 and reissued in analog format.

This solo album, Sakamoto's seventh in total, was co-produced with Bill Laswell for worldwide release and features top musicians from different genres, including Sly Dunbar and Bootsy Collins. Based on an electronic sound, but fusing organic and ethnic musical elements such as Okinawan and Balinese traditional music, the album was recorded in Tokyo and New York, and released in more than 20 countries around the world, making it a milestone in his solo career.

Melodic Energy Commission is a Canadian gem and an interesting branch of the Hawkwind family tree (featuring Del Delmar on electronics.) Hailing from British Columbia, their unique blend of space rock, progressive and hippie psychedelia began in 1977 as a recording-only project titled "The Melodic Energy Commission of Collected Artists."
In 1985 Ken Man showed up in the studio with this IBM AT computer. It had a 1/2 MB of RAM and some Voyetra software that could sequence music, becoming the duo’s backing band. Fist Of Facts contributors included Mark Cunningham from Mars, Felice Rosser, Genevieve De Monvel Boutet, Carlos Vivanco, Scott Hartley from the Liquids and a whole host of others. Fist of Facts expand the natural groove that Liquid Liquid established over their quick career, with a strong political message combined with abstract dub soundscapes.

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 on September 30, 1991, Orbital's eponymous debut album became known as "The Green Album" to distinguish it from their second album (known as "The Brown Album")
The Green Album includes the seminal 'Belfast' and a live version of 'Chime', the landmark dance track that launched their career in 1990

1. The album will be remastered and represented in multiple formats, to be released alongside the band's 'Green Album' UK tour (the band performing Green & Brown albums) starting on 24th April . They've just be announced for Coachella , as well as Miami's Ultra Festival & headline shows in New York & Chicago.
2. Last available on vinyl in 2015 - long time sold out. Back On Double Vinyl editions.
3. First repress on CD for over 20 years ! Back on Double CD - Bonus CD featuring rarities and classic remixes

BIOG / SHORT PR INFOS

Following on from the UK Top 20 success of 2022's 30 Something, and the Top 10 for 2023's Optical Delusion, London Records launch an extensive 2024 campaign for Orbital, revisiting 1991's seminal debut Orbital (aka The Green Album).

The Green Album heralded a brave new world for the UK musical landscape (DJ Mag would later decry that the album "rewrote the rule book for rave"). Brothers Paul and Phil Hartnoll eschewed formulas and clichés, choosing to explore wider textures, rhythms and stranger mind spaces within dance music. Their resulting album would enjoy both chart success and an enduring legacy, influencing and inspiring artists from Björk to Bicep, with the Hartnoll brothers going on to collaborate with artists as diverse as Madonna, Ennio Morricone, Kraftwerk, Sleaford Mods and Professor Brian Cox.

33 years since its original release the album is revisited, from black vinyl , limited colored vinyl and CD editions (long out of print), to special Record Store Day double Splatter Lp. In the digital space 'Tonight In Belfast' will be lauched on February 2nd, :a reworking of the band's seminal track 'Belfast', remixed by David Holmes and re-interpolated with new lyrics and vocal by acclaimed street poet Mike Garry.

Orbital will be supporting The Green Album with an extensive headline UK tour this April (performing both their Green and Brown albums). Ahead of that they've just been announced today for Coachella 2024, as well as Miami's Ultra Festival and headline shows in New York and Chicago.

Rarely do two types of music meet on a level where they threaten to cancel each other out - let alone create something even more meaningful in their mutual vanishing. But the music created within the seminal Murder Ballads (Drift) by Martyn Bates (Eyeless in Gaza, & parallel solo career) and Mick Harris (Napalm Death, Lull, Painkiller, Scorn) creates just such a world. Murder Ballads (Drift) evolves Martyn Bates vocalisations / storytelling song-voices, by turns expressed as labyrinthine layers, calls and responses, muted and distant echoes, sung whispers and counter-melodies, ultimately resulting in a mesmeric conversation of musical inferences and correspondences. Murder Ballads (Drift) created the post-isolationist frame of reference, innovating and extemporising into a truly original dazzlingly unique form.

Mick Harris traffics in the isolationist ambience of Lull, while Martyn Bates is the emotive voice of literate cult-pop duo Eyeless in Gaza. The unlikely pair - one given to terminally frigid drone, the other to impassioned, bittersweet voicings - finds common ground in folk music's most macabre tradition, the murder ballad. These ghoulish parables are awash in blood and tears, the strands of love, hate, birth, death, sin, and salvation entwined within like the roots of an ancient tree. Mothers callously kill their children; suitors slay their maidens without remorse; and fate exacts its cruel price from all.

