Downbeat | Electronica | Leftfield CD 239 Items

Andrew Tasselmyer already has quite an extensive discography, with solo albums released on labels like Laaps, Eilean Recs, Constellation Tatsu, Home Normal, etcetera – but also as a member of Hotel Neon, Gray Acres, Mordançage as well as various collaborative projects.

Music For Nonexistent Films, released on Somewherecold Records this time, consists of largely improvised material, inspired by photographs of Philadelphia (where he currently lives). As far as I know, the photos are not included in the release (apart from the cover image of course), so it’s up to you to relate the music to images of your own surroundings. This should not be too hard because, as the album title already suggests, this is very ‘visual’ music.

Where to Now? are proud to present the debut LP from Peru based and born Areliz Ramos. ‘Frio’ seeks to explore the common reality of isolation and melancholy which exists when stepping away from our roots towards a solo global exploration of culture and place. Recorded between spells in London, Berlin, and Lima, 'Frio’ attempts to soak up experimental & electronic subcultural scenes within these environments, resulting in a body of work which seeks to connect, longs to feel, and yearns to regain a sense of belonging.

Previously recording under the moniker ‘Milkshlk’ (Female Pressure, Napp), Areliz’s sound shuffles all over the place - from occupying the same deep haze, ethereal, smudged, and downtempo space championed by the likes of Boards of Canada, Odd Nosdam, Seefeel etc, to carrying an unassuming boom bap sensibility and confidence at times, to stepping back and opening widely to experimentation, extended field recordings and tonal subtleties.

The LP begins with title track ‘Frio’, an orchestral and meditative movement in which inaudible, hushed conversations flicker in and out of focus, before the playful piano samples of ‘This Track Is For You’ swing into motion, with a prolonged sampling of a loving ‘pep talk’ from father to daughter welcoming jazzwise flutters and swirling melodies, eventually collapsing under a wave of distortion.

‘Euduvin’ switches focus to what we can only assume is a nod to the warmth and belonging felt for Areliz’s native Peru home, where a long form field recording captures distant nature, environment, and hushed intimate conversations, floating below a swell of warm ambience. All this is intentionally juxtaposed with the start of the next piece ‘Sang’, instantly evoking anxiety and dread, signifying the disconnect between the comfort of ‘home’ and the disconnect felt when moving on… ‘Samos’ develops into a melee of dizzying underwater bass and percussive experimentation, before returning to a wandering dread.

‘Emails’ tells tales of the heart and communication breakdown over what could be a lost cut from Los Angeles era Flying Lotus before we hear the most unnerving cut on the record ‘Kabal’, again conveying isolation and unease via it’s shards of sharp tone and off kilter rhythm, building into a emotive, heads down clash.

‘Driller 1’ sees the return of Areliz’s more exuberant side, where dense, straight faced ambience skittishly flips to sudden joyful bass dives and unpretentious sample phases. ‘Ava’ rounds us out with the hum of Cicada’s, drifting throughout the album’s closing 8 minutes, becoming buried under layers of hopeful texture, and serene warmth.

During the later stages of 2020, Damien Duque (City of Dawn) and M Cody McPhail (atop) decided to begin writing a collaborative album together. Their styles, although different, compliment each other extremely well and it became apparent that this project would end up flowing out of them with ease. They shared wav files and recording parts individually at each other homes over a few months. City of Dawn's smooth reverbed tonal compositions mixed with ATOP's rougher and meandering synth lines gives the Starwind lp its expansive and cosmic qualities.

Originally released in 2005, 'Insen' is the second collaboration album between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto and the second installment of V.I.R.U.S.'s five albums series.

Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album's recordings are accompanied by an unreleased composition titled 'Barco.' Initially composed for Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto's 2005 'Insen' tour, the audio material used in this piece is based on the subtle sounds of Barco projectors, whose tonalities served as a ground for the artists' live improvisation. ? In 'Insen', Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto explore the potential for interaction and tension between electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Across eight compositions, the echoes of the cascading piano combine, collide, and dissolve with the tapestry of digital breakages in sheer vibrancy. This relationship lies at the album's core. It subtly continues Vrioon's calm melancholia, becoming a vessel for all the emotions and memories nourished by the listener. As you hear the opening, lonesome notes of 'Aurora,' you realize that the pair have once again conceded an ambition to embed elaborate disciplines into an archetypal sound of soul-searching beauty.

"Sound Space Variations" is a delicate and restrained sound bath. A mix of atmospheric, suspenseful drone sounds and meditative aspects. It is an album made for those moments when we just are. zake has managed to capture the moments that lie between sounds; the unagitated murmurs and atmospheric hisses. The artist connects this in-between-world and our earthly one with calm and sonorous scores, making us think about everything and nothing. The six pieces on the record do not seem heavy-headed or overloaded but much more airy, wide and open for interpretations. They stimulate the imagination - in a wonderfully unbiased way. In the last track. James Bernhard mixed and mastered the album, written and produced by drone artist zake, at Ambient Mountain House Studio. zake himself provided the artwork and photos himself."

Wrwtfww Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are ecstatic to announce a new full length album by celebrated Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass), in collaboration with Buddhist monks belonging to the Samgha group of the Shingon school of Koya-san, led by Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is available on half speed mastered vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD.

Recorded at The Premises Studio (London) and in Tokyo in 2019,You Who are Leaving to Nirvana is a majestic work combining a suite of six Buddhist liturgical chants and a musical creation by Midori Takada. The Buddhist chants come from three types of repertoires: shomyo ("Teisan", "Unga-Bai", "Sange", "Taiyo"), but also goeika ("Kannon-Daiji") and mantra ("Hannya-Singyo").

After supervising the recording of the Buddhist chants, Midori Takada added her own compositions, with subtle layers of percussion and the melodies of her beloved marimba, giving full life to the sacred texts.

Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa explains: "Shomyo is a form of declamation of sacred esoteric texts, inherited over many generations. The power of words goes far beyond their mere pronunciation. I think there is something that words alone cannot really convey. If I recite prayers in a musical way, the feeling transmitted will be even stronger than if I say it normally, in everyday language. I think that the musicality of a work carries a hidden power that cannot be expressed in words alone. The setting of the music has an additional power for you and for those around you who listen to it. The words of a song are not just words set to music. They carry an additional hidden power that cannot be expressed in any other way. Listening to Midori Takada's musical performance, the words truly seem to come alive."

Original recordings of the Buddhist chants are held in the International Archives of Folk Music (iafm) at the MEG Museum in Geneva. The album sleeve features an artwork by famed Japanese sculptor Katsura Funakoshi selected by Midori Takada. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is released in conjunction with Midori Takada's Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, also available on LP and CD on Wrwtfww Records.

Wrwtfww Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are honored to present the first new solo album by renowned Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass) in 23 years, Cutting Branches From A Temporary Shelter, available on vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD.

