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Zuli's widest-reaching and most ambitious album to date, 'Lambda' is a conspicuous left turn for the Berlinbased Egyptian producer. Draped in gauzy, granulated textures and woven with enigmatic vocal flourishes from collaborators Michaelbrailey, Coby Sey and Abdullah Miniawy, it's a vivid, soul-searching set of polychromatic reflections that sets fire to the boundaries between ambient, trip-hop, industrial music, chamber pop and symphonic noise.

In some aspects, 'Lambda' reveals Zuli's softer side; gone are the earth-shaking chopped rhythms and stopstart outbursts of corroded static that characterised his last full length, 'Digla Dive - Live'. But peer beneath the brain burrowing vocal melodies, mangled instrumental loops, anxious poems and subtle, harmonic synth washes and a new kind of intensity lurks in the shadows.

Since his early releases on Lee Gamble's UIQ label and his 2018 breakout 'Trigger Finger', Zuli has notched up major global acclaim for his futuristic, kinetic musical diversions. He cut his teeth supplying beats to local rappers back home in Cairo, soon shifting his attention to the city's burgeoning dance underground, promoting events, DJing prolifically and tirelessly supporting the scene's most experimental fringe. In 2019, Zuli teamed up with Rama to curate the irsh series of video transmissions, evolving the project into a label shortly afterwards. And now situated in Berlin, the duo have extended the concept to encompass an ongoing sequence of genre-averse club nights. All this experience and constant creative motion is etched into the foundations of 'Lambda'. It's an album that plays liberally with euphoria, but feels constantly precarious, intrepidly peering out from its tense internal world.

Praise A Lord Who Chews But Which Does Not Consume; (Or Simply, Hot Between Worlds) takes us beneath all the bedazzled glam stardom as Yves journeys through the limbo of life and love, escaping toxicity to get higher and holier. From the raw, unapologetic drawl of 'God Is a Circle' comes a mercurially shifting tracklist where Yves picks apart their psyche, discerning lovers and enemies both spiritually devoted to. 'Lovely Sewer' captures the incendiary spark of love, heart racing to the red flags under sunset coloured new wave guitars; a total flipside to the later sultry sighs and strong shuffles of 'Echolalia', where heat rises from the spiralling synths and funky dance grooves.

As Yves explores the pulchritude of purgatory, they move through electrifying rock strains. The technicolour acoustic guitars of 'Meteora Blues' evolve into a high voltage headbanger as they plead, "I'll always pray to an empty sky," sauntering into a falsetto-powered, scathing examination of the popstar on 'Parody' and the cold wave-meets-emo thrashes of 'In Spite of War'. 'Purified By the Fire' is a plunderphonic gauntlet of alchemical transmutation, with shredded loops and cataclysmic beats leading up to the anthemic and heavenly last hurrah of 'Ebony Eye', where Yves Tumor finds glory and salvation, sitting on the throne as the righteous leader of rock music’s contemporary revolution.

The world needed a new rockstar, and Yves Tumor has the answer. From the chameleonic kaleidoscope Safe In The Hands Of Love, to the visceral fusions of Heaven To A Tortured Mind, and the theatrical power jams of The Asymptotical World, Yves Tumor has proved their prowess in any sound their punk spirit inhabits. Hot Between Worlds distills all of this into a masterclass of pop songwriting and rock captivation, with songs that carry a stadium shaking energy having been teased and refined with their band live across the globe.

On their debut album International Waters [evar Records], French duo XL Order dive into an aquatic underworld of futuristic trance, brutal bass and tingling techno, exploring the paradoxes between dystopia and utopia. Feelings of melancholia and nostalgia ripple throughout, alongside dark and moody textures, reflecting their ability to conjure sinister soundscapes and hazy melodies.
Due to drop onNovember 10th, the album ebbs and flows between futuristic trance, brutal bass and tingling techno that pens a story of a new world, resulting in a paradox between dystopia and utopia. Feelings of melancholia and nostalgia ripple throughout the album alongside dark and moody textures, reflecting their ability to conjure sinister soundscapes in tandem with hazy melodies.
Drawing influence from the metaphysical painter Jean-Pierre Ugarte and the sci-fi film Blade Runner, as well as the aesthetic of Cyberpunk, XL Order produce sonic elements aligned with each multimedia source. Fusing themes of unity between the ecosystem and mankind, International Waters tells a tale of biodiversity and the perpetual renewal of nature, with or without humanity.
Chilling, cinematic and captivating, the album begins in a mirage of ambient tones, evolving into a trance and techno-flecked collection culminating in ten tracks. With a combination of chuggy rhythms, eerie sound FX and resounding kickdrums, an impression of a new world order gurgles beneath the surface while a shimmering utopia remains just beyond reach.
"Realm" opens the album on an angelic note with spine-tingling chords potent enough to make your eyes water before a flash of AI-like noise ends the track abruptly, catching us off guard. "Ode" follows suit with sombre pads and choppy breaks while a bewitching melody swirls in the atmosphere — a myriad of heart-melting frequencies.
On "Ava", XL Order collaborate with Paris-based vocalist Dovae, whose mechanized vocals simmer between rapid-fire hi-hats and breaksy-percussion. Layered between a succession of claps and alarm-like noise, Dovae's lyrics hypnotize and haunt."Hybride" is a storm of staccato synth notes and metallic percussion, working in symbiosis to create an enticing patchwork of grooves, pulling us towards cyberland. It's a contrast to "Cleanse," which is a thunking trip of cow-bell noises and a doom-inducing bassline, whipping up a frenzy that's apt for peak-time raving.
The hint is in the name on "Clubbing Planet." A robotic vocal echoes in the soundscape as a wonky bassline punctuates the mood. Deconstructed breakbeats add a foreboding feel, alluding to the presence of AI. "Industrial Dance" switches pace to a frantic level as mutant kickdrums pulverize the vibe alongside a corrosive melody. Not for the faint of heart.
"Reef Breaks" takes us underwater with a beautiful trance-flavoured melody, coming up for air with a succession of siren-like notes. Pure, unadulterated euphoria bubbles on "Seamulation," evoking pleasure-filled chaos. It's a contemporary tune down to the last beat, with a confetti-cannon synthline and Eurodance melody.
Closing out on the album with "Digillusion", XL Order focus on natural themes, including the sky, clouds and thunder. They run their own vocals through a vocoder, amplifying the hands-in-the-air vibe that dominates. The idea of the final track is to reflect three emotions that they feel resonate with the vision of XL Order: happiness, melancholy and renewal. It couldn't be more accurate.
XL Order display their idea of the future on International Waters — one that is equally intriguing and terrifying. Merging sci-fi-inspired breaks, AI-shaped techno and classic trance with a nu-skool twist, the pair know their sound and deliver it with panache.

Black Truffle presents People Pleaser, the new LP from Nantes-based drummer and percussionist Will Guthrie. Initially rising to prominence in Australia as a drummer in the fields of jazz and improvised music, Guthrie later turned increasingly toward electronics and amplified percussion, developing an idiosyncratic style of electro-acoustic performance characterized by shimmering metallic textures, rapid-fire textural transformations and aggressively high volume. Recent years have seen a return to the drum kit in both solo and collaborative work, in performances where Guthrie uses duration and endurance to push at the limits of his formidable technical abilities as a player in the free jazz tradition, working variations on short rhythmic units into an endless flow of non-metered pulse. Although drawing on many aspects of Guthrie’s past work, People Pleaser stands alone in the catalogue of his recorded work. Working fast and intuitively over a period of three weeks, Guthrie has crafted a suite of song-length pieces that combine his drumming with electronics, field recordings, and sampled detritus. Inspired by rough and ready sampling style of producers like RZA, J Dilla and Knxwledge, and by the endless possibilities of musique concrète, People Pleaser uses a highly divergent array of sound sources, building pieces from drum and percussion tracks left over from other projects, audio ripped from skate videos, noise electronics, fragments of a police interrogation, and anything else ready to hand. Guthrie’s unique rhythmic sensibility is the thread drawing all these elements together, his drum performances propulsively rhythmic yet insistently irregular in a way that sometimes brings to mind the uniquely open rhythmic space carved out in the early Weather Report and other classic fusion. Drawing together a manifold of influences in an entirely sui generis way, People Pleaser is a raw, exciting, and surprisingly accessible peak into the laboratory of a unique sensibility.

Deathbomb Arc is proud to unearth White Boy Scream aka Micaela Tobin's album 'Remains' (2018), previously only available on a limited run cassette. Both a trained opera singer & composer and highly involved in the experimental scenes of DIY Los Angeles, Tobin composes works that feel like no other, bridging antagonistic noise sounds with the traditional world of opera. Her most recent album 'bakunawa' was adapted into a short film thanks to the sponsorship of The Red Cat / Disney of all unlikely places. She is a frequent collaborator with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Raven Chacon and has worked with artists such as Clipping. (Sub Pop), Fire-Toolz (Hausu Mountain), and Cristopher Cichocki. Tobin has performed all over the world from small warehouse venues to large museums and even at the Coachella Music & Arts Festival.

Following their acclaimed debut album from 2022 on Alien Transistor Records, What Are People For? now release their first 7" single from the upcoming album, with a dark ambient R’n’B banger "Criminals" on the A-side, telling tales of snoozing criminals and tantalising promises of "Someday we will all be rich".

The already legendary B-Side features a charming smokefilled-bubblegum Spanish & English cover of the Cypress Hill song "Illusions", together with The Notwist, which they developed whilst on tour together last year. Obviously, a product of the recent legalisation of marijuana in Germany: Ich liebe dich Marianne.

We Smile were part of the Hamburger Schule back in the early Nineties: expressive vocals, associative lyrics in German and English, brittle guitars and overall a quite broad interpretation of the general idea of Pop. Now, 30 years later, Hamburg label Couldn’t Care More releases these spectacular remixes of songs from We Smiles album “Für Die Anderen”: Glasgows JD Twitchs (Optimo) turns “Sack Voll Drogen” into one twisted colossus of a track, made from electro, breaks and rave , Tokyos Tentenko fires up the Casio for her two versions of "31 24 42" and Hamburgs Mense Reents (Egoexpress, Die Vögel, Die Goldenen Zitronen) builds the most extraordinary elegant Pop song from the sparse "Can't Resist (Popmusiker Sind Auch Künstler-Version)". Also included is the formidable (and remastered) original of "Kind Und Kegel".