The archaic murder ballads that leak from Bates' vocal cords are intensely sad and carnal. They tend to leap off cliffs of hollow effects or drone darkly, offering neither a robust delivery nor an element of irony to take the edge off. The archetypal characters that live and die in them give life's full tragedy back to Harris' electronically numbed "post-isolationist" dreaming.

Drift (originally released in 1994) plays out an unbreakable and timeless cycle of bloody folklore (people) and hypnotic soundscapes (the god who watches). The effect is chilling yet engrossing. Where most ambient music has barely enough courage to ring the doorbell and run, Murder Ballads slips through the cracks of the unconscious and does its work with remarkable ease.

Kontakt Audio and Infinite Fog Productions proudly present the 25-th anniversary reissue of the one of most unique albums on avantgarde/neoclassic music – Ihor Tsymbrovsky – Come, Angel.

Recorded in 1995 in Ukraine and released in 1996 just as a small run on cassette on Polish label Koka Records, the album without any promotion little by little became legendary and madly wanted by many fans all around the world. And from the first seconds, you can hear why it is so. Pretty hard to explain what songs play Ihor, moreover that would be senseless. “Come, Angel” is one of those albums which are so unique that takes you in a vacuum of verbal forms in an attempt to describe the record. In a few words, this is definitely very intimate and deeply emotional music with an absolutely incredible voice. The first associations could forward you to Antony Hegarty from Antony And The Johnsons, Marc Almond, Arthur Russell, Baby Dee, Bjork. Experienced listener familiar with these great artist knows that all of them are inimitable and Ihor Tsymbrovsky is totally inimitable as well.

In 2016 well-known German label Offen Music published 3 tracks from the album “Come, Angel” which brought a lot of attention to Ihor’s music. This time we’re excited to announce the first full album reissue on CD, Double vinyl, and tapes. Beside the full version of the album, you’ll find an exclusive bonus song from the cult compilation “Music The World Does Not See” – Nefryt Records 2000.

~

“For me, music is a certain way of cultural survival. Here I do not set myself theoretical problems or experiments. The connotations of life are important: rhythms, melodies, their connection with language, poetry, real life, virtual or imaginary space. It is very important to me how the recitation of work sounds, how consonant and vowel sounds dissolve in singing, how they combine musically. I understand sound space as a field of my interpretations, preferences, priorities, and I do not use direct imitation. If I hear a melody or a musical phrase, and it is fixed in my memory, later I extract it in my own interpretation, as already formed by this field. In art, the goal is in the work itself, not outside it. For me, the expression “To be is to create a new reality” is another winged reality.” – Ihor Tsymbrovsky

~~

“Tsymbrovsky – an architect, musician, a poet, an artist; one of the most underestimated musicians in Ukraine’s artistic world. Many critics pulled their hair out trying to get to the bottom of Tsymbrovsky’s music. It has been inspired by jazz, minimal, modern, ethnic, and meditation music. Tsymbrovsky is not a virtuoso, however, he creates whole worlds with his astonishing falsetto. Although Cymbrovsky’s music is simple it is made of many elements. Filled with magic and unusual sensitivity and warmth it can be therapeutic for the listener. This is that kind of music, which can be listened to many times – in a different way each time.” – Koka Records.

~~~

“Igor Tsymbrovsky’s only album “Come Angel” (1995) still remains perhaps the most bizarre phenomenon in Ukrainian music since independence. The story of its author is a vivid example of cultural amnesia. In the pre-Internet era, Tsymbrovsky was a prominent figure in the Ukrainian underground, performed on the “Red Route”, went on tour in Germany. However, he left a minimum of evidence of his activity and became a silent legend for a few. We talked to Igor to find out where he came from and where he was going.

The album “Come Angel” is eight compositions performed with a falsetto to the accompaniment of a piano. (Tsymbrovsky’s falsetto is a legacy of the Lviv Dudaryk choir, where he sang as a child.) It would seem that it could be easier. But, despite such ascetic tools, Tsymbrovsky managed to create a phenomenon unique to Ukrainian culture. Some people compare him to Benjamin Clementine and Anthony Hegarty, but no comparison will be exhaustive. The lyrics of the songs attract special attention: two of them were written by Tsymbrovsky himself, the others demonstrate his remarkable literary knowledge. Here and Guillaume Apollinaire, and Mikhaijl Semenko, and even less obvious poets, such as Mykola Vorobyov or Jozsef Attila.

The young performer’s first performance took place in 1987 in the club of the Forestry Institute. It is quite symbolic that this room used to be a Jesuit church because such a chamber environment suits his songs about angels much better than the noise of big festivals. However, there were also many festivals in Tsymbrovsky’s career: in 1989, Chorna Rada and Chervona Ruta, in 1991, Kharkiv’s Nova Scena and Ukrainian Nights in Gdansk, Alternativa in Lviv. Ihor calls his first performances musical performances and notes that they sounded completely different. Unfortunately, we will never know exactly how.” – Amnesia