Recorded in a live setting and played with instruments conserved in the collections of the MEG Museum, Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter is Midori Takada’s very own rendition of "Nhemamusasa", a traditional work emblematic of the musical repertoire for mbira of the Shona of Zimbabwe, well known worldwide, thanks notably to its version by Paul F. Berliner included on the famed 1973 album The Soul of Mbira.

The choice of this title by Midori Takada evokes the links between traditional African and contemporary music which are the foundation of this work, and it also translates the resolutely multicultural vision of the artist.

Midori Takada explains: "African music is remarkable for its polyrhythms. Not only are there simultaneously several rhythmic motifs, sometimes as many as ten, but furthermore it may be that the part played by each musician has its own starting point and its own pace, all combining to form a cycle. All the cycles progress at the same time according to a single metrical structure which functions as a reference point, but which is not played by any one person from beginning to end. The structure emerges out of the multi-level parts, all different. With the Shona, the musical system is based on the polymelody: one performs simultaneously several melodic lines which are superimposed, each having its own rhythmic organization. It is truly captivating. In Western classical music, one four-beat rhythm induces some precise temporal framework and regular reference points, which come on the strong beats 1 and 3. But in the logic of the Shona musical system, and in other African music, the melody can begin in the very middle of the cycle and be continued up to some other place in an autonomous manner, as if it had its own personality. It’s very rich."

The album comes with in-depth liner notes that include an interview by Midori Takada, a point of view by Zimbabwean scholar, musician and activist Forward Mazuruse, and background information on the project by Isabel Garcia Gomez and Madeleine Leclair from MEG Museum. The sleeve features an artwork by celebrated Zimbabwean painter Portia Zvavahera. Part of the budget for the album was donated to Forward Mazuruse’s Music For Development Foundation whose aim is to identify, nurture, and record young but underprivileged musicians in Zimbabwe.

The album is released in conjunction with Midori Takada and Shomyo of Koya-san's You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana, also available on LP and CD on Wrwtfww Records.

2022 repress

Hot as lava! Broken English Club delivers the 4th chapter of Jealous God! Comes as usual with a Mix CD.

Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995.

MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor.

‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Artwork by Vica Pacheco, design by Steele Bonus, liner notes by Dr. Rob

‘Lucky Number’ is the first of two releases for picnic this year. It features collaborations with kindtree, uio loi, Theodore Cale Schafer & Panphilia. Artwork by Eyrie Alzate Additional Artwork by Alexandra Ragg Mastered by Joseph Buchan

"Mulid El-Magnoun” addresses the term ‘moulid’ and its various manifestations it takes on in Egyptian folk music. Here, the word ‘moulid’ does not exclusively refer to Sufi moulids: rather also the intertwined artistic spaces that lie between the moulid in its Sufi sense and what it carries in distinctive rhythmic patterns, musical instruments, and artistic forms, and the moulid as a musical genre originating from folk weddings that enjoy special aesthetics and unique styles.

Through this project, Yunis tries to explore the spaces where those two concepts collide through producing an original musical composition which reflects his own vision and understanding of ‘moulids’ as well as the manifestations the word carries within him.

About Yunis:

Yunis (b. 1994 - Kafr El-Dauwar) is an Egyptian musician and music Producer. He has produced two albums until now; «The Blue Djinn Dance» which was his first solo album, and «Ya Khal» which was a collaborative work with Ibrahim X. He is also a co-founder of Kafr El-Dauwar Records, an independent digital record label interested in contemporary and experimental music, founded by a group of young artists with the aim of creating a musical movement in the city, by supporting a group of artists to start their music from Kafr El-Dauwar with the potential of going with the music to the farthest point it could arrive.

In his music, Yunis seeks inspiration from the popular Egyptian folkloric heritage, which boasts many instruments, tools, and musical styles. He then reads and analyzes the musical legacy and presents it with the forms of his contemporary time.

First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983.

Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is Pure Merz.

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

Merzbow's Merzbeat is one the most unique and legendary titles in the artist's vast archive. This 20th anniversary repress is being issued at the same time as CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action 2 and a brand new collaboration with Arcane Device, all on Important Records.

Originally released in 2002, Merzbeat contains over 50 minutes of aggressive, psychedelic, organic, analog beat oriented Merzbow compositions. Drummed rhythms, massive looping samples, a punk spirit and a return to analog Merzbow.

KID 606 called it 'one of the greatest thing Merzbow has ever done.'

Japan's leading noise luminary Merzbow meets American electro-feedback artist Arcane Device as they mix and manipulate each other's work. The result are droning, bubbling sonic textures that are as serene as they are extreme pushing the boundaries and meeting in the middle. Both artists contribute long-form manipulations that inspire contemplation as much as highly caffeinated charges of sonic skullduggery. Sonic textures take center stage on Merzbow & Arcane Device.

David Lee Meyers aka Arcane Device has been building electronics and creating feedback based electronic music since the late 70's. He has collaborated with Tod Dockstader, Kim Cascone, Asmus Tietchens among others.

Masami Akita's legendary Merzbow project has established him as an international electronic phenomenon and this collaboration with Arcane Device is being released at the same time as a 20th anniversary reissue of his Merzbeat album and a CD reissue of his 1983 album Material Action, all on Important Records.

New 50-minute opus from Gothenburg Sound Workshop. Imagine a handcuffed Terry Riley driving a ice cream truck down in the Göta Älv. The second disc compiles both Förlag För Fri Musik albums (released in small vinyl editions in 2020 and 2021 respectively). Together the three albums creates a massive trilogy of stripped down, melancholic and introspective synth minimalism. Six-panel digipack, edition of 500 copies. Discreet Music Cd04.

Panos Kyveleas a.k.a. Biomass returns to Modal Analysis after his debut EP "M.D.O.F. in 2015, in collaboration with Italian performers R.O.M. 'B-Trade' is his first album since 2009, debuting also the CD catalogue of the Athens' label. Focusing on instruments like Cretan Lyra and Violin, this is an ambient/drone cinematic album of 12 tracks by the Greek musician credits.

Acclaimed saxophonist, producer and composer Yasuaki Shimizu will release Kiren, his unreleased album from 1984, on the Palto Flats record label on February 25, 2022. Liner notes by music historian Chee Shimizu, and credits in both Japanese and English.

By the early 1980s Yasuaki Shimizu had established himself on the Japanese new wave scene, producing many important experimental pop records and releasing several albums as the bandleader of Mariah. Following the release of his widely regarded solo classic Kakashi, from 1982, and the otherworldly Utakata No Hibi, by Mariah in 1983, he went into the studio the following year with frequent collaborators, producer Aki Ikuta and Morio Watanabe (bassist of Mariah), to record a mystifying collection of experimental dance music. Utilizing cutting-edge technology and studio trickery, Kiren showcases Shimizu's trademark playfulness, marrying richly layered production techniques to off-kilter, sometimes traditional sounding rhythms and melodies. Portending his work with the Saxophonettes as well as forecasting trends in techno, new wave, and futuristic rhythmic music, this formerly lost album represents an important period of Shimizu's artistic expression, an artist at his peak, while successfully exploring the intersections of fusion, synthpop, new wave, and jazz.