Expansion pack of Wave Temples transmissions accompanying the Panama Shift vinyl suite. Its creator contextualizes Portals as the first volume in a tarot-style card game of the same name, to be used for divining prophetic strategies. Each of the 13 pieces here unfolds like a glimpse to an inner realm – or a past life. Hazed vignettes of primitivist anthropological fantasia, warbly and windswept, suffused with déjà vu. Insects and macaws sing from the periphery, while beach fires glow along an abandoned coast, the tide like a language lost in the tunnels of time.

In the beginning, woman was the sun, and then the monster put its hand in the fire. Knowing without knowing. Nature versus Nurture.

Hot on the heels of a sold out first volume, Elle Andrews & Jon K’s MAL serve a sick second battery of broken club PRESSURE featuring new and exclusive cuts from Jana Rush, Filter Dread, Time Cow, Avon Blume, Soltura and King Maceeyar, together making for the label’s hungriest delivery to date with skews of grime, breakbeat hardcore, footwork and gqom from friends and fam strewn between the Caribbean, South Africa, the US and the UK.

Avon Blume lights it off with screwed hardcore jungle drumfunk ‘3 Minutes Short’ like some vintage Mo Wax cut that's had years of heavy rotation by the likes of Tom Boogizm, while the consistently brilliant Filter Dread fires up the Amiga for the cuboid amen atom-splitting of ‘Digital Voodoo’ on a Rufige Kru flex, beside a sharp twist by Soltura, who makes good on the promise of her All Centre releases with a deadly new one on a sci-fi-drill tip.

‘A Study Of Asoa’ features Duster Valentine indexing the Soundcloud commentary of internet figure A Study of Arpeg (something to do with AYYA from PAN’s ‘Mono No Aware’ comp, maybe?), while ‘Real Pirates Don’t Say Okie Dokie Then’ finds Equiknoxx’s Time Cow on a freaky, tracky NYC buzz, based around a box of samples Jordan ripped after spending an afternoon pillaging Jon K’s record collection in Manchester, 2016.

South Durban’s enigmatic King Maceeyar came to Elle and Jon’s attention via Okzharp and the track included here has been heavily rinsed in recent MAL sets - 'Our Memories' serves a mad slice of emosh gqom, marrying melancholy pads to the taxi techno template including a literally tear-inducing spoken word section, and Chicago legend Jana Rush closes things off by reducing footwork to its sexiest, jazziest and most minimalist ends on the real future shockout ‘Pink Guava’ - a weightless monster.

All Killer²

“Fire, the divine essence stolen from the gods by Prometheus and given to humanity thus, making us unique amongst other creatures of Mother Nature, bringing us closer to the divine.
The myth’s version chosen to illustrate the songs in this compilation, whispers that the figure of this fire remains alive in the shape of intelligence and cleverness. Technology split us apart while allowing us to own the sounds of Nature, to transform them, to travel in time within the 20th century using all sorts of folk instruments, assembling mezzo-sopranos coming down from orchestras high up in the sky, with the most virtuous percussionists in the Spanish music scene. Who would have told the sailor man that he would be dancing to down-tempo with his loved one, who is leaning on the balcony waiting for him.
This compilation is a deep scream from modern gods; the flame that is still alive in this new century.
I couldn’t be more thankful to Lord Guardado (Discómanos) for relying on me for the selection of songs, for being this project’s cornerstone and engine, as well as to all the artists who agreed to be part of it.”
Daniel Nielles

Subtitled As “The Open Gate To New Spanish Music” This Is An Amazing Compilation Dedicated To Spanish Minimal, New Age, Ambient, Downtempo, Folk, Experimental Sounds, 1989-1999, All Tracks Never Released On Vinyl Before.
Feat: Suso Saiz, Iury Lech, Finis Africae, Eliseo Parra...
Sublimely Curated By Daniel Nielles (Tuharrdosons), Inspired By The Work Of People Like Luis Delgado (El Cometa De Madrid, Etc).
LP Only Release, 500 Copies. 180Gr Vinyl.

2LP comp of those fire L.A. Producer 10"s that came out a decade ago. Includes a 36 page photo booklet from photographer, B+ . Dope. TIP! "Back in 2010 we released a series of 10" records from L.A., the series featured 22 artists across 11 records representing the various generations and approaches that made up the beat scene, both in LA and around the world. On every cover was a snapshot of the city viewed through the lens of L.A. based Irishman, Brian Cross AKA B+. To mark a decade we have compiled and remastered 24 tracks from the series on 2LP and cassette and bundled a 36 page B+ photo booklet inside and included liner notes from author of forthcoming book “Bedroom Beats & B-Sides” Laurent Fintoni."

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

Have you heard of the Nurse With Wound List? If you are a fan of creative-experimental-unlikely music, certainly. You would therefore be aware that amongst the recommendations that Steven Stapleton slipped into the first album of his group Nurse With Wound, were to be found a few restless frogs: Jef Gilson, Luc Ferrari, Jacques Thollot, Urban Sax, Horde Catalytique and last but not least Jean-Jacques Birgé and Francis Gorgé. Stapleton admired their album Défense de. The two Frenchmen just had to conceive of a fabulous precursor to the channel tunnel (check out the inside of the record, you’ll see) to enable Stapleton to come to France in 1980. The Englishman was looking for contributions to a compilation to be released on his United Dairies label that he had created with John Fothergill, and he naturally called on Birgé and Gorgé, who were then playing with Bernard Vitet in ‘Un drame musical instantané’.

It was a done deal and the compilation would be named In Fractured Silence. Alongside Nurse With Wound and Un drame musical instantané, could be heard Hélène Sage (whom Birgé introduced to Stapleton) and Sema, a project from the experimental British musician Robert Haigh who had participated in key records in the Nurse With Wound discography, such as Homotopy to Marie and Spiral Insana.

The curtain is raised and it is Un drame musical instantané who start the ball rolling. Mystery abounds; synthesisers lurk, percussion clatters and the sounds (creaks, whistles, vocal insertions...) fire in all directions. For the piano, it’s a debacle, the Drame won, Hélène Sage can take over. Heading up a quintette including Gorgé and Vitet, she creates a cushioned chamber music with strings and many silences.

On the B side, it’s the other side of the channel. Sema’s piano first off, which dares everything, even melody, before spilling out its darkest ideas in a raucous requiem. Finally, Stapleton appears, delving into his collection of female voices to devote himself to an iconoclastic transformation and concoct a song which collapses under the assault like Marianne at Agincourt. After having listened to In Fractured Silence, you will simply have to choose sides.

The second release on Smalltown Supersound’s highly promising offside jazz label, ‘Le Jazz Non Series’ follows Bendik Giske and Buttechno’s mighty label opener with a killer compilation bursting with contemporary/outsider Norwegian free music as a show of solidarity against racism in the scene, with a title that translates to “Freejazz against racism“. Stitched and compiled by Anja Lauvdal and Tine Hvidsten, the set features 18 outsider Jazz burners centered around a varied and diverse cast of characters from the young Norwegian scene. While Norway has long had a positive relationship with free music, its players have invariably looked remarkably similar. “Frijazz mot rasisme” aims to address that by expressing the diversity of Oslo’s contemporary scene and show its commitment to anti-racism; of the players featured on the record, many are regulars at Norwegian demonstrations against local anti-Muslim organization Sian - with the compilation designed to collect funds for local anti-racist work. Musically, “Frijazz mot rasism” is a fractal head-fry of the highest order, dilating a fertile movement thru spiraling outsider-jazz. If musical nodes are needed for a point of reference, it flexes from Don Cherry-inspired communal psychedelia sprawlers to fiery shredders, modal percussive cyclones and lushly expressive instrumental virtuosity of a sort we can only imagine would short-circuit and frazzle a pack of bleating Viking gammons. With well over half the tracks originating from female artists, the set also represents a phase shift in perception, wickedly reprising the form’s historic function as fire music and a soundtrack to civil unrest, but with a decided female energy that’s more agitant than aggressive, in a way that might just calm and enlighten the xenophobes. There’s a tonne to get down with; Sanskriti Shrestha & Andreas Wildhagen’s modal tabla groover ‘Eight hands’ is a real standout, with subtle treats in the liminal thizz of ‘Up There’ by Propan, and a strikingly stark solo performance by Inga Aas, held in balance with tussling razz-outs like ‘One out of town’ feat. Brian Sandstrom, and scatting, Dadaist mischief by Agnes Hvizdalek that’s sure to pique interest along with the chaotic swarm of its shred-out finale ‘Primary Antibody’. Wall to wall enlightening, emotional bangers this one = highest Tip!

Rich-poor divide widens. Unemployment soars. The East and West eyeball each other on the brink. 2022 isn't too far off the 1980s. Contort Yourself know this.

Following the huge success of the prophetic 80s Underground Cassette Culture Vol 1, Vol 2 is set to hit shelves and screens with the same brand of distortion soaked didactics.

Twenty one tracks from across the globe make up this second installment with nothing being constant. Instead, the overarching message is one of wanton abandonment; burnt-out artists peddling an electronic punk profanity, marginalised musicians spitting on the establishment and industry.

Rusted guitar strings, cobbled drum machines and fire in the belly; this is the recipe.

A soundtrack of despondent despair, a lament of languid lechery, an anthem of what was then and still is now.

When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire… say it to yourself and then say it again. Repeat it like a mantra. It’s what UTO did.

Anyone familiar with the UTO’s lauded 2022 debut Touch The Lock, which Pitchfork praised for its “prismatic synth pop”, will be aware of the variegated nature of what they do. This album is just as colourful, with Neysa’s vocalwork sparking similarities to Kim Gordon’s off-kilter vocals, which they both ceremoniously jets through a post-electronica blender mixing stylized indie sleaze productions with 90s breakbeats.