~~~~

“The magicians at Dusseldorf’s Offen Music pluck a madly beguiling pearl of late-night songcraft by Ukraine’s Ihor Tsymbrovsky to follow their vital releases by Toresch and Rex Ilusivii. Come Angel was first recorded in Lviv, Ukraine, in 1995, and issued on cassette by Poland’s Koka Records in 1996. There appears to be no prior mention of the release or artist on the internet and quite how it came into of Offen Music possession is not disclosed, and that only ratchets the record’s enigma to astonishing degrees once you’ve heard the music. In a quivering, high register, androgynous trill, Ihor Tsymbrovsky beckons heavenly beings in the remarkable A-side Come, Angel against a swirling backdrop of phasing, subtly delayed organ. It was recorded in one take (this is the 2nd version), and, if we’re not mistaken, you can hear the keys being pressed rhythmically in the background, which seems to be the song’s only tangible connection to this mortal world as Ihor vaults octaves high and close-in-the-mix with the sort of alien, dreamlike vocal that requires pinching oneself to make sure you’re awake. Spellbinding is definitely the word. On the other side he (we’re assured it is a ‘he’ in the promo text) sets two poems by Mykola Vorobyov and Mykhal Semenko, respectively, to emphatic piano keys, this time more shy of FX save for some delay, placing that willowing, avian vocal at a dreamy arms reach in Roses for the Poet, and with a sort of liturgical dark jazz feel, sorta like Lewis repenting his sins as a castrato monk, in the spare atmosphere in By the Sea. This is gold-seal business, we tell ya. Clock the clips and clear some swooning room.” – Boomkat

credits: Music By – Ihor Tsymbrovsky Lyrics By: Ihor Tsymbrovsky (tracks: C2, D1) Atilla Joszef (tracks: B1) Mychajl Semenko (tracks: B2, C1,C3, D2) Mykoła Worobjow (tracks: A1,A2) Engineer – Edward Hryhorjew Remastering – Ihor Tsymbrovsky

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.

Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes. The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."

Queens Of The Circulating Library stands alongside Time Machines and Nurse With Wound's Soliloquy For Lilith as a post-industrial pinnacle of sensory-warping long-form drone. Crafted by the distilled duo of Thighpaulsandra and John Balance, the 49-minute piece unfurls in swirling, cyclical waves, tidal as much as textural, channeling the spirit of levitational minimalism pioneered by La Monte Young. Touted as the first part in "a continually mutating series of circulating musickal compositions" upon its initial release in 2000, the album remains a compelling case study in Coil's exceptional capacity for mutation and extremes.

The theatrical introductory monologue delivered by Thighpaulsandra's mother - a career opera singer, in her 80's at the time of recording - sets the stage for a grandiose ascension. Written by Balance, the text is declamatory but dreamlike, refracted through megaphone echo: "Return the book of knowledge / Return the marble index / File under "Paradox" / The forest is a college, each tree a university." As her voice fades, the lulling synthetic infinity deepens, congealing into transient crests of volume and haze, like slow-motion surf misting in moonlight. Thighpaulsandra describes their aesthetic intention as a "bliss out," static but shape-shifting, an amniotic drift towards an eternal vanishing point. A supreme sonic embodiment of the slogan on the sleeve of Time Machines, two years prior: "Persistence is all."

2001’s »Anima« was the third album released by Sasu Ripatti under his Vladislav Delay moniker and marked a turning point in the stylistic development of the prolific producer. Clocking in at roughly 62 minutes, the single piece draws on dub aesthetics while working with Musique concrète-like methods through the liberal use of samples to create a dreamlike logic. Muffled voices, lush chords, subtle rhythms and indefinable sound events are not so much integrated into a composition with a predetermined outcome but rather engage with each other freely in a constant sonic flow, forming constellations in one moment before moving on to connect with other elements in the next one. »Anima« marked the first time Ripatti was using a DAW in his working process, creating a piece constantly in motion that subtly evolves over time. This vinyl reissue on the German Keplar label follows up on the 20th anniversary edition of 2000’s »Multila« and will be complemented by a ten-minute long version of the original piece, previously only available on the CD version released by the artist on his own Huume label in 2008.