As Chee Shimizu (no relation) writes in the liner notes, Kiren, and his concurrent release Latin were “born out of a free environment of collaboration that existed between Yasuaki and Aki Ikuta ... (exemplifying) his most energetic works.” In listening to Kiren, we might share with Yasuaki Shimizu the joy and excitement of experimentalism and movement that went into the making of this album, now released for the first time many years later.

Lasse Marhaug and Jon Wesseltoft have collaborated in a variety of projects over the years, but started the Tongues of Mount Meru duo back in 2008 as a collaboration to pursue their shared interest in sustained and closely calibrated sounds, and the phenomenological impact they have on the act of listening. They started recording a session each year from 2008 to 2011 in Oslo utilising harmoniums, organs, shruti boxes, oscillators, and computers and accumulated a large pool of material. Some of that material wound up on tapes and vinyls over the years, but they kept the hour-long pieces with an intended major future release in mind. These pieces are now collected in this monumental 4 disc box set.

Clocking in at the total of over 4 hours, with over 10 years in the making, this music was crafted with a clear intent to influence its listeners sense of time and mental colour analogous to the music’s stringently, and at times claustrophobic, unfolding narrative. Slowly blooming clusters of wave interference kaleidoscopic blending together with lower frequency binaural pulse patterns. It is as if light has been pitched down, and its oscillating and shimmering coating of gradually shifting overtone cycles opens up and crashes down again into the ocean of waves continually churning around its own time axis.

Drawing upon their joint interest in minimalism and long-form music, raga theory and electro-acoustics, Marhaug and Wesseltoft conjures up a focused power of both beauty and unease to deeply establish a state of hypnotic attentiveness. The result is a hallucinatory and intense set of finely tuned and tectonic long-form pieces, and is a must for anyone even remotely interested in any form of sustained sounds, and its impact on the mind.

Pressing info: 200 copies, black cardboard box set with embossed gold print

'You Are Eternity' is the third album to be released on Stroboscopic Artefacts and comes from two of the minds who have shaped the label since its earliest days: Dadub. Recorded over a period of two years, but containing fragments and ideas that stretch back a decade 'You Are Eternity' has been mixed together to form a continuous piece rather than twelve discreet tracks. The effect? An immersive journey that encompasses the descriptors brutal, ferocious, ambient and aqueous.

Having already proven that he is capable of maintaining sonic quality and distinction over the course of a full original program, Chevel (a.k.a. Dario Tronchin) now makes his LP debut for Stroboscopic Artefacts. His other S.A. contributions (including the inaugural entry in the label's singular Monad series, the "One Month Off" EP, his participation to the label's five-year retrospective series) have already hinted that a more complete exposition of his unique inner world would surface, and here it is at last. Over the course of his young career, Chevel has gained a mastery over several compositional elements: Polaroid-like slow melodic fades, sharp ricocheting beats, and simply making one's headphones feel like a viable means of physical transportation. All of these elements come into play shortly after the needle hits the grooves of 'Comb' a euphoric introductory track marked by a spectral panning sequence and by beats chopped with a culinary expert's sense of elegance. The drum kit sounds that feature throughout are used sparely but – either because of this or in spite of this – provide maximum impact upon the listener's nervous system. The almost 'far Eastern' use of 'block' percussion on 'The Windrunner' and 'Low Roof' perfectly complements the synthetic sheen produced... more

Hot on the heels of his preliminary EP on Stroboscopic Artefacts, Embryo, which paved the way to the present album, and two years after the landing of his 2016-released inaugural LP, Montagne Trasparenti, Mannequin helmsman Alessandro Adriani returns with his highly anticipated full-length debut for SA, Morphic Dreams. Throughout eleven cuts painstakingly executed but lacking not an iota of the fresh, spontaneous oomph that made his sound stand out of the crowd of techno producers to have emerged over the past decade, Adriani lays the foundations to a suspended sound imaginarium, governed by its own rules and principles of gravity. Revolving around the notions of sublimation and quest for inner balance, Morphic Dreams is comprised of four distinct sequences, conceived and designed as reflections of four mental states, each of them linked to the four alchemical elements i.e. Water, Earth, Air and Fire here represented by the A, B, C and D-sides. Fluid and enveloping, the A-side bathes the listener in some zero-G uterine vortex, pitching and rolling from the slo-burning exotic sensuality and tribal spell of The Tropical Year to the trunk-bending, arpeggiated fast-track pulse of Storm Trees, through Raindances feverish electro swing. Entering a further abrasive, minerally rich phase, the B-side unleashes Adrianis dark side with optimum conviction. Deeply anchored in earthly materiality, this new evolution stage starts off to the frantic Italo bass of Dissolving Images, rushing headlong into a kaleidoscopic maelstrom of fractured reflections and nasty Giallo-like ambience. The delirious body stretch sequence then rather abruptly swerves onto a calmer flux with Dust/Mist, a much enticingly hip-swaying collaboration with Simon Crab, ex-member of the seminal 80s UK industrial-experimental band Bourbonese Qualk, before Casting The Runes engulfs us into a tormented world of swollen eeriness and disquieting esoterism. Back to a widescreen showcase of droney distortions, nasty acid swashes and other quirky drum programming, Hors De Combat opens a new chapter, shortly followed by the playful bass intricacies and modular jeu-de-piste of Invisible Seekers, featuring Avian affiliate and longtime friend Shawn OSullivan. A further mind-expanding piece, C-side closer Crow deploys its blackened wings wide and high as a chaos of martial percussions and liquefying synths slivers crash past the red-hot skyline. A fluttering melodic interlude, Things About To Disappear blazes a clean trail for Make Words Split And Crack to flourish, slowly but surely blooming into a nonstop grandiose twelve minute-shy finale geared up with the stirring cacophonic force of a Ligetian symphony and something of an epic-scale Kubrickian soundtrack.

CD-Reissue of Ecstasy Boys' major debut album from 1994, "Moon Dance". The Ecstasy Boys had been actively producing and performing shows worldwide from the late 80's to the 90's. They had been recognized by legendary DJs such as Larry Levan and Frankie Knuckles. The unit "Ecstasy Boys" was named by NY based legendary producer Mark Kamins, who was known as Madonna's producer for her first single "Everybody". The track "Happiness" (a2) and "Tsukino Oshie" (b1) were produced by Mark Kamins. The album also compiles their signature track "Holly Spirit Dance" which was released from Strictly Rhythm also in 1994!

Anybody who has witnessed a live performance of Anna von Hausswolff and band can attest to the extraordinary and commanding nature of the experience. The distinctive music, as captured across five full-length albums, comes to life, shifting from hypnotic and mantra-like moods to thunderous drama, dissonance and cacophony. The musicians master playful dynamics and wield immense power.