While they might appear as a singular entity to others, UTO wrote large sections of this album apart, converging by the fireside to discuss the day’s work before coming together to hone and finish the songs. 2023 was, by their own admission, a difficult year, and that’s reflected in the Dantean themes expressed in songs such as the lead single ‘Zombie’, which arrived at the end of November as a taster for the new record; the latter’s dark heart is belied by the skittering beats, glitchy electronics and pummeling sequencers that elevate it from the void.
From fire, early man’s discovery, to AI, humanity’s next great adventure - with all of the wonders and complexities of human relationships in between - When all you want to do is be the fire part of fire really is about life, the universe and everything. Just remember, be the flame, not the moth.

Very special and highly limited electro / electronics project (tributed to James Stinson) from the Fundamental Records camp, produced by different artists that will remain anonymous, if they choose to…

Trystero comprises Scottish/Luxembourgish producer Thomas Lea Clarke (aka MR TC) and Low Bat, otherwise known as one half of the formidable duo Jean-Luc. Their debut album, Sfumare e Vedere, was conceived over three days aboard Urban Boat, a 1960s barge transformed into an arts and performance space. Moored along the river just outside of Paris, the duo embarked on a joint residency, discovering their complementary creative energies and a mutual passion for all things strange and psychedelic.

As frontman, Low Bat is a fire-powered poet, his unparalleled stage presence resonating through Trystero's music. The French native and fluent German speaker has a natural flair for languages. For this project, he sings in a combination of Italian and English about love, loss, and class struggle, constructing surreal wordplay about pelicans and puttanesca. Meanwhile, Clarke's drone-lead electronic accompaniment takes its cues from sizzling acid, 1990s snap rhythms, post-punk, krautrock and shoegaze. Firmly rooted in these tripped-out genres, Trystero journeys to entirely new cosmic dimensions.

the debut release of italian producer now berlin based luca trentini aka trent.

He is a resident dj of cocktail d’amore and has released some unique records from sound metaphors label “bless you”, cocktail d’amore.

A-Side:

”on fire” is just fire! it’s a mad dark disco house bunger.

B-Side:

”drums charmer” is a dark,psychedelic slow mo house. if you like slow stuff by andrew weatherall,you will love it.

“edenico blues” is a modern interpretation of afro cosmic sound. It's for the fans of beppe lota or daniele baldelli.

Animalia's exploration of the lesser known artists of Melbourne continues with the launch of new sublabel, Cirrus, focusing on non-club, downtempo, ambient and otherworldly sounds from local Australian artists. The first release comprises of dreamy, non-linear modular improvised soundscapes from Melbourne/Naarm local The Soulscaper, a sideproject of Eugene Pascal, member of Animalia's electronic trio Menage. The Inside Voices LP offers a sentimental, familiar musical journey, evocative of the distinctive charms of life in Australia's south-eastern hub. All produced in the northern suburbs of Melbourne/ Naarm, the tracks provide an open window into the studios of the city's deeper side. The LP is a poignant follow on from the musical outputs of Animalia, staying true to the label's deep, cinematic and melodic style.

The first of 2 EPs 2 proceed the next Future Sound OF London album in 2025

Side A is a deeply moody dark ambient journey through mists of choirs to a place of ritualist electronic beat swamp finally being spat on a leaf suburb road somewhere in Surrey - what just happened!

Side B unlike the previous side this begins far more reflective, as the journey progress it becomes more unsettling once more - a baroque minimalist piece followed by modular synths melding with breaks and drum machine - ambient field recordings , a mesh of carefully gathered and selected samples - Fsol perfection.

The Cinematic Orchestra are back with a definitive new album that explores a timeless question of vital importance in 2019 - what to believe? Founding member Jason Swinscoe and longtime partner Dominic Smith have enlisted album contributions from collaborators old and new: Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend (vocalist on Bonobo’s 'First Fires’), Dorian Concept and Tawiah (Mark Ronson, Kindness), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (Flying Lotus, Anderson Paak, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote) features on strings and photographer and visual artist Brian “B+” Cross collaborated with Swinscoe and Smith on the album’s concept. The record was mixed by multiple Grammy winner Tom Elmhirst (David Bowie, Frank Ocean, Adele) in Jimi Hendrix’s legendary Electric Lady studios. The album artwork comes courtesy of The Designers Republic™ (Aphex Twin).

The Cinematic Orchestra are back with a definitive new album that explores a timeless question of vital importance in 2019 - what to believe? Founding member Jason Swinscoe and longtime partner Dominic Smith have enlisted album contributions from collaborators old and new: Moses Sumney, Roots Manuva, Heidi Vogel, Grey Reverend (vocalist on Bonobo’s 'First Fires’), Dorian Concept and Tawiah (Mark Ronson, Kindness), Miguel Atwood-Ferguson (Flying Lotus, Anderson Paak, Thundercat, Hiatus Kaiyote) features on strings and photographer and visual artist Brian “B+” Cross collaborated with Swinscoe and Smith on the album’s concept. The record was mixed by multiple Grammy winner Tom Elmhirst (David Bowie, Frank Ocean, Adele) in Jimi Hendrix’s legendary Electric Lady studios. The album artwork comes courtesy of The Designers Republic™ (Aphex Twin).

LA’s Taylor E. Burch ov DVA Damas and Tropic of Cancer drops a cache of nuggets for Downwards, posing a killer mix of droll post-punk vocals and stripped dub/R&B/art-pop somewhere between Lolina, Gwen Stefani and The Slits. Mad original, bass-heavy ohrwurm fire!

Over a decade since her debut 10” with DVA Damas, and following a superb stint on Pessimist’s Stigma project in ’21, ‘The Best of Taylor E. Burch’ (though none of this matereial has even been released before) reveals her prowling swag from unexpected angles across nine distinctively succinct bullets bolstered by Elon Katz’s vocal production. Laid-back but tightly coiled, they slant from the clear echoes of Inga Copeland/Lolina on its intro, to cattier art-pop minimalism on ‘I’ve Never Felt Better In My Life’, her vocals layered and sparingly pronged with compelling effects around her wiry guitars and flashes of the gnash and bump that made her work with main vehicle DVA Damas (beside Joe Cocherell) so vital.

The lilting, purring punky dubs of ‘I Wanna Be Your Girl’ and ‘Time Differences’ illuminate a softer side delivered with a wry swagger, from the eyrie, clipped dembow Tears For Fears cover ‘Head over Heels’ to potent highlight ‘F*ck You Up’, while ‘We’re All The X’ and ‘’Time Is On My Side’ make us think of a slanted Juliana Hatfield, and we can’t help but recall that ace Fay record (‘Din’, Time No Place, 2012) in the brittle but heavy af ‘Na Na Na Na Na (Reprise).’

One of the most enjoyable, rinsable tapes of the year, full marks, plus.

Taroug is the solo project by drummer and electronic music producer Tarek Zarroug with roots in the suburbs of the Tunisian desert and having grown up in Germany. Following the release of his 2020 EP, "Perpetual," as well as a number of notable remixes for artists such as Archive, Taroug has continued to refine his musical aesthetic.

Taroug's debut album Darts & Kites, set to be released on Denovali Records, draws inspiration from the Penrose tiling and explores themes of change and transformation. Fascinated from the pattern's unending possibilities, Taroug incorporated its infinite permutations not only into the album's nine tracks, but also in the cover art design.

Darts & Kites showcases a blending of genres and styles, resulting in a sonic landscape, that is both hunting and beautiful. Experimental and abstract soundscapes are enriched by oriental influences, collected field recordings, pulsating dark beats and hypnotic vocals. The album also features the contributions of other notable artists, including Beate Wolff's cello performance on Jewels I. Benedikt Koch's saxophone adds a sense of controlled chaos with delayed and swelling notes to the track Deguech, while Timo Schieber's piano provides a crucial element of the album's title track, Darts & Kites. Niklas Genschel lends his vocals to Queen of Carthage, which also features the saz playing of Abdallah Abozekry.

Created in collaboration with architect and designer Marie Brosius, the album artwork captures different ornaments reflecting the album's content. Darts & Kites is a mosaic of sound, blending together elements of unfamiliar and familiar. Riyl: Darkside, Rival Consoles, Apparat

Equal parts Sheffield bleep, fractal IDM and interstellar ambience, Hyper Nu Age Tekno sees Taro Nohara (aka Yakenohara) plotting a star map on a faded rave flyer. Let the billionaires blast into orbit while you explore your inner space with Growing Bin. From the LP's earliest moments, the whomping subs and crystalline chimes of "Space Debris", it's clear that we're a long way from Hamburg. Taro pilots this craft on a deep space exploration way beyond the run out groove, to a place where heartening chords herald a twin sunrise and any broadcasts are lost in translation. The polyrhythmic pulse of "Ill Ell" follows, its concentric chimes and rapid fire kicks summoning the teknoguild to a watery altar in the engineering department. Sticking with interstellar mysticism but taking a turn for the transcendent, "Baker Baker Paradox" spins Reich-ian repetition into a graphene gossamer embellished with chrome, crystal and shoegaze shimmer. The B-side begins on the observation deck, bathing in the beauty of "Celestial Harmonia"'s sci-fi exotica, before the entheogenic "Use Your Head" prompts a delirious dash to the holodeck. Laying serene pads over a techy 4/4, Taro turns out the most danceable and dreamy track on the LP. As ambient chords ring out into the aether and rhythmic pulses shift out of phase, "Airplane Without People" is the loading screen for your virtual fantasy, soon rendered through the woody percussion and spheric bass of "Music For Psychic Liberation". Leave your body behind as you pick mushrooms in a CGI forest.

Limited pressing.

As PB headmaster Ajukaja before them for the first chapter of “Sunda School”, Tapes & Nikolaienko get comfortable behind an organ. These two manage to sneak along some shit of their own though – a bag of sharp rocks to cut perfect tape loops & round ones to play the keys with.

The four vignettes on this 7” paint a picture both blissful & threatening. Take “Countryside Emergency” with its loosely galloping rhythm-loop & alarming arpeggiated keys. All this might end with someone getting thrown into a fire. If it wasn't for “Jaaksoni Tamm” to smooth the situation with an inviting dreamy atmosphere. Bright & fluttery. Might be a trap though.