After the release of his »Ele« and »Entain« albums in 1999 and 2000, respectively, Ripatti took the 1998 independent movie »Hurlyburly« as a conceptual starting point to experiment with different gear and production methods. »Until then I had worked with an old Msq-700 Midi sequencer and an Ensonic Eps16 sampler/sequencer that had one or two MB of sampling memory and mixed the music live on a Mackie, which was very limiting arrangement-wise,« says Ripatti. Loading a slightly shortened version of the film into his DAW however allowed him to play along to it with the DrumKAT Midi controller, triggering and playing all the sounds that can be heard on »Anima« while also contributing synths, bass and other sounds during repeated playthroughs before mixing a total of six stereo tracks together. »This way, after I had edited out most of the few parts that had music in them, I was in the movie; almost like an extra character playing music,« explains Ripatti. »This was certainly the most organic way in which I have ever made music, and I have never again approached another record like this.«

While »Anima« sounded like an unusual Vladislav Delay record at the time of its release, it also prefigured many of the developments Ripatti would go through in the course of his long career. Combining visceral immediacy with a sense of abstraction, it is far more than a mere missing link in his discography but rather a conceptually and musically outstanding piece of work that remains as engaging as it was 21 years ago.

In 1998, Carsten Nicolai, also known as Alva Noto, visited a sound installation created by Robert Lippok for a group exhibition in Weimar, Germany. Soon after, he invited Lippok to release music on his label raster-noton. "Open Close Open" was released in 2001 and marked the beginning of Lippok"s solo career. Before, Lippok had already played in Ornament und Verbrechen (with his brother Ronald Lippok) and To Rococo Rot (with Ronald Lippok and Stefan Schneider). The source material for "Open Close Open" initially served as a soundtrack for a video by Takehito Koganezawa, a visual artist from Japan. For this remastered vinyl reissue, Lippok revisited the original sound material and produced a new track called "Licht."

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork. Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays. ‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known. It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them. Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored. All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of Hiv/aids, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness. So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

The »Icol Diston« compilation, released in 2002 on DIN, comprised the three first EPs released by Uwe Zahn under his Arovane moniker. Following up on vinyl reissues of his path-breaking debut album »Atol Scrap« as well as 2000’s »Tides,« the German Keplar label finally makes »Icol Diston« available in its entirety on vinyl for the first time in a remastered version with new artwork. This expansive reissue sheds a new light on Zahn’s first two outings as a producer on the »I.O.« and »Icol Diston« EPs on Torsten ›t++‹ Pröfrock’s legendary label as well as highlighting his radical inventiveness as a remixer with the two renditions of Pröfrock-produced material offered on »AMX.« Taken together, these musically complex and emotionally rich electronic compositions form the prologue to an artistic story like none other while also documenting a very specific era in cultural history. The energy running through Berlin and its boundaryless electronic music scene at the end of the 1990s is reflected by and refined through these eleven tracks. »There was an overwhelming dynamic of liberation reverberating through the city—through the clubs, the arts, the people,« says Zahn today. At this early stage in his career, he had a head full of ideas and slowly started filling up his studio with samplers, synthesizers, and sequencers to put them into practice. »I would compose percussive structures in my mind during long metro rides and record them once I was back at the studio as well as composing melodies spontaneously on my sequencer.« The Yamaha Qy700 would become his sketchbook that allowed him to experiment with different patterns, creating polymetric figures out of discrete musical elements. Zahn’s sessions, recorded live in stereo and straight to DAT, resulted in two very different EPs of original material. His debut »I.O.« showcases a playful and gentle, albeit dubby and at times moody aesthetic. The four tracks are exercises in sonic worldbuilding, creating vast spaces and filling them with a plethora of intertwining melodies and rhythms. Its successor »Icol Diston« drew on similar parameters, but painted a very different picture in terms of atmosphere and mood. »Berlin’s history felt still so tangible and yet somewhat ghostly during the 1990s, and it is a reflection of all that,« explains Zahn. »The weight of its past, starting with World War II up to the end of the GDR, clashed with an atmosphere of departure, a new zest for life among the people in the city.« It is perhaps no surprise then that the five tracks put a firmer focus on beats, at times even approximating techno or electro grooves despite never eschewing the complexity that is so central to Zahn’s work. The »amx« EP features two remixes of tracks originally produced by Pröfrock under two different guises. »Außen vor« had been released under his Dynamo moniker and was reworked by Zahn after having been introduced to his label owner’s Studio 440 sampler, sequencer and drum machine. By leaving the groove at the core of the original track mostly intact but infusing it with more dub as well as anthemic synth drones, Zahn gave it more depth both sonically and emotionally. With his remix of »No. 8,« released under Pröfrock’s tongue-in-cheek pseudonym Various Artists, Zahn followed a more radical approach which led him even deeper into dub territory. »I used a relatively short sample as the tonal foundation and then added an incredibly deep bass and percussive elements,« he explains. Widely different from the original version, it perfectly translated the spirit of this singular masterpiece into another stylistic idiom. The »Icol Diston« compilation is imbued with a forward-thinking spirit that remains exhilarating until today. It captures the sound of one unique artist, but also electronic music during that time more broadly. This is the sound of opening a new chapter, the willingness to venture into the unknown.