A showcase of individual tracks from A Strangely Isolated Place's 2021 label releases and a special continuous DJ mix by todos. For last year's label compilation, I mentioned how I hoped to invite a guest DJ to compile the next edition, and here we are. Of course, it just had to be our long-term musical companion, a good friend of mine, and well-respected DJ, todos. I was first introduced to todos through his well-respected Kilchurn Mix series. I've said it before, and I'll say it again, they remain some of my favorite mixes of all time (listen to them all on the Asip site when you get a chance). His ability to craft a narrative, manipulate samples and respect the grey area between ambient and electronic music, is second-to-none.

Octobers’ other new Polytechnic Youth release represents something of a curveball for the label’s fanbase. To release any album exclusively on CD wouldn’t ordinarily place high in PY head Dom’s thought processes. But, such is the current grave situation within the vinyl pressing world, that when the opportunity arose to get out not just one, but two LPs- and package them together for a tenner in a fraction of the time and price it takes to do one vinyl instalment, of course he leapt at it; and when the music is this good- it begs to be unleashed earlier rather than later…. ‘The Prison of Winners’ is a brand new project consisting of David Mason of Listening Center and Martin Jensen of The Home Current. Between them, they have issued a range of acclaimed releases for labels such as Polytechnic Youth, Castles In Space, Ghost Box, Deep Distance and Woodford Halse, to name but a few. The collaboration’s two volume set contains a selection of music that came to life through a long-distance work routine back and forth across the Atlantic (David resides in New York and Martin is based in Luxembourg) between 2020 and 2021. Having been fans of each others’ work for years, it was only natural that they should eventually pool resources. “Volume 1” had long been earmarked for a vinyl release with PY, but with the aforementioned problems of world vinyl production currently being on its knees, and with a boom in lockdown recording seeing “Volume 2” quickly materialize; all parties quickly realized that a super value-for-money, lavish 2 x CD set might just come together perfectly. Thus, the double disc set is released late October in a beautiful sleeve featuring artwork from acclaimed photographer Geneviève Cygan and David Mason. Both volumes lean heavy on the pairs’ previous wonderful electronic experiments, minimal DIY pieces intercross with more uptempo synth workouts, which the artists themselves reckon “inhabit a space somewhere in between feeling lost in car parks and hazy memories of nights out clubbing, in what feels like a lifetime ago.”

Diapason Rex is the second LP by Oakland-based producer Brogan Bentley on Leaving Records. Picking up right where Bentley’s 2014 LP The Snake left off, Diapason Rex’s songs evoke the geography and spiritual energy of the west coast while showcasing the producer’s growing confidence in both carefully crafted dance productions and expansive sonic arrangements. Bentley states, “It’s been brewing for a long, long time and it holds so much information. This is the crowning burst of harmonious song for me, my opus, my cosmic regal song.”

Haunting, swelling album-opener “Ecstasy” sets the record’s tone, where a bed of meditative pads are confronted by a driving breakbeat, heavy layers of soulful vocals and hard-edged synths. Almost defying categorization, the sound of Diapason Rex is bracingly personal. Bentley states, “I’m so particular in so many aspects, and I’m so certain of what I want things to sound like, that I’ll go after it with everything I’ve got. Between the two places of pure experimentation and total intention, is where this album was born from… I really feel like every single song is a crystal.”

Club-ready tracks like the stuttering, sample-slicing “Work” and the elegant yet pained “Phantom” highlight Diapason Rex’s production value. Bentley’s attention to sonic detail is deep-seated; according to the producer, “For me, music is my teacher, and specifically bass.… This stuff is really supposed to acclimate the energy centers in your body.

Diapason Rex is thematically heavy, with late album cut “The Keeper” occupying a special place for Bentley. He states, “’The next day I found out that my friend had gotten hit and killed by a drunk driver. I think it was my friend showing me stuff from the other side about where we go… I sat with this piece of music for a year and a half, writing and producing it. I recorded that the day after my grandma died - I can hear the tears in my eyes from when I was recording those vocals. . It’s stuff like that. For that song to have such a connection to the afterlife, I couldn’t have imagined that going into it. I wasn’t thinking, ‘I’m going to make this song that describes being guided into some eternal space by some all-knowing hand,’ but that’s kind of what comes through when I hear this stuff now, because I’m just a human. We’re stuck down here on this mortal plane, but through music, something spiritual and sacred and timeless is transmitted.”

Brin is a strand of rhythmic audio expressionism for the online world through the lens of LA-based artist Colin Blanton. Homescreen Glow, the full-length debut on Leaving, is a collection of solo & collaborative explorations refined to a focused sound world of leafy-chimed blooming digital gardens, layered inner-clock zero grid beats, and buoyant cloud smears w. toasted edges.

Musical conversations shape-shifted during the making of Homescreen Glow, from passing samples via email, to live recording sessions at CalArts, sunny living rooms, & La Tierra de la Culebra in Highland Park LA. Collaborations across these works include Matthewdavid, Dustin Wong, Brian James Griffith, Raays, and Sick Whips - all mastered by M. Geddes Gengras.

Once the new world arrived with the pandemic, Homescreen’s organic beginnings required a format change to isolated completion lost in the glow of the computer screen.

Klamm is the new label dedicated to the artistic output of Saele Valese. After "Ivic", a collection of old and new materials published on Alva Noto's label (noton) at the beginning of the year, Saele Valese releases now his first real album "A White, White Day". Written and recorded between 2018 and 2021 the material of this work was sliced, glued and recreated several times, just like a filmmaker in the editing process, before finding its final form. Inspired indeed by the most poetic cinema, 'A White, White Day' represents, in the form of a non-linear and enigmatic narrative, a personal and psychological reflection on time, memory and dreams. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

Alessandro Cortini's acclaimed 'Forse' series is available for the first time on CD including an exclusive disc of 'Forse' performed live. Packaged in matte coated digipacks housed in a heavy duty tip-on style outer box. 2021 digital master by Stephan Mathieu.

Composed using only an original Buchla Music Easel, an incredibly rare electronic music instrument designed by Don Buchla, the Forse series features long, romantic compositions full of voluminous, bombastic tones and dripping with thick timbre.

With each successive release, the world of the Budapest based trio Jü seems to become exponentially larger and encompass an ever expanding range of vibrant and startling influences. The title of their latest reflects the basic fact that this is their third outing as a band and also the tripartite nature of the collective trio. But it also harkens to something mystical and elusive about the number three, a quality of arcane mystery reflected in the number's vital importance in cultures across the globe. That essential fact, rather than any specific meaning, may get at the heart of why the members of Jü - guitarist Adám Mészáros bassist Ern? Hock, and drummer András Halmos opted for the title. More than anything, their music reflects a core drive to explore traditions and ideas from farflung corners of the world, returning with a vital and pulse-quickening sound accented by countless disparate influences yet singularly possessing its own boldly uncategorizable voice.On III that sound is marked by the now - familiar whirlwind of blistering rock, dizzying prog, ferocious free jazz, mesmerizing ambient textures and alluring Eastern European rhythms. This time out, a strong influence from Southeast Asia bleeds its own way into the mix, particularly the gamelan music of Indonesia and the ecstatic devotional songs of India. The mysticism and spiritual intensity of this music melds with the band's immersive potency to conjure an overwhelming sound of compelling complexity and breathtaking vigor. The hybrid sounds become all the richer throughout III with the addition of two special guests, both of whom join the trio on several tracks. Vocalist Dóra Gy?rfi is a Hungarian singer who works primarily in the context of gamelan and wayang groups in Java. Master electronic musician Bálint Bolcsó is a regular collaborator who also joined the band for its previous release,Summa, and adds a limitless array of possibilities to the band's palette.