Dub informed free flowing goods, as you'd expect from sonic explorer Jackson Bailey & the boss of beautiful Muscut label Dmytro Nikolaienko.

“Sunda School” is a series now. Part three sooner than later!

Mastered by The Bastard.

As the Summer sun begins to fade and the shadows grow longer, FireScope returns to record store shelves with an EP from the label’s founder; Steve Rutter. Reflecting this change in the season, Science and Neuroses explores sounds that reverberate with darker tones.
Introspection is central in the cold currents and fragile melodies of “Neuro Fracture.” A deeply psychological piece which casts images of woodlands, night skies with a suggestion of something altogether sinister stalking the opener. Echoing samples introduce “Not to be Trusted.” The track skulks in a haze of bass as notes ghost through a heady mist of claps, kicks and snares. Steeped in the traditions of ambient and atmospherics, Rutter creates an audio landscape of unsettling vistas and alien forms. “Divine Intervention” is emblematic of this. Bold and expressive, harmonies are allowed to float freely with new ideas and shapes drifting and gliding into the arrangement. To close, “Reds Dead” brings the EP full circle. Xylophonic notes bob on juddering patterns of cymbal and tom as distant keys rise and fall in a silvery blue sea of meditative waves.
With this quartet, Rutter has given the listener a privileged journey into his musical mind. Watery shades mingle and melt in wintry hues, eclipsing canopies obscure and magnify elegance, fractured and fragmented phrases fusing through freeform.

One half of cult techno duo B12 (Warp Records) Steven Rutter pairs up with London-based vocalist and songwriter Bryonii to kick off 2020 with an album on Rutter’s FireScope imprint.
Steven Rutter and rising artist Bryonii have been a solid studio pair developing a sound which is organic yet otherworldly, ever evolving and driven by a mutual appreciation of each other's musical sensibility. The album makes for honest, emotive listening and is influenced by the likes of Atoms For Peace, Portishead and Grimes amongst others. Their debut album is a sultry, soul infused work with bass heavy bottom ends and weighty rhythms.
'Juliet' is intense and brooding, with percolating synths and haunting chords overlaid with Bryonii's breathy but eerie vocals while 'LDLM' is more spacious and eerie, with xylophone sounds ringing out brightly over sparse drums. Bryonii here is more vulnerable and reserved but just as impactful. After the twitchy electronics and scattered riffs of lurching bass tune 'Oxygen' is the taught 'Beltane Baby' with its twanging bass riffs propping up scattered hits. The lush harmony layers of Bryonii's voice sit amongst weird sound designs and sci-fi effects that make this a dystopian take on something similar to trip-hop.
The unsettling futuristic style continues on experimental kaleidoscope 'Obsidian' while the mood is somewhat reset with the dreamy and tripped out lullaby that is 'Room Without A View,' which features Bryonii's most heartfelt delivery. 'Chinese Whisper' is another inventive offering that explores downbeat moods and shimmering chords and synths and stirring r&b styles from Bryonii. 'Sympathy Live' is a heartfelt plea with a devastatingly emotional impact and last of all is an FBA remix of 'Juliet' primed for the dance floor.
This is an avant-garde mix of vocals and electronic sounds that add up to something very real and human, as well as packing some serious bass weight and a wealth of new ideas.

A new sub-label of the longstanding Canadian electro imprint Suction Records, Ice Machine — focusing on old-school wave/post-punk sounds — is thrilled to present a new, deluxe reissue of “Pow Wow”, the debut 1982 solo LP from Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder. Now expanded to a double-LP, and also released on CD/digital, it’s a definitive reissue which now includes Mallinder’s early solo discography in its entirety. This collection of mutant dub/funk/postpunk sounds just as fresh and contemporary in 2020 as it did in 1982 (note Autechre’s inclusion of standout cut “Del Sol” in a mix earlier this year), and highlights Mallinder’s crucial contributions to Cabaret Voltaire. Some words from Mr.Mallinder on the scene and era from which “Pow Wow” was born: “It was an interesting, and inspiring, time. The primal caterwaul of punk was dying and lots of really significant things were emerging from the fires. Much looser vibes were in the air and there was a much more exploratory feel. Punk had championed a visceral, anti-intellectual approach but in truth the real characters brought so much more to the table, and what began to happen - from people like The Pop Group to Throbbing Gristle, and emerging scenes from No New York to Factory Records - is we began to embrace the art of it all. There was acknowledgement of the importance of books, films, graphic art, and experimentation with all those mediums. We were just as interested in turning over rocks to see what lay beneath, as throwing them. There was a sense of new magik emerging.” “Pow Wow” was commissioned by the Fetish Records label, and recorded at the Cabs’ Western Works studio, where Mallinder would spend his days recording with Cabaret Voltaire, and continue on alone into night recording his debut solo material. “I slept very little in those days,” he adds, continuing: “It was done on 8 track and very multi-tracked, so lots of recording, then bouncing, and overdubbing, to get the integrated feel of the tracks. I became very adept at pressing record then jumping onto equipment to play it - it was actually a very 'live' record in that sense. I've always seen rhythm at the core of what I do so I loved the layering of counter rhythms. The sequence/arpeggiator parts were all drum machine triggers that were played live. It was about creating a distinct groove so arrangements came from weaving in and out of those linear grooves. It was fun to play everything from drums, guitars, keys, trumpet, percussion, tapes… and record and produce it all. Prince got it from me!” Surprisingly, Mallinder’s first solo LP would also prove to be his last - that is, until last year’s critically-acclaimed solo return “Um Dada”, on Dais. This new edition of “Pow Wow” contains 14 songs, and is housed in a recreation of the original, iconic Neville Brody jacket, painstakingly recreated using scans of Brody’s original artwork elements. The 2LP vinyl edition is in a reverse board, thick-spine jacket, and adds a 12”x24” folded poster/insert, featuring unused elements from Brody’s original designs, sketches, and instructions for the LP. The CD edition comes in a reverse board, 6-panel digipack.

The inspiration for winter Resort Music is derived from a childhood passion for Winter Sports. It's all about the spooky synths, mainlining radiophonic electronics, subconscious TV memories and an awe about what these athletes could do on the slopes when you were living in the suburbs.

Can anyone forget the glowing figure-skaters, dancing into the public consciousness? The perfect beauty that melted girl's and boy's hearts around the world. Sunday afternoons spent watching guys flying on long jumps into the endless white cosmos. Never really sure what was happening, but just thinking "I want to be in the chalets with these people, hitting the glühwein. An alien, unreachable world where fabulous people were doing fabulous things.

Portugal's Stellarays were also watching and have distilled these memories into a gloriously authentic reimagination of how those memories still reside within us. Winter Resort Music is such a potent memory bomb which takes what we know and enhances it in order to make it better. A prism of nostalgia that speaks to the purity of the whiteout.

This wonderfully handsome release with artwork by Castles in Space mainstay, Nick Taylor is a perfect artefact of library music, beautifully put together by Bruno, Centeio and Corinna.

It pains my heart to report that this is a posthumous release for dear Bruno, who we lost earlier this year at the ridiculously unjust age of fifty.

Safe travels, my friend. May your slopes be finely manicured as you head down the cresta runs to the great frozen lakes. Salut!

Mystic Transfers is a label focusing on experimental music and club cuts from around the world, taken from the suburbs. Mystic Valley - Mystic Valley is the new musical project by Andrea B, architect, collector and producer from Florence, Italy. His sound is best described as a melting pot of Italian psychedelic influences, from obscure downtempo to new beat, as well as English breakbeat and German EBM. After years of Tropical Animals he started with Felis Oxiana the project ‘’Galattica’’ and from 2021 is one of the founders of Mizuna. Heading coach of the post punk group Zona Utopica Garantita, he began to work with them since they started to play, and together they launched the label ‘’Mystic Transfers’’, focusing on experimental music and club cuts from around the world. SPO - Drummer in the ’00 of the underground scene in Florence fond of the 70s Progressive Rock sounds and experimental, co-founder in 2006 of the DIY label La Statua Sommersa Produzioni. Currently in Florence after the experiences in Rome and 5 years in Berlin with many gigs around Europe and albums with his solo project Die Lust! and the italo-german duo Bloodygrave & Die Lust! establishing itself as a producer and composer in the electronic european musical scene Minimal Wave e Synth Wave. From 2017 began a new solo project named SPO (Solo Per Oggi).

When Burning World Records Takes Notice Of A New Band, Your Ears Should Perk Up. Somnus Throne Would Seem To Be A Project For An Era Of Working Remotely, With Members Spread Throughout Multiple Cities, And Though Their Origins Are Murky, That's Nothing Compared To Their Riffs. They Come Big And Slow On The Band's Self-Titled Debut, Topped With Samples And A Free-Your-Mind Lumber That's Thoroughly Genre-Based And It Knows It.With Members Spread Out Across New Orleans, Los Angeles, Portland And San Antonio, Somnus Throne Is A New Heavy And Psychedelic Doom Band That Pays Homage To Legends Such As Sleep, High On Fire And Pentagram.The Band's Self-Titled Debut Album Is Now Set For Release On October 9 Via Burning World Records And Sees Somnus Throne Playing Some Sabbath-Tinged, Mammoth-Size And Hypnotic Doom Riffs Across Five Epic Tracks. Each Riff Is So Spine-Asphyxiating Heavy As If They Possess The Power To Create A Seismic Tremor In The Walls Of Your Houses.Somnus Throne Proves That The Music Black Sabbath Birthed Decades Ago Can Still Hit Hard And Sound Engaging After All These Years.

Kaijupop is conceived as a record created by an international
supergroup operating under the umbrella of Soft-Bodied Humans. Over
the past decade, UK producer David McNamee has curated an impressive
series of releases under the Blue Tapes label that highlight various
aspects of minimal music, ranging from grime to gugak, American
primitivism to Japanese ambient, and released his own longform minimal
music under the name Cut A Lonely Figure

McNamee now unveils on vinyl his latest project, Soft-Bodied Humans, a
supergroup that transcends boundaries, drawing inspiration from grime,
minimalism and industrial alike. Soft-Bodied Humans brings together an
eclectic ensemble of like-minded producers, vocalists, and performers,
resulting in a diverse and mesmerizing album.