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.

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.

Electronic/Industrial music pioneer Lustmords tenth studio album [ O T H E R ], originally released in 2008 and to date the only Lustmord album with guitars on it, performed by Adam Jones (tool), King Buzzo (the Melvins) and Aaron Turner (isis). [ O T H E R ] originally came out on independent record label Hydra Head Records, founded by Isis frontman Aaron Turner and former home of bands such as Converge, Pelican, Jesu, SUN O))) or Boris. As one journalist put it at the time, [ O T H E R ] is a "grim example of a consummate artist who is working frmly within the parameters that he has laid out for himself over the years." This album shows Lustmord at his most characteristic, and the icy, ominous guitar playing of Jones, Turner and Ozborne resonates perfectly within the deep soundscapes that make up this frightening yet inspiring journey. As a matter of fact, the material on [ O T H E R ] is so powerful that it moved Williams to create two ambient remix versions of it, and one dub remix EP exploring the sounds of this record to the greatest extend of his ability. In 2022, and also available now, Lustmord further collaborates with artist such as Godflesh, Mono and Zola JesuS, to name but a few, for THE Others (Lustmord Deconstructed) on re-interpretations on [ O T H E R ] tracks. 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.

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.

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.

10 year anniversary edition on orange & red marble vinyl. While his formative years were spent listening to everything from Yes to Photek, Scott Hansen didn't get his hands on an actual guitar or drum machine until he left his native Sacramento for San Francisco in 1995. "Encountering this whole new world at 20 years old was a profound experience," says Hansen, better known by his musical pseudonym Tycho and as the graphic artist Iso50. "At the time, I was just learning the processes of design and music; both felt very similar, and have flowed back and forth for me ever since."As seamless as his two creative outlets have been, nearly a decade passed before the release of Hansen's first proper Tycho LP, Sunrise Projector (later expanded and reissued under the title Past Is Prologue). And while three striking singles have emerged since then, the sum of all those sepia-toned parts is nowhere near the double-exposed soundscapes of Dive. The product of a prolonged break from IS050's design work and blog, it pays tribute to Tycho's prismatic past (the dense, guitar-guided turning points of "Daydream" and "Adrift") but spends most of its time pointing to the project's not-so-distant future.That can mean any number of things, really, from the halcyon hooks and hopeful horizons of "A Walk" to the expansive, wildly expressive tone poetry of the title track, an eight-minute epic that unfolds like a compressed concept album. Or at the very least, a restless vision of prog-rock - one that's been coated in neon colors and filtered through a thick piece of blotter paper. And then there's "Elegy," a spare curtain closer that pairs a vulnerable crescendo with a fitting bridge to future works.And with that, Dive establishes its position as the most diverse musical statement of Hansen's multi-medium career; the point where his skills as a performer finally catch up with his vaporized vision of a world that doesn't belong to any particular time or place."Nostalgia is a common thread in my work," says Hansen, "but this album wasn't driven by that idea. I see these songs as artifacts from a future which might have more in common with our past than our present."

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 aspring LNY, known for his surrealistic portraits, blending humans and animals.