Wickedly crude but skilful no-input mixing board business from a boss of that discipline, Toshimaru Nakamura

‘Culvert - No Input Mixing Board 10’ is the umpteenth exposition of Nakamura’s improvised and eternally inventive practice since he switched to this style from guitar noise with 2000’s self-explanatory ‘No-Input Mixing Board’ CD. Its 8 parts see him reflect on the hidden waterways that underline his home region around west Tokyo, generating discrete burbling streams of mulched feedback that metaphorically resemble the culverted streams that nobody sees underfoot, yet necessarily course with energy, as in many built environments. In his home region these hidden streams are often topped with artificial brooks that overlay their route like a “double decker river.”

While sitting on a bench beside one of the artificial brooks, Nakamura was prompted to make music that reflects these secret veins. Each of the eight parts gushes with an allegorical brownian motion apt for the concept, and also recalling K2’s torrential forms of junk metal cut-up, but also perhaps implicitly speaking to the threat of rising sea levels which would surely seep up from the Pacific thru these coastal waterways with a destructive attrition akin to this music.

Note: With THE Purchase OF THE Vinyl OR THE CD YOU Will GET THE Single MP3 Files AS Well AS A Continous MIX VIA E-mail. With the cover artwork for Pop Ambient 2022, longtime Kompakt graphic artist Veronika Unland has once again outdone herself. Following the almost baroque, blood-red and jet-black, extremely physical sculptures of Pop Ambient 2021, which emerged from a dark, floral sea like bodies erect for dancing, the front of 2022 is adorned with a pastel-white form, intertwined, folded many times and crisscrossed with delicate shading, which seems to float on a pale pink background; soft, gentle waves woven from Venetian colors that leave the viewer puzzled: Is it a flower, a coral, a mollusk?

Again, the current edition of the tradition-steeped compilation series curated by Wolfgang Voigt is about the persistent and ever-necessary definition of beauty, of reduction, of electronic music of heavy lightness and light heaviness, of ambient's eternal promise of a state of physical and acoustic weightlessness and Pop's of redemption. And about the question why a never arbitrary combination of soundscape, drones, samples and loops, put together in a certain way, can create this feeling of warmth, depth and space, - something three-dimensional, where the imagination feels at home as a fish in the water or a bird in the sky. A key aesthetic stimulus that sends all the senses into a slow glide and drift, after which your synapses feel like they've been bathed in essential oil. Next to Soul, Ambient is probably the most effective musical healing plant of mankind.

Behind the aural test tubes, the who's who of Pop Ambient is once again at work, led for the first time by the highly trafficked Californian duo Blank Gloss, whose debut album "Melt" this year was certified by The Guardian as nothing less than "heartaching beauty". Yui Onodera's "Chrome" as well as "Kari", a cooperation of Markus Guentner and Joachim Spieth, could also be imagined in the score of Denis Villeneuve's new film version of Dune - however, colleague Hans Zimmer managed that quite well without the three. After such wonderful and stylish contributions by Reich & Würden, Triola and Thomas Fehlmann, the ear then lingers a bit longer on the ghostly "Weiht" by Morgen Wurde feat. Maria Estrella, a track like a temple of sound, a deep electronic immersion in a Japanese onsen. In this sea of unnameable time you could sink forever, but with the tracks of Andrew Thomas, Thore Pfeiffer and Max Würden & Pepo Galán the journey slowly comes to an end.

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

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

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

With about a million subscribers and millions upon millions of views, TheRealSullyG is the undisputed King of Otamatones. His lovingly-produced otamatone covers of pop-culture standards, paired with quirky and imaginative videos starring the adorable Japanese synthesizers, have proven to be a recipe for viral success. Covering roughly his first year of otamatone content, Otama-Tunes, Vol. 1 dazzles the ears and delights the senses with wahsome covers of Queen, Daft Punk, Michael Jackson, Dragonforce and more! Remastered by Angel Marcloid, TheRealSullyG’s debut on physical media is presented on two different deluxe gatefold vinyl variants as well as CD and cassette.

* Unreleased album by Japanese ambient pioneer * Recorded in late 90’s.

Fumio Miyashita’s unreleased last recording is finally here.

We are honor to receive the master audio of Waterfall Symphony from Fumio’s family last year and finally ready to release on both Vinyl & CD."

The psychedelic garage duo The Liminanas and French techno pioneer DJ/producer Laurent Garnier have now produced together “De Pelicula”. The result is neither a Limiñanas techno record nor a Laurent Garnier rock album . It is a record that feels like a walk on the wild side, one straight out of a film noir that was spawned from the need to write music that tells a story and rattles all traditional patterns in a (super)sonic trance. A heated road-trip spent chasing Juliette and Saul, two teenage rascals straight out of a ‘60s classic - think “Breathless” (original title: A bout de Souffle) meets Sailor and Lula - balancing on the southern border with Spain, knocked out by the heat and cheap liquor.

Definitive career-spanning anthology
Includes previously unreleased tracks, inspired collaborations, and material from Leslie’s groundbreaking 1990 solo debut, Witch
Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie, Christophe Van Huffel, Jay Glass Dubs, Mari G. Mooney, and Diamond Version, amongst others
Newly remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin
24-page booklet featuring a new, extensive interview with Leslie and liner notes by acclaimed author, critic and compilation co-producer Wyndham Wallace, along with an essay by award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei
Cover collage by renowned British artist Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon

“The definition of a hidden gem” – John Peel

“The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life.” – Max Richter

“She might just be the coolest woman on the planet!” – Boy George

Light in the Attic is ecstatic to announce When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It: a 16-track anthology that celebrates the extraordinary work of musician, poet, and author, Leslie Winer. When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It spans Winer’s three-decade-long musical career: from her groundbreaking solo work in the early ‘90s to her latest inspired projects. Featuring musical contributions from Jon Hassell, Helen Terry, Jah Wobble, Renegade Soundwave’s Karl Bonnie, and others, the collection also spotlights Winer’s diverse collaborations, and unearths previously-unreleased recordings.