Collaborators on this spellbinding album include L.A. avant-garde
artist Anna Homler, rising Ugandan MC Swordman Kitala, Brazilian
artist and musician Cadu Tenorio, Japanese grime artist PAKIN,
throat-singer and doom metal auteur Abysmal Growls of Despair, and
Chicago-based producer Fire-Toolz.

This groundbreaking album explores a dynamic range, effortlessly
transitioning from abstract moments to intense sonic experiences.
While grime-inflected beats form its core, Kaijupop fearlessly mutates
and diverts this foundation into uncharted territories. The result is
an immersive sonic journey that pushes the boundaries of the genre.
With each track, the album offers a fresh perspective and an
adventurous exploration of sound.

Soft-Bodied Humans stands as a testament to the power of collaboration
and experimentation. This international supergroup definitely breaks
the mould of traditional music-making, delivering a groundbreaking and
boundary-pushing album that will leave listeners eager for more.

Live recording of the final show of Sanam's debut European 2023 tour at London's home for experiemntal music, Cafe Oto.

Beirut's Sanam burst on the scene in 2023 with their debut album Aykathani Malakon, chosen by The Guardian as one of their 5-star albums from 2023: "Aykathani Malakon thoroughly embodies their originating influences, whipping up kosmische, post-punk, psych rock, free jazz and Levantine folklore into an alchemical tour de force delivered with a defiant, DIY disposition".

Under difficult conditions, the band took to the road for a European tour in November 2023 with the final show at Café Oto. From their incendiary European debut earlier that month at LeGuessWho then rapturous, sold out shows in Switzerland, Belgium, Germany and the UK, spirits for the Cafe Oto gig were high and it was destined to be a tour highlight. 'Live at Café Oto' captures the intensity of the shows, a ritual where improvised rock, free jazz and noise underscored an exorcism of traditional Egyptian song and Arabic poetry.

Drummer Pascal Semerdjian adds: "On this tour, I felt the album evolve from being a set of improvised tracks captured spontaneously, into ripe solid songs. Playing these shows back-to-back, our chemistry kept growing, we got closer, and our live sets, at least to me, were an embodiment of this evolution. In a way, this was the real birth of the band"

Vocalist Sandy Chamoun: "We started the tour with a great push at LeGuessWho, and we kept this energy throughout the whole tour. Every gig felt like I was playing the songs for the first time, providing a new and fresh experience for me. We finished the tour with an emotionally intense gig at Cafe Oto, a dream venue. The audience was incredible, as if we had known each other for a long time and the energy was intense and intimate at the same time; it felt like we were in a small circle of fire together, both us and the audience."

"There was definitely magic in the air for our show at cafe oto - an iconic, humble and warm venue and the last show of the tour – it felt like everything was in the right place. It was my favourite show by far, specially that we were also comfortably able to talk about Palestine, the atrocity we have to live with and can't ignore." Pascal Semerdjian

After a long time in the works, Mothball Record is proud to present a lost album from legendary Italian wave band: Ruins. Hailing from Venice, Ruins are one of the pioneering artists of the Italian new wave scene beginning in the late seventies: an explosion of new and exciting art, music and film. The tracks on “New Record” were taken from the self-distributed, tape only release from 1983 “Side Roads”. This album was timed directly before their most well-known releases in contemporary times, the “Fire / Crime” 12” and the eponymous 4 track EP on Black Square. Taken from the original master tapes and selected by Ruins themselves, the album should be listened as a whole to gain the full experience, but immediate ‘must-hear’ tracks are “I Don’t Know”, “I Love You” and “Last Night DJ Killed My Wife” featuring early use of Roland TB303. At times unsettling, beautiful, violent, harmonious, these songs will finally get the audience and exposure they deserve 35 years later.

DNA is Rosaceae’s second album for Pudel Produkte after last year’s acclaimed Efia for the Hamburg label. The eight tracks further explore the artist’s interest in the interplay of sound and language while also adding skittering rhythms and thumping kickdrums to the mix. DNA is a complex but enriching album that as a whole not only reflects ideas of resistance, solidarity and internationalism, but also how they are mediated and their meanings are shaped by different types of mediation. Whether Rosaceae seems to mimic the sound of rapid machine gun fire, indulges in gabber-informed beats or soothing, tinkling ambient sounds: by the end of the album the sonic experience could as much provide solace as it may be understood as an elegy, it has become abundantly clear that even the most straightforward usages of certain musical elements or statements on this album are more complex than they may seem at first. Much like Efia, DNA poses uneasy questi-ons but provides no easy answers—neither in sound nor in language.

Ritual Cloak take a more introspective and meditative direction with new EP, Vanished in Transition, venturing into new musical territories that draw influence from ambient, jazz, doom metal and George Harrison’s indian explorations. Leaning into down-tempo rhythms, drums have been exchanged for heart-beats, as if this EP is the duo breathing deep in readiness to face the next chapter.

Featuring Rob Smith of Wonderbrass and Wylderness bandmate, Harri Rees (Vanished in Transition) and Karl Griffiths of Morning Arcade (Half of My Life), Vanished in Transition showcases Ritual Cloak’s continued love of collaboration.

Recorded at home and their own studio in Cardiff, Vanished in Transition’s theme plays with the fascination of disappearing, although the duo have no such plans of vanishing any time soon.

Ambitious, complex and hooky breakthru opus by NW english rapper/producer/songwriter Rainy Miller, issued by The White Hotel’s Head II label and featuring contributions from Space Afrika, Blackhaine, Maxwell Sterling, Jam City, Georgia Ellery, Henzo and more. Highly emotive and bruised gear, it’s essential listening if yr into Future, Chief Keef, Drake, more eaze, Rabit, Wayne Phoenix, Iceboy Violet, Kanye, Burial…

No doubt it’s the most cinematic depiction of what makes Rainy tick, with a choral prologue that sounds like a Burial vignette, precipitating a downpour of emotions that veer from tender to seething bass-boosted drill blowouts. The slippery combo of self-skewering and tearful Autotuned vocals and brittle, barely-present electronics immediately and inarguably recall Kanye’s 808s & Heartbreak, but here refracted into greyscale tales of Northern introspection, confidently torched 'n bleary-eyed industrial experiments.

Miller's best known at this point for his work with his college compatriot Tom Heyes (aka Blackhaine), whose ragged drill/power electronic subversions loom large over "Desquamation". But where Heyes zeroes in on viscera, isolation and substance-fueled rage, Miller's compositions are more pensive, melancholy and emotionally fluid, finding hopefulness in supposedly grim terrain on tracks like 'There's A Fiesta MkII On Fire'. "A Fiesta burns bright," he sings, accenting the last word as it collapses into chattering electronics and snatched Rhodes piano loops. It's a glorious amalgamation of influences, folding grime and ambient signals into something altogether new. From here, Miller pushes even further into the abyss, enlisting Space Afrika and Maxwell Sterling to assist on 'Breath, Sigh', a powerful symphony of sheet noise, ice-cold pads and soulful electric piano weaving around Miller's vulnerable voice.

On 'July Iii', the beats are reduced to pinpricks, heaving listlessly between stolen breaths and punctuated kick blasts, ‘while Misery is as Misery Does' revels in negative space, allowing overdriven pads to evoke an anxious tenor for Rainy’s melancholia. 'is 2 Die' grazes the same mood before erupting into a wrecking-ball roll of distorted kick drums and elegiac synths, and Blackhaine shows up on 'Way Out', the pair following 2020's breakout "Armour" with a corrosive back-and-forth, playing to each others' strengths.

Benefiting massively from repeat listens, ‘Desquamation' is an absorbing, deliriously atmospheric re-definition of drill, ambient and rap modes with bare north west soul; an arresting portrait of an ascendant artist attempting to find comfort in their artistic skin, and effectively broadcasting the malaise, uncertainty and future shock of the British working class thru this f*cking grim time of ours.

London-based musician Primrose creates spellbinding, colourful electronic music that blends bouncy club focused rhythms and the other-worldly soundscapes of dreampop, shoegaze, and film soundtracks, culminating into a fresh and distinctive sound that he affectionately refers to as ‘Blade Runner Techno’. As a DJ, Primrose is drawn to dramatic, emotional sounds and storming rhythmic transmissions from across the spectrum of electronic music and beyond, weaving between house, techno, 80s New Wave, post-punk & EBM. His debut EP ‘Set My Heart On Fire’, on his new label, Primrose County, is landing on 6th May, 2022, available digitally, for streaming, and on vinyl. The A1, ‘You, Me & Everything To Me’ is a cinematic beatless piece which kicks the record off on an emotional high, with a chirpy arp melody underpinned by brooding pads, growing into an overwhelming crescendo. The title track follows on the A2, combining soaring melodies, jumping broken drums, and a UK-leaning B-section in a melting pot of influences guaranteed to ignite the dancefloor, while still retaining a clear 80s synth-pop impact. On the flip, the record moves into deeper 4/4 territory with B1 ‘Foreverever’, centering around a rapid-fire arp line and jolty syncopated claps, anchored down by a propulsive kick and a warm sub. The emotive ‘This Is How It Ends’ closes the record, with its leaping melodies interwoven with a big, thick bass sound, accompanied by playful drums underpinning the otherwise bright and vivid soundscape. Primrose has a string of releases on established labels lined up in what will be a very busy 2022 for the newcomer, having received positive feedback from Avalon Emerson, Midland, and Nathan Micay to name a few, as well as receiving BBC Radio 1 support from Or:la and Saoirse.