Going to be released upcoming February, the second edition of our “Faces“ series will exhibit works by the two extraordinary producers Daisuke Tanabe and Mike Gao. Again, coming from very distinct biographical backgrounds – despite their obvious Asian descent – the two are connected through their artistic excellence and uncompromising musical creations and visions. In symbiosis with these nocturnal flying mammals they use their ultra-precise sonic waves to navigate imperturbably through dark nights, leaving their prey with no chance of escape.

Limited 12” vinyl for serious collectors, DJ’s and record addicts only!

Mike Gao is a music technology researcher, holds a Masters degree in Music Technology at Stanford and is pursuing his PhD in Electrical Engineering at UCSD. After a career as underground Hip Hop and Scratch DJ in Chicago (working with such names as Qwel, Mestizo and Luckyiam) he began partaking and winning in numerous beat battles, Low End Theory being the most prominent one, which makes him one of the best kept secrets in the Los Angeles beat scene. He released music on labels such as All City with Tokimonsta, Galapagos4, Project: Mooncircle and many more…

Tokyo resident Daisuke Tanabe, a former art student who also lived in London for a while, developed from his techno/breakbeat background into a very unique sound between Hip Hop, Electronica, Folk and Jazz. He released music on labels such as Ninja Tune, BBE, Project: Mooncircle and Brownswood Recordings, performed with Zero DB and remixed artists like Elan Mehler and Aaron Jerome.

LNY is an artist living and working between New Jersey and New York. He makes art that is drawing based, social and open to the public in general; hence his drawings can be found pasted on buildings all over the world as well as in galleries and on 16-year-old kids’ tumblrs all over the internet. He is one half of Doodledrag, a New Jersey based doodling collective and always welcomes collaboration.

Limited edition of 300!

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.

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.

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.

Oh yes, finally the follow-up to Mount Kimbie's critically acclaimed debut "Crooks & Lovers", now on Warp Records!

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.

With his new album "What's Fruit", Schlammpeitziger touches the dancefloor more than ever before in his 22-year long career. Yet his dancefloor is a playful one. The Cologne based composer's sounds electrify with their multi-layered melodic structures. He weaves countless details in perfection, to a high density of musical activity, always focusing on the slow, driving beats which hold everything together. Each of the eight tracks represents shades of the unique humour we love about Schlammpeitziger.

For nearly a decade, Tycho has been known as the musical alias of Scott Hansen, but with the release of Awake - his second LP for Ghostly International - the solo project has evolved into a three-piece band. Relating closer to post-rock than ambient soundscapes, the record is situated in the present, sounding more like Hansen than drawing from his in?uences. "This is, in many ways, the first true Tycho record." Following 2011's "Dive" LP, the San Francisco-based designer toured extensively, and with a full band on stage, his sound coalesced into a percussive, organic whole. Zac Brown (guitars, bass) rejoined Scott on the road for this tour, but it was the particular addition of Rory O'Connor's live drumming that ultimately sent Hansen back to the studio with a more precise vision. "After the tour, I decided that I wanted to capture the more energetic, driven sound of the live show on the next album," Hansen recalls. Bringing musicians into Tycho's creative process was a step towards expanding his own songwriting and advancing the project beyond its current sound. In a cabin near Tahoe last winter, Zac and Scott began ?eshing out the structure of the new record, but it wasn't until they set up shop in the hills of Santa Cruz with Rory that it all fell into place. "It crystallized the vision of how the drums would come to the forefront on this record," says Hansen. The sound was much more stripped-down and concise with more organic instruments in the fold. Songs like "Montana" and "Awake" are a departure from Tycho's previous material - unique to the group e!ort poured into the songs on the new record - while "See" and "Dye" echo ideas from previous works, bridging a middle ground between the old and new. Working with Count Eldridge, who also engineered Dive, the team could ?xate on the pulses that Tycho might previously layer under synthesizers and exhume them with distinct bass and guitar patterns. Also known for his design work as Iso50, Hansen's visual and sonic e!orts have dovetailed throughout the course of his career. "This is the ?rst time in my life I've dropped everything to focus on one artistic pursuit," notes Hansen. Previous Tycho releases came to fruition when an amalgam of songs were nearing completion, but "Awake" is where music becomes the focus and true expression becomes the result.

HHV and Too Good are happy to present this exclusive color run of 1000 red copies of Tommy Guerreros 2014 album "No Mans Land". Back in print for the first time. Only at HHV. As a special treat you can pick up the poster with the artwork of this album in our bonus section.

Red Vinyl.

Record is close to NM.
Upper edge with beginning seamsplit, otherwise VG+.