Newly remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin, When I Hit You—You’ll Feel It will be available in multiple special 2xLP editions, on CD, and across digital platforms. The album includes a new interview with Winer, captured by the compilation’s co-producer, acclaimed author and critic Wyndham Wallace. Rounding out the package is an insightful essay by the award-winning writer and scholar Louis Chude-Sokei and an original cover collage by the renowned British photographer and artist, Linder, featuring photography by Mondino, and design by designer Christopher Shannon.

MORE ABOUT LESLIE WINER….

Musician, poet, iconoclast, model, artist, enigma. Leslie Winer is many things.

Born to a teenage mother and sold for $10,000 in a black market adoption when she was just hours old, Winer has always lived an uncommon life. She grew up in Boston with a voracious appetite for music and the written word and embraced the city’s lively jazz and folk scene in the ‘70s. Moving to New York for art school, she gravitated towards a vibrant crowd of intellectuals, artists, and radical thinkers—or perhaps they gravitated towards her.

There, Winer formed an unlikely friendship with writer and artist William S. Burroughs and lived on-and-off with Jean-Michel Basquiat. In London, where Winer began her musical ventures in earnest, she was a regular at Leigh Bowery’s underground club Taboo, where she met many of her collaborators, including filmmaker John Maybury, Kevin Mooney (of Adam and the Ants), and Boy George, who once declared that Winer “might just be the coolest woman on the planet!”

Winer’s striking looks also attracted fashion designers and photographers. Throughout the early ‘80s, she was an in-demand model—appearing in campaigns for Valentino, Christian Dior, and Yohji Yamamoto, and serving as a muse for a young Jean-Paul Gaultier, who later dubbed Winer “the first androgynous model.” She posed for Helmut Newton, Irving Penn, and Pierre et Gilles, and graced the covers of The Face, French and Italian editions of Vogue, and Mademoiselle.

But music was Winer’s true passion and, at the turn of the ‘90s, she would unknowingly help invent the massively popular genre known today as trip-hop.

On her debut, Witch, Winer masterfully blended the uninhibited sampling of early hip-hop with dancehall basslines and programmed beats, while weaving mesmerizing—and coolly-detached—spoken-word vocals into her ambient tracks. It was unorthodox in the most delicious ways.

The album was a bold experiment by the self-taught artist, who enlisted a number of talented musicians in the sessions, including Culture Club’s Helen Terry, Karl Bonnie of Renegade Soundwave, former Public Image Ltd. bassist Jah Wobble, and Kevin Mooney, as well as Marco Pirroni and Matthew Ashman (both of Adam and the Ants, among other acts).

While Witch was finished in 1990, it wouldn’t be released for three years, due to the whims of Winer’s label. In the meantime, several tracks made their way out into the world as early as June 1990, thanks to BBC Radio 1 DJ John Peel, who later referred to Witch as “the definition of a hidden gem.”

Opening with the laid-back dub beats and soft, sing-songy chorus of “He Was,” Witch features such highlights as the up-tempo “Skin,” the hypnotic, bass-heavy “The Boy Who Used 2 Whistle,” and the album’s closer, “Dream 1,” in which waves of reverb-soaked vocals bounce from one ear the other.

While sonically, Winer was breaking new ground, she was also bringing a fresh, incendiary take on what it means to be a woman in the music business, as embodied by her composition “N1 Ear,” in which she delivers a scorching, feminist manifesto, borrowed from the Women’s Liberation Broadsheet: “If I get raped it must be my fault / And if get bashed I must’ve provoked it / And if I raise my voice I’m a nagging bitch / And if I like fucking I’m a whore…And if I ask my doctor too many questions I’m neurotic and need pills / Because I still can’t get a safe birth control while some fucker’s roaming the moon.”

Winer had every right to vent her frustrations as a woman in music. Despite her fierce demeanor and steadfast focus, she was consistently disregarded and typecast by the industry. Many of her early collaborators failed to credit her work, while others simply overlooked her influence. Witch, for example, was so delayed that by the time the album saw the light of day (released under the pseudonym “©”), trip-hop was gaining mainstream traction via acts like Portishead, Massive Attack, and Madonna. Although Winer eventually gained wider acknowledgment (prompting the NME to give her the dubious distinction of “The Grandmother of Trip-Hop”), Witch initially went sorely unnoticed.

Following the disappearance of Witch, Winer continued to record, undeterred by the elusive nature of mainstream success in the modern music business. Her network of inspired collaborators continued to grow and expand, yet her influence remained largely a secret except to those in the know, such as Grace Jones and Sinead O’Connor, who would cover her songs.

Today, Winer stays busy on new musical projects in the French countryside, where she has spent the past two decades raising her five daughters. A prolific writer, she has also published two collections of poetry and oversees the literary estate of Herbert Huncke, a defining member of the Beat Generation.

In the modern era, one is hard-pressed to find an artist who continues to push the creative envelope as much as Winer does. And yet, three decades after her revolutionary debut, her work remains just as startling and fresh.

Winer’s influence might best be summed by the award-winning composer Max Richter, who offered the following thoughts to Wyndham Wallace for his extensive liner notes: “The world seems finally to be catching up to Leslie Winer, whose startling intelligence and singular vision shine through her copious recording life. A visionary commentator on the relationship between individuals and society in the mould of Blake or Woolf, Leslie Winer knows things that the culture at large just doesn’t understand yet, and she has never been afraid to let us know that.”

In the fall of 2016, having overcome serious health issues, Marco Repetto – Bigeneric – begins to weave new delicate soundscapes from a place of stillness, unaware of his emerging role in the fabled magic web of the fairy queen Helva. Inspired by an encounter with the storyteller Andreas Sommer and the legend of Helva, the fairy queen who lives on the Gantrisch mountain, and another gentle message from the universe, Marco Repetto merges his electronic strands of magical sounds into a tender and mystical composition he names Helva. Helva is a cinematic work of sound with long, hypnotically mesmeric tonal progressions and subtle ambient colors, combining influences from the electronic avant-garde and the futuristic spectrum of contemporary electronic music. This is the spiritual soundtrack of the Heart Rebels Gang who ceaselessly radiate into the world a powerful and profound force of beauty

Set against the backdrop of an escape to hidden corners of the rural Southeast, prolific healing sound propagandist zake presents 'Carolina & Coppice Movements'. Suffused with manipulated field recordings, each of these pieces reenact a moment in its composer's journey. These tracks represent a solemn yet joyful paean to seclusion, and the awe beyond our doors.

The German composer and multi-instrumentalist Secret of Elements returns with "Cassini", the entrancing first single taken from his forthcoming album 'Chronos', a musical chronicle of his moving life story. Chronos - in Greek mythology, the titanic personification of time - is the title of an album that captures Pätzold's musical work over a span of more than a decade. During this time, Pätzold saved the "Volkstheater" in his hometown of Rostock with which he now closely works, travelled to the Mediterranean to save lives during the European refugee crisis, became a father — the list could go on. In combining emotive, cinematic orchestration with warm, dense layers of synthesis, Johann Pätzold aka Secret of Elements has created a deeply moving sound picture through which to narrate his personal struggles alongside the social upheavals to which he has dedicated himself as a ‘music activist.’ "Cassini", the albums centre-piece, is a testament to Pätzold’s perseverance to complete it despite challenging circumstances. It is named after a space probe that was launched into orbit in 2004, and which, after almost thirteen years exploring Saturn, finally burned up in its upper atmosphere.