Hi-pressure club futurism from Japan’s Prettybwoy, deploying anxious, metallic, sweaty nu-dance pressure, cooled off by swirling videogame synths and emotional vocals from collaborator lIlI. Another rapid-fire dancefloor burner from Shanghai’s unreasonably reliable Svbkvlt, ‘Tayutau’ makes a bridge to Japan, curving Prettybwoy’s well-worn raw materials into a pneumatic neon club structure. He put these tracks together during a time of upheaval while dealing with isolation, job loss, burnt hard-drives and almost losing the whole project, the chaos reflected in the album’s writhing, anxious mood, dipping from mind-throbbing intensity to lithe, poppy delirium. Machine-gun bursts of overdriven kicks and burnt synths form the backbone of ‘Island’, ‘Brontides’ and ‘Mikoshi’, while ‘Genetic Dance II’ and ‘slt’ drag the weightless bounce into breathy, florid East-Asian landscapes. Prettybwoy’s confident engineering carries the tracks, and whether he’s exploring the limits of granular ambience (‘ó‹ (Tear)’), weightlessly melting piano and Japanese voices into bouncing subs (‘Isol’) or forming grime-flecked nu-club (‘Rat’s Talk’) there’s the sense that each sound is intricately and meticulously sculpted. The results fall somewhere between Foodman’s wiped-clean eccentric bangers and the damaged ‘n deranged club philosophy of contemporary prophets like Lee Gamble.

Formed in the early 1980s,​ Phauss is Carl Michael von Hausswolff and Erik Pauser.

"Von Hausswolff and Pauser, who both operated across sound and installation, used Phauss as a means for deconstructing ideas of composition, situationalism, site-specific works and extended performance methodologies. Across the second half of the 1980s and into the early 1990s, they made connections, through their travels, outward from their homeland into scenes and communities that stretched from the Middle East, through North America and into Asia.

Like their travels, their ways of approaching the work they made was similarly wide-reaching and innately curious. They worked with often quite strict conceptual structures within which they were able to unlock entirely new ways of considering composition and also the material production of sound, through performance, through iteration and through considered experimentation which allowed for failure, just as much as success.

Nya Sverige - Nothing But The Truth is a recording made in the United States whilst the pair were undertaking an exhaustive tour in 1991 alongside Hafler Trio and Zbigniew Karkowski. This, now legendary, tour was both arduous and rewarding. Living in a van for many weeks at a time, travelling between cities with the most modest of means meant Phauss came to know a very particular vision of the United States, one that existed below plain view. Their’s was an experience had at the rawest edges of cities.

Equally the performances they gave, from which this edition is assembled, were raw and quite frankly dangerous. Fire on stage, sparks flying from short circuiting electronics and intense physical rituals guided so much of their work during this tour and looking back at bootleg videos from the time it’s difficult to imagine the work being able to be presented in the modern world.

One of the flyers from their tour reads ‘Extreme Swedish Industrial’, and as familiar as those words might appear now, in 1991 they held a very different resonance. They were unfamiliar terms of reference and the intensity of Phauss’s music maintains that unknowability to this day. This is a profoundly individual work and sets the stage for a generation of musicians who followed them."

In celebration of the label's 15th year anniversary Sacred Bones is now repressing this legendary debut on Colored Vinyl for the very first time. The vinyl colour is a mix of black, white & orange! Margaret Chardiet was born and raised in New York City. As a founding member of the Red Light District collective in Far Rockaway, NY she has been a figurehead in the underground experimental scene since the age of seventeen. She describes her drive to make noise music as something akin to an exorcism where she is able to express, her "deep-seated need/drive/urge/possession to reach other people and make them Feel something [specifically] in uncomfortable/confrontational ways." Engineered by Sean Ragon of Cult of Youth, Abandon is Pharmakon's first proper studio album and also her first widely distributed release. The songs on this album were all written and recorded during a turbulent three month time period during which several fundamental life changes forced her to begin living in a completely new way and in a new space. She describes the lyrical themes of this album as being about "Loss. Losing everything. Relinquishing control. Complete psychic abandon. Blind leaps of faith into the fire, walking out unscathed. Crawling out of the pit."

Pejzaz (aka Bartosz Kruczynski) returns with a captivating new collage album. Divided into two records List I (set out to be released end of september) & List II (scheduled for end of November), it delves into the realm of 90s/Y2K Eastern European CD releases. Employing hundreds of samples, Pejzaz sculpts a mesmerizing and distinctive body of work.

List I, bathed in sun-drenched chords, seamlessly blends pop-rock guitars, soulful drums, and dreamy, pastoral folk elements with minimal music and ambient textures, reminiscent of Baltic Beat (the Polish incarnation of Balearic Music).

Notably, this marks Pejza's first foray into a fully instrumental album. Although devoid of lyrics, the bittersweet blend of samples infuses the music with a profoundly Polish essence, further enhancing its distinctive allure.

Octet supergroup lead by Eric Quach aka Thisquietarmy. Including 3 drummers, guitar, synth & brass players (who also play in bands such as Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Exhaust, Hanged Up, Avec Le Soleil Sortant De Sa Bouche & more); Pangea De Futura brings together the merged and emerging territories of Montreal's exploratory music scene.

War Milk is the debut studio album from the supergroup Pangea de Futura, an octet that has been exploring since 2019, the many ways of - slowly - constructing massive textural musical shapes and droning tribal post-rock ambiances. Each track simultaneously encapsulates its structure emerging from and within a flux, alongside its impending entropy, creating a suspended moment. This intense experience is crafted through the combined rhythmic contributions of Aidan Girt, Eric Craven, Samuel Bobony, the merging brass arrangements of Véronique Janosy, Reüel Ordoñez, Neboysha Rakic, the electronic textures provided by Charles Bussières, and the intense drones / soundscapes created by Eric Quach's guitar playing. Eight musicians, involved - in total - in some fifty projects from the Montreal scene (a.o. : Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Silver Mt. Zion, Fly Pan Am, Some Became Hollow Tube, Hrsta, BLD, Black Givre, Avec le Soleil Sortant de sa Bouche...)

Earth, Water, Air, Fire... the genesis of a complex and perpetually evolving life.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce The Mountains Pass, a major new work from Olivia Block. A key player in Chicago’s vibrant experimental music scene since the late 1990s, Block has developed an extensive body of work grounded in a personalised, at times emotive approach to the studio-based practices of the musique concrète tradition, while also encompassing improvisation, orchestral pieces, sound installations, and a sustained engagement with the piano. On The Mountains Pass, recorded by Greg Norman at Steve Albini’s Electrical Audio and meticulously edited and constructed over the course of three years, Block pushes into new terrain, introducing her singing voice and drums played by Jon Mueller into flowing assemblages that move seamlessly from ruminative organ tones and fragmented piano airs to explosions of sizzling synths and thundering percussion. Like many of Block’s past works, which include, for example, a sculptural installation using the sound of oyster beds, The Mountains Pass draws inspiration from nature and the animal world. Time spent in a particular mountain range in Northern New Mexico informs this suite of pieces, whose lyrics and titles refer particularly to animal life in the area. Beginning with bursts of white noise and delicate synthetic pops and squeaks, opener ‘Northward’ very soon reveals the special direction the album will take, as lyrical piano lines are joined by Block’s fragile voice, singing words written from the perspective of f2754, an endangered Mexican gray wolf who wandered more than five hundred miles from Arizona to New Mexico in 2022. The fragment of song quickly breaks off, leaving us with a ghostly electronic hum. ‘The Hermit’s Peak’ follows, one of two epic pieces at the album’s core. Beginning with chiming, almost harpsichord-like tones, it moves through episodes of spacious, ruminative piano, Jon Mueller’s sparkling cymbals, stuttering cut-up piano sounds, and a climax of keening organ and trumpet tones (performed by Thomas Madeja). Continuing the exploration of vintage keyboard and synth tones heard on Block’s Innocent Passage in the Territorial Sea (Room 40, 2021), the music sometimes suggests the great outer-limits works of 70s Italian prog figures like Franco Battiato or Arturo Stalteri in the languorous drift of synthesizer, organ, and piano tones and the meticulous yet organic flow of its construction. ‘Violet-Green’ opens the second side with another epic journey, its lyrical content concerning ‘a mysterious bird die-off and a forest fire’. Block’s crystalline voice and rich piano chords at times call up the restrained chamber songs of Janet Sherbourne, but fragmented and threaded through passages of woozy pitch-bent keyboards, hypnotic distant thuds, tinkling bells, and searing distorted synth tones. On ‘f2754’, the freedom of the roaming wolf surges through dense layers of rapid keyboard attacks and long organ tones over a propulsive drum performance straight out of Animal Magnetism-era Arnold Dreyblatt. This distinctive sound world is then reencountered in a darkened mirror image in the uneasy, metallic shimmer of the closing ‘Ungulates’, named in reference to a heard of elk roaming through the mountains. Like Battiato’s Clic or Gastr del Sol’s Upgrade & Afterlife, The Mountains Pass inhabits the underexplored terrain where the beauty of song coexists with a radical formal openness, illuminating the deep musicality and warmth that have been present in Block’s work all along.

By now a regular and esteemed presence among the Discrepant sprawling household via releases with projects such as Alförjs or Jibóia, Mestre André "resurrects" his O Morto alias (bad pun somewhat intended) after 2016 'The Forest, The People And The Spirits'. With a diaristic approach where field recordings function as remnants of his surrounding reality and subsequent memories to be processed and recontextualized into an expressionist whole, O Morto expands that pre-vious Discrepant release sonic palette unto uncharted cartographies.

Based on a number of field recordings taken during a life-changing trip to Morocco that felt like a fever dream, 'Dans La Gorge D'un Monstre' reenacts that hazy and hallucinatory mindframe through five tracks where no vivid recollec-tion persists, tainted by the extrasensory feeling of not being quite there. A sonic fiction that goes from the processed cymbals and pummelling drums of 'The Gorge' with Andrés' mates in Jibóia, through moroccan Gimbri player Ayoub El Ayady and Khalid Boulhaman’s rattling Krakebs on 'Lila' and the slowed down Eccojams vibes of 'Out of the Atlas' to the dreamy aquatic soundscapes and arpeggios of the appropriately titled ‘Princesas Batráquio'. Comprising the whole of the B side, 'A Desert of Rain' is a slow evolving wonder where gong-like tones drift beneath scrambled transmissions of un-known origin, eventually giving way to synapse inducing drone motifs and scraps of realities collapsing among them-selves - fire into water, a jetstream into steps, maybe none of this.