Thomas Köner is one of the most influential modernist minimal composers. Alongside Wolfgang Voigt’s “Gas” project, Köner has been centrally responsible for electronic music’s fascination with depth and reduction. His signature sound is vast, seemingly endless, which at first seems homogenous and infinite, but once exposed to it, when our senses calibrate to the fine nuances of changes, we discover and immerse into abundance of textures, richness of modulations and almost infinite range of sonic titilations. Köner’s work was inspired by his frequent travels in the Arctic, and listeners feel his music as a journey to mysterious worlds of the Arctic region. The experience of being exposed to the extreme cold, the hightening of our senses and ability to notice even the slightest changes in color, sound, light or density that creates this dangerously reductive environment, is like an immersion in the sonic world of this German artist, where masterfully crafted layers of sound open into colossal spaces, teeming with aural life, waiting to be discovered by those who venture into it. The titles of Köner’s highly regarded albums from the 90’s ever so often play with this affinity - Nunatak, Permafrost, Teimo - all reference to the world of the Artic region, just as his album Nuuk that points us to the capital of Greenland. Subdued and minimal at first glance, this album is brimming with low-end frequences, shadowy resonances and boreal ambience, but at the same time, constant fluctuation and vulnerability of sonic events.

For Böser Herbst, Thomas Fehlmann returns to the sediment of ages, drawing from a similar lexicon of sounds to that used on 2018’s ‘1929 – Das Jahr Babylon’. Like that album, Böser Herbst was produced as the soundtrack to a documentary made by Volker Heise, ‘Herbst 1929, Schatten Über Babylon’, which offers historical insight to the third season of the television series Babylon Berlin. It adds yet another string to the bow of this most forward-thinking and creative artist, whose history takes in NDW (Palais Schaumburg), techno (3mb) and psychedelic ambience (The Orb), plus a clutch of gorgeous solo albums that explore wide terrain, from the dancefloor through supine home listening to compelling soundtrack work. Fehlmann’s approach here was to ‘capture’ samples of contemporaneous music, “picking up the dirt and dust of original 1920s archive sound and music excerpts and shaping the essence into this selection of tunes,” he recalls. After delivering the material to the editing room, Fehlmann “threw all the pieces up in the air, deliberately lost the overview in consequence, researched the atmospheric thread and assembled it for this album.” That explains the singular nature of the material here, and its ability to sit together so neatly and discretely, as its own entity. For Böser Herbst is a music box of possibilities, shadowed by its historical provenance, but never crudely beholden to it, rather “keeping the references only as a distant nod, a scent.” It’s certainly an evocative listen, a cornucopia of textural pleasure and sensual, tactile assemblage. The spiralling, psychedelic cycle of “Karnickel” winds its way between the ears like thread to the needle; “Mit Ausblick” immerses the listener in deep, gaseous tones, only to be lifted into the air by the glassy drones of “Umarmt”. “Wunschwechsler” crackles with the unpredictability of weather systems while a guitar-like loop unspools across the horizon. Throughout, you can catch tiny tastes of the source material, but they’re pressed into greater service, Fehlmann using these sources for their evocative capacity and then saturating them with grain and rumble, abstracting outwards. It’s a music of temporal disjuncture and clairvoyant resonance, “speaking with the past – alert, distant and quixotic.”

Music From Memory is excited to announce a special compilation that they’ve been working on for some time now; Mfm053 – VA – Heisei No Oto – Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996). Compiled by long-time friends of the label, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, Heisei No Oto delves into a world of music released almost exclusively on CD and brings together a fascinating selection of discoveries from a little known and overlooked part of Japan’s musical history. The last ten or so years have seen a global wave of interest in Japanese music encompassing ambient, jazz, new wave and pop records from the 1980s, some of which is increasingly considered the most innovative and visionary music of that time. Although some music from this period, in the form of ‘City Pop’ or ‘rare groove’ records, had been coveted by collectors and DJs for a number of years, most Japanese music from the time was little known outside and often even within Japan. Sometime around the mid 2000s, two Osaka record store owners, Eiji Taniguchi of Revelation Time and Norio Sato of Rare Groove, along with a handful of deep Japanese diggers such as Chee Shimizu of Organic Music records in Tokyo, began to explore beyond the typical ‘grooves’ or ‘breaks’. Much like their counterparts in Europe and the US, they began delving into home-grown ambient, jazz, new wave and pop records, discovering visionary music, often driven by synthesizers or drum computers, that broke beyond the typical confines of their genres. Spending tireless hours in local record stores and embarking on digging trips across the country, Eiji Taniguchi and Norio Sato, much like Chee Shimizu, have been at the forefront of unearthing and introducing many of the very Japanese records now loved and sought after around the world. Yet as YouTube algorithms and vinyl reissues would transport such music into the global consciousness and demand and therefore scarcity intensified for such records, so Eiji and Norio have recently begun to turn their attention to CDs. The title of the compilation Heisei No Oto refers to the sound of the Heisei era, which began in 1989 and corresponds to the reign of Emperor Akihito until his abdication in 2019. Marking the culmination of one of the most rapid economic growths in Japanese history, 1989 also coincided with the music industry’s final shift away from vinyl in favour of CDs. And, although compact discs were first introduced seven years earlier it wasn’t until late into the ‘80s that, beyond dance music labels, CDs became the exclusive format for major and independent labels in Japan and throughout the world. This however didn’t signal the end of the innovation in Japan. Many of those same musicians who have become known for their work in the ‘80s would continue to produce outstanding music well into the mid ‘90s, as greater innovation and advances in musical equipment allowed Japanese musicians and producers to refine and explore new sounds. While musicians such as the seminal Haruomi Hosono, whose productions feature on a number of tracks, would continue to push the boundaries of these new technologies, these technological advances also meant less established musicians were able to make use of increasingly affordable but state-of-the-art equipment. Including music by Haruomi Hosono as well as Yasuaki Shimizu, Toshifumi Hinata and Ichiko Hashimoto who have become known and loved around the world in recent years, Hesei No Oto also features Japanese pop star Yosui Inoue, producers Jun Sato and Keisuke Kikuchi in aaddition to less established artists from the contemporary, jazz, new wave, pop and dance music scenes. Bringing together a selection of tracks that seem to define these specific genres and in fact move fluidly between a number of them, the music on the compilation is again underscored by experimentations with synthesizers and drum computers though with something of a gentle Pop sensibility. Reimagined here then under the encompassing term ‘Left-field Pop’, this is an exciting chapter in Japanese musical history that has only just begun to be fully explored. VA - Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996) is a 2xLP/2xCD that includes liner notes by Chee Shimizu and artwork by Hagihara Takuya and is released on February 28th.