Along with the LP, the release comes with a companion piece tape titled 'Iffrits Habitent', a more impressionistic and una-dulterated account of the same travel that could well be this side of the mirror. Then again, maybe he never made it from the other side. Who's to know?

Spread across 4-tracks, the producer offers fanciful instrumentation and production while conveying a narrative of preservation for mother nature. The theme of Mother Land is inspired by one of Nohan’s main interests: nature. In response to ongoing climate change and global environmental degradation, he opted to craft a project that captured the planet's beauty - with a message of sustainability.

The EP is a faithful representation of Nohan the producer - packed with his love for the piano, ipnothic synths, and suspended ambient compositions. The project opens with the title track - kickstarting the subtle, yet palpable production rooted in tangible instrumentation. “The world’s on fire… It’s calling out for you and me” are the opening lines from the vocalist, reminding listeners that earth’s fate revolves around us.

“Heavenly Sing” presents a more upstart offering, with loose shakers and scintillating keys leading. This more tropical take provides optimism in sound, serving as prose for uplifting introspection in headphones as well as the Adid dancefloor. “The Sun in December” reflects its title - somber piano leads the way through a serene, melancholy soundscape. The EP also includes an ambient take on “Mother Land,” which strips its electronic backing in the intro to draw focus to the words and theme of the project.

Noahn makes a perfect fit with this emblematic imprint.

Marcus Henriksson a.k.a. Minilogue/Son Kite x Kuniyuki Takahashi x J.A.K.A.M. (juzu a.k.a. Moochy) are proud to announce the birth of their new unit, Mystics. The debut album "5 Elements" is based on the ancient concept of the five elements (water, metal, earth, fire, and wood) and the three different sensibilities and passions that resonate across borders and languages. With the addition of a dub mix by Naoyuki Uchida, he succeeded in creating an original sound that defies categorization, based on deep house and techno, intermingling contemporary techno and reggae sounds. The result is an important work of electronic world music for a new era that will give a ray of inspiration to the current chaotic world situation and music scene.

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.

Moisk aka Pletnev & Fourmi Rouz delve into the depths of psychedelia soundscapes with their latest release “Tetris Life’’ on Terra Magica Rec. The duo skillfully balances modular sounds and shimmers through acid synthesizers with a wide range of psychedelic soundscapes from uptempo half-beat to raw, energetic techno trance, inviting you into a mesmerizing sci-fi universe. The EP features tracks like “Tetris Life” and “A Glass of Coke with Ice”, that explore underground ambient deserts and immersive jungle improvisations. This is followed by dark and slow breakbeat cuts that transition into faster-paced, floating atmospheric IDM tunes. The 12’’ contains many choppy old-school loops and uptempo trance breakdowns, as in “Orange Button’’ and “Wrong Stability”. Featuring two weird dub/IDM/breaks remixes by Anatolian Weapons and HSDJs X Listensport to round off the wax. Don’t sleep on it!
On the flip side, a group of eight remixers has united to deliver remixes for all the Club enthusiasts out there. Lipelis sets vinyl lovers on fire with his Dubby Disco Remix of “Salsa Bandida”, while MaSpaventi, Volta Cab, Los Pulpitos, and Hektisch Sprengen DJs bring their soulful and dubby trip-hop torch songs to the release. Prepare yourself for Grischerr & Heap’s glitchy and deconstructed industrial reggaeton remix of “Pájaro del desierto”, along with a powerful deconstructed club beatdown by Kobermann. Jacques Satre’s psychedelic stupdep remix adds the perfect finishing touch to the package.

The album’s B-side and some of the digital remixes occasionally pays homage to the influential sounds from the 1990s era, think Rockers Hi-Fi, K&D, Nightmares On Wax, and Warp, but with a fresh and bold twist that brings a super fat sound to the entire release. Dropping this October 2023 for an endless summer 4eva exclusively on vinyl.

Angel Marcloid, the brains behind Fire-Toolz and the queen of slushwave, brings forth her most ambitious project under the MindSpring Memories name: The Binary Ocean. Take a trip and set out for a psychonaut voyage through the depths of the sea.

Miki Yui is a musician, artist, and composer, originally from Tokyo, who has been based in Düsseldorf since 1994. Her whose work has long explored multiple forms of media, while documenting liminal zones of perception. On her latest album, As If, Yui creates a subtly connected suite of electronic music, drawn from improvisations and randomised processes that she has engaged with modular synthesis. Deeply poetic in its expression, even at its most minimal, the six pieces on As If have a curious tenor – they are, each of them, intensely sensuous, almost haptic listening experiences, as though the laser focus that Yui displays towards her compositions allows her to engage them as almost physical presences in the world.

One of the keys that unlocks the intimate complexity-in-simplicity of As If was Yui’s encounters with the Amazonian rainforest in Manaus, Brazil in 2018. Finding that the sounds in the rainforest both shadowed and echoed the music she had been making for two decades, she embraced the possibilities of modular synthesis, the sounds of which she discovered “have astonishing similarities to the sounds I experienced in the rainforest.” There is, indeed, something natural about the way these sounds bloom in real time; in their dedicated focus to the subtle development and mutation of several discrete parameters of sound, they grow slowly, gradually, their rhizomic structures suggesting that we are always situated within the middle of sound.

Sometimes, the material here has a kind of febrile energy, as on the ticking, clacking electronics of “Generativ”, a track that seems to rotate in the air in front of the listener, the light reflecting off its multiple surfaces as we catch the intricacies of its micro-patterns. Elsewhere, we slide into a cooled but welcoming environment, like the late-night fire-fly horizon of “Song 4”; there’s also the humid, dripping tropical sunset that’s documented on “Summernight”. It’s a music that’s hard to locate external coordinates for, though there are, perhaps, some parallels with the work of Laurie Spiegel, Eliane Radigue’s Vice Versa, and Pauline Oliveros’s “Roots of the Moment”. But As If is an extraordinary collection of naturally developing, rich studies for slowly mutating, enveloping, elemental electronics.

The consummation of jazz and UK underground music is Michael Diamond’s debut concept album ‘Third Culture’ - an LP that coalesces the very best of the jazz and electronic worlds into one seamless composition spanning ethereal jazz-breaks, introspective two-step, sax-driven power ambient and world-building, story-telling electronica. ‘Genesis’ begins in cinematic fashion; featuring close friend and saxophonist Alex Wilson, it’s a floating cut of jazz electronica that cries out to a seemingly endless darkness. Thundering explosions of bass-pressure disrupt the emotive soundscape, signalling what is to come. ‘Enigma’ flows into the frame as gently as waves frothing onto sand. A deep mysterious groove evolves, white clouds turn to grey as the sequence swells, grows and breathes. Intended to be as much an imaginative experience as it is a sonic one, ‘Lamentations’ symbolises the outpouring of emotion inspired by the confrontation of an enigma. It begins as a sparse soundscape, alone and isolated, before expanding into a full-frequency mutated jazz two-step, synth lines crying out in anger, sadness and confusion as logic does battle with emotion. Bubbles break the surface as we rise up gasping for air. ‘Submerged’ is designed as an underwater experience, immersing you deep in the ocean of contemplation. Meditative and pensive, its 6-bar phrasing inspires a dystopian trip through sunken kingdoms where the sea is made of tears. This is something new, something previously unexplored. Your eyes adjust to your surroundings as ‘Emergence’ announces its arrival. Fretting atmospherics swell and build towards an anxious climax, before calm is restored. You have now broken through. Having escaped the deep sea dive of Submerged, you now ride a wave of sorrowful bliss. Simultaneously joyous and melancholic; power ambient, two-step and jazz blend beautifully on a piece of music that wouldn’t sound out of place coming from an old Nintendo console. The chords give off a Pallet Town or Legend of Zelda vibe - warm, harmonic and arcade like - before we come to arguably the most club-ready track on the album. ‘Exodus’ maintains Michael’s distinctive chords on a driving cut of emotive garage which blossoms into a jazz-soaked fuck-step - a wicked blend of UK, screwface energy, jazzed harmonic voicings and expertly deployed dynamics. The final boss awaits. Featuring Alex Wilson once more, ‘Liberation’ represents salvation. There is a sense of freedom to the saxophone lines Wilson now delivers; the shackles of identity and culture having been loosened. Don’t get it twisted however, this is not a happy track. The journey we have just been on has taken its toll, and will continue to take its toll. It’s an oxymoronic blend of affliction and fulfilment, of freedom and what it takes to achieve freedom. An impassioned finale to the emotive world Michael has created. ‘Third Culture’ is accompanied with a literary short-story by close friend and academic Áine Kim Kennedy. Inspired by and created specifically for the album, It explores the internal battles concomitant with being third culture kids - a copy is included in each record sleeve. Director Oscar McNab pursues the same end via the medium of film. Through music, literature, film and art, ‘Third Culture’ delivers a message far greater than the sum of its parts....

In a thorough dismantling and recontextualisation of his own work, Merzbow sets fire to his mid 90’s ‘Flare Gun’ & ‘White Blues’ EP’s with utterly compelling, visceral, and surprisingly diverse results. Essentially going toe-to-toe with his mid 90’s self, Masami Akita eviscerates the originals in a bath of tear-out textural tornadoes that only just betray their origins in raw samples of blues rock bands. Tapping into that long-standing double refraction of influence between Afro-American blues (and subsequently jazz, disco, house and techno) and its acolytes from blighty, Merzbow pushes everything into the red with nuclear levels of ferocity, unleashing torrents of detuned theremin and electronics around the blistered samples in a face-melting style that so many have imitated but have rarely imbued with such spirit and imagination. The first half of ‘Flare Gun Extra’ parts returns to his headspace and tekkers in the period following his formative classic ‘Venereology’, adapting extreme forms of compression, distortion and dynamic mixing with a manacled grip and expressive sensitivity that’s there if you cares to give it some attention, with particularly powerful results in the freewheeling bombast of ‘Flare Gun II’. We hear decimated traces of rock riffs shredded up with staggering futurist alacrity in ‘White Blues Part I’, saving a rather unexpected swerve into mind-spanking bluesy guitar psychedelia on the 2nd part that sounds like Hendrix taking an acid bath after his London stint, before ’Deathmetal’ joins the dots far north to perhaps express how the quintessence of blues shored up, petrified in the black country and was dashed on granite Scandinavian cliffs and Japanese islands from the most obtuse angles. Pure energy and chaos this one.

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, "Fever of the World" is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds us that when it feels easy to resign ourselves to world weariness, we should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.

Meg Mulhearn and Belly Full of Stars come together for this split release on which the former takes care of the first four tunes and the latter the other five. For her part, Mulhearn harnesses the power of fire and ice, sunshine and torrential rain in tracks that are occasionally gentle and sometimes harsh. The textures are fuzzy and grainy but synths and strings bring light and hope. Kim Rueger's Belly Full of Stars alias finds her going deep into subterranean worlds of cavernous sound detailed with the finest of wispy melodies on' Ebon Flow' while 'Perihelia' has a more organic and summery feel desire being so pressurised and tense. These are enchanting sounds for sure.

To inhabit/perform the poems of Gabriele Tinti is akin to the Sysiphian effort of rolling the stone, to be constantly thwarted in the goal. However, there are deposits of gold in this mythic stone which reflect the light, like small facets of wisdom, wrought from the alchemical journey, holding a mirror up to Nature, including that of our own; our broken limbs, torn hearts, empty souls, or the pull of the mouth in despair of our efforts, even our victories. The threat of meaninglessness and it’s liberation. His words wrestle with the soul’s desire to be free of the trajectory from birth to death, or at least to understand it, through the gods, through mortals and their muses; all lying behind the mask of the individual, the actor on the universal stage inhabits luminosity and indolence, stagnation and regeneration, with the inevitable cycle, repeating, failing, reminiscent of the theology of Samuel Beckett, and the philosophy of the goddess Khali; Creation. Preservation. Destruction. His prayers and laments carry the thin smoke of both incense and excrement, of blood and saliva, mortal’s jewels, which we offer the gods we invent, both sacred and profane. The characters Tinti draws from the Greek myths; the muses, the slaves, enable ‘the actor’ to inhabit the essential struggle of what it is to be human, like a Noh play, doomed to repetition and the transcendence gained from it, to be human under the burning sun, which both gives life and destroys. Our efforts and yearning, melting in the great fire , like the wings of Icarus, falling, in the glory of the effort, existing then, and now, born and dying into the hope of transcendence, each moment, each word, a prayer, a cry, an offering to the dimension of the Unknown, as represented in ritual and expression, the landscape of ideas built upon the efforts of humanity, recumbent, ruined, and from this stagnation and death, arrives the possibility, like the glint of light from Sisyphus stone, our opportunity. ‘The actor’ puts on the mask exploring the possibilities in detachment, in union, that the cosmos outside their self might be better understood within – Márton Csókás

Martin Davorin Jagodić (1935 – 2020) was a Croatian contemporary music composer and educator. His work includes theatre music, graphic scores, instructions for performances, multimedia installation art, radio art, electroacoustic music on tape as well as experimental film soundtracks. Despite a very long series of performances during the years, only one single LP has officially been released under his name, named Tempo Furioso (Tolles Wetter), a collage of electronic and ‘found sounds’ divided in two long movements (one for each side of the LP). Originally released on the Italian Cramps Records label as the 8th volume of the Nova Musicha series dedicated to contemporary avant-garde composers, Tempo Furioso is now made available again on Dialogo in a faithful reproduction of the original gatefold cover artwork, including also an inner sleeve with the English translation of the liner notes. From the original liner notes of “Tempo Furioso”: My first thought was to state that ‘Tempo Furioso’ is a version of the song entitled ‘Tolles Wetter’. But things are not so straight-forward (after all, what is a version?), so I prefer to talk a bit about ‘Tolles Wetter’. This way, I am sure that I will be able to avoid illustrating the relationships existing between the ‘version’ of ‘Tempo Furioso’ and the ‘original’, namely the music of ‘Tolles Wetter’. Reading the diagram of ‘Tolles Wetter’ will help in listening to the record. It will also explain why I am forced to avoid the terms ‘version’ or ‘variation’. These expressions, for several years now, have become faithful counterparts to certain compositions featuring ‘multiple possible versions’; they make us almost automatically think of any ‘Third Sonata’, ‘Klavierstück XI’ or other open works of this kind. Because all of this is very far from my work, I do not want to use any of these terms. They would inevitably mislead the listener [...]. I’m saying all this in order to reassure the listener, who might otherwise think they are in front of a second-hand work (a minor version) and would therefore feel deprived, almost robbed, of the original. So, what is ‘Tolles Wetter’? The actualisation of a (musical) situation – a place, an action – in which we are at home, well warmed up, in our room, while outside there is a storm. The disturbing elements – atmospheric or otherwise – are already there and will eventually find their way into our space. (Have you ever noticed that there are places, whole cities, that are penetrated by frequencies that create a particular kind of sound – oscillations that are in the air?). They can be fire, or some annoying ‘Tafelmusik’ (“what’s going on under my table?”), wood creaking, wind blowing, as well as lines connecting us with the outside world, far away as it might be (radio stations, for instance). Now, little by little, our situation becomes more complex. It is no longer a question of one story but of several. Bad weather has definitively stabilised (this does not mean that the action always has to be actualised in a violent way; not all possible actualisations are like ‘Tempo Furioso’). Weather and time-duration are confused, we are invaded by memories, by projects... The different situations appear more and more like crystallised and superimposed objects/images, as if one wanted to be everywhere at the same time. Zigzagging through time, stumbling, enlarging the picture... reading makes its way into this picture. Of course, not all actions can be performed at the same time. The overall actualisation/hearing will depend on the organisation of the connections. In sight of a global actualisation/hearing, roles are distributed, and the scripts of the different versions of the same story are written. At this point, we can already better understand the sense in which - regarding the relationship between ‘Tolles Wetter’ and ‘Tempo Furioso’ - the term ‘version’ has little meaning. Let’s say, therefore, that ‘Tempo Furioso’ is a possible actualisation that came to be because of its recording. This also explains why – and perhaps helps instigate – different and diverse possibilities of overlapping sides and records are proposed.

Mark Leckey finally presents the soundtrack to his autobiographical allegory ‘O’ Magic Power of Bleakness’, a mind sluicing fantasy/autobiographical narrative inspired by folklore and half-remembered tales of teenage life growing up in the Wirral, a personal history woven into screwed 808s, ringtones, sacred chimes, smudged synths, sirens and levitating ambience that sounds like nowt else. Following his seminal, hauntological trips ‘Fiorucci Made me Hardcore’ (2012) and ‘Dream English Kid 1964 - 1999ad’ (2016); the 3-part accompaniment to ‘O’ Magic Power Of Bleakness’ captures the Turner Prize-winning artist moving beyond signature collage tekkers to create an entirely original arrangement for his latest audio-visual installation at Tate Britain in 2019 - a life-size replica of a motorway bridge on the M53 on the Wirral, Merseyside. In situ, the soundtrack is a vital component of the installation, livicating its liminal space with a narrative arc that magically turns familiar, popular and folkwise tropes into an occultural tale about provenance and a reminder of the supernatural in the modern world. Leckey approaches the piece as “an autobiographical allegory” in an attempt to locate the enduring enigma of sub/urban British life with uncanny insight. Alongside his own narration, a plethora of Scouse-kids play out the story of an aspirational kid who escapes the Wirral not to London, but to the faerie realm spoken of in Northern European folklore. When he crashes down to earth, his friends don’t understand who, or what, he’s become. It ultimately concludes in a symphonic supernatural riot, culminating a sort of metaphysical transformation common to Traditional Ballads and reminding us of the angel/redemption sequence at the end of Lynch’s ‘Fire Walk With Me’. ‘O’ Magic Power Of Bleakness’ is a well-worn story that’s brutally familiar to anyone who’s escaped the clutches of one of Britain’s forgotten, Tory-scoured battlefields. But Leckey’s treatment is transformative; he offsets observed reality with the surreal verve of folklore like a theme park ride thru a Britain the country prefers not to remember, decorated with themes that have been looped around our collective consciousness for thousands of years. Leckey’s art has essentially come to reflect the psyche of a generation, divining the poetic and occult from the seeming banality of British life by tapping into leylines that riddle the concrete landscape to the imagination. Specifically (if allegorically) it’s Leckey’s life in focus but, on the broadest level, the work speaks to the politics of big town parochiality vs. the elusive lure of big city glitter, in a way that’s bound to resonate with many listeners who’ve made that same transition and questioned their place in-between worlds in the process.

International Feel founder and guru of the sunset soundtrack, Mark Barrott returns with a new EP entitled Travelling Music. After spending the last few years writing & producing for other people, Mark is focusing his creative efforts inwards & rediscovering his own musical compass, calling it ‘the best medicine and therapy there is’. It’s this energy he looks forward to sharing via a number of releases over the coming months, including a new La Torre compilation, a series of Bandcamp only releases (Bandcamp Editions), the soundtrack to a new Japanese documentary (??) and this new vinyl release, Travelling Music.

He refers to the title track as Balearic trance. Not in the overblown Dutch sense, but trance as a metaphor/mechanism for an altered state, through hypnotic unraveling synth lines and a dash of wonkiness thrown in for good measure . Elsewhere on the EP, Arcade Scene flexes its melodic Italo dance moves with a slight nod to New Order, but a version of the group that’s beamed in from an alternate reality, where The Haçienda was called Il Tesoro and relocated to Ancona via a Gerd Janson DJ set circa 1991.

Chillin’ 4 work channels Aphex Twin from his easy listening Gentle People remix era, with added Sketches from an Island / Ry Cooder-esque guitars and the reprise of Travelling Music already feels like a La Torre sunset classic, bouncing with sequenced polyrhythmic arpeggios, before gently evaporating into a Vangelis-meets-Edgar Froese heat haze.

As with most of his work, Barrott calls this folk music…the telling of stories from everyday life and being Ibizan in origin, there are always a lot of varied & crazy stories to tell, but this chapter in particular feels like a deep burnt therapeutic transmission straight from the heart.