FEW Copies Resurfaced FOR This 2006 Release ON THE RED Lounge Label From Germany Realized at Studio für Elektronische Musik der technischen Universität Karlsruhe in the late 1960s. Reissue of the 1970 Corona LP release.

Angel’s Flight is the new album from the highly acclaimed producer and composer Biosphere, due for release January 2021. It features twelve tracks that traverse the peripheries of classical and electronic composition, all based on Beethoven’s String Quartet No. 14. Much of the music was initially composed for ’Uncoordinated Dog’, a dance production by the Ingun Bjørnsgaard Prosjekt in 2019 that explores the personal, the ambiguous, exposure and beauty.

ZAUBERBERG – Wolfgang Voigt’s most fundamental (and foreboding) release under his alias GAS and perhaps of all in his untold discography – finally stands alone once again and is released in the way its original splendour.

Originally released in 1997 on the iconic Frankfurt imprint Mille Plateaux, and then reissued in 2016 as a part of GAS “BOX”, ZAUBERBERG is now released on his own label KOMPAKT on CD.

Though this narcotic symphony is not the first release under the GAS moniker, ZAUBERBERG is the first to disclose the true nature of Wolfgang Voigt’s unified sound and ideology as GAS. Layers of ominous intensity supported by muffled kick drums as classical music loops incessantly swirl with no direction, ZAUBERBERG is the definitive GAS album and a perfect starting point for those not familiar with his music.

Please note: This CD is a single release of the GAS BOX released in 2016.

Outro Tempo II: Electronic and Contemporary Music from Brazil, 1984-1996 is the second installment of Music From Memory’s Brazilian series. This volume picks up where the first Outro Tempo left off, shedding light on a new wave of experimentalism that emerged in Brazil in the late 1980s and 1990s. The twenty tracks collected uncover another area of Brazilian music that looked to the future for inspiration. This time it drifts beyond the rainforest and into the pulsating heart of Brazil’s great cities, where it meets a generation of young artists eager to radically change the face of contemporary Brazilian music. In Outro Tempo II the avant garde and pop worlds meld in a haze of percussion and electronics. It presents another uncompromising and magnetic reinterpretation of the limits of Brazilian music. Outro Tempo II is compiled again by John Gómez and features original artwork by Alice Quaresma. The CD version also includes the 2 tracks 'Bruhahá' & 'Eyes' which were released as a separate single on vinyl and were not included in the 2xLP version.

This is the new instalment of Soul Jazz Records’ ground-breaking Deutsche Elektronische Musik series, ‘a near-definitive guide to some of the world's most extraordinary music’ (The Guardian).

This latest edition features many of the classic German electronic and Krautrock groups from the 1970s & 80s – including Can, Amon Duul II, Harmonia, Conrad Schnitzler, Agitiation Free, Roedelius – as well as a host of lesser known artists such as Dzyan, Klauss Weiss, Gruppe Between and many more.

Deutsche Elektronische rarities unearthed on the album include Kalacakra (whose fan-base included the great Moondog!) and their superb ‘Nearby Shiras,’ taken from their super-rare spiritual/psychedelic private press concept album Crawling to Lhasa, from 1972.

Deutsche Elektronische 4 includes a wealth of German electronic experimental artists – the seminal pioneering group Harmonia (Roedelius, Moebius and Michael Rother), avant-garde guru Conrad Schnitzler as well as lesser known synthetic artists such as Klauss Weiss, Deutsche Wertarbeit, E.M.A.K. (Electronische Musik Aus Koln), Gunter Schickert and others.

Finally, the album also features an array of heavy and progressive German cosmic rock groups – Dzyan, Virus and the amazing Turkish/German tripped out sound of Alex’s ‘Patella Black’, recorded at Can’s Inner Space in 1973, produced by Holger Czukay and Jackie Liebezeit.

Deutsche Elektronische 4 comes with extensive newly commissioned sleevenotes by David Stubbs, author of the seminal books ‘Future Days: Krautrock and the building of Modern Germany’, ‘Mars By 1980: The story of Electronic Music’, and ‘Krautrock: Cosmic Rock and its Legacy’.

This album comes as a heavyweight triple vinyl edition with full colour inner sleeves, as well as a deluxe double CD edition with outsize booklet and slipcase. Both formats include full liner notes and extensive rare photography.

The sleeves are DIY screen printed and the jacket is built out of wire fence! Kӣr is there with two tracks "Basamaci" on vinyl and "Altro non è'l mi'amor" on CD!

Naked feet in warm sand, a gentle breeze, a sweet taste of chocolate on the tip of your tongue - this is the moment before you jump into clear waters. JPattersson brings up eight shimmering pearls from the dubby depths of his repertoire and adds them to this chain of associations. Mood gives expression to an unquenched thirst for musical innovation and growing maturity. While the soul of JPattersson still reverberates through the frequencies of his trumpet and his voice, his third album sounds all new and different again. There are songs with clever lyrics and all the ensuing catchiness. In-between these tunes from tropical tipsiness to hypnotic depth you can hear one thing above all: musical love of detail. In consequence, it’s a wonderful album to listen to from beginning to end - and at the same time made for the dancefloor.

WRWTFWW Records is proud to announce the official reissue of Motohiko Hamase’s extremely rare live album Anecdote (recorded in 1987). The album is sourced from original masters and available on vinyl (double LP) for the first time ever as well as on CD. It comes with liner notes from the artist. This marks the sixth release from the ESPLANADE SERIES which focuses on the works of Yoshio Ojima, Motohiko Hamase and Satsuki Shibano. Anecdote was recorded live June 12th 1987 at Spiral Garden (Wacoal Art Center) in Aoyama (Tokyo) as part of the Eat Newsic Concert No.3. Motohiko Hamase on electric fretless bass, synthesizers and computer programming, is accompanied by frequent collaborators Toshio Kaji on acoustic piano and synthesizers, and Yasunori Yamaguchi (of #Notes of Forestry fame) on acoustic percussions. The three-man band improvises around Hamase’s unique repertoire of ambient and electronic music, reinterpreting pieces from his albums Reminiscence, Intaglio, and #Notes of Forestry.

On the verge of their 40th and in the midst of their 20th anniversaries, respectively, HIJOKAIDAN and SISSY SPACEK merge in Tokyo for their first collaboration, featuring JOJO HIROSHIGE, JUNKO, T. MIKAWA, CHARLIE MUMMA, FUTOSHI OKANO, TENENKO (guest) and JOHN WIESE. Hijokaidan formed in 1979, marking the first wave of groups in Japan exploring extreme noise. Sissy Spacek formed in 1999, often playing in large ensembles of players, and frequently exploring grindcore as a base for creating extreme music, often while eschewing the notion of music altogether. During Sissy Spacek’s 20th anniversary tour in Japan, the recordings of “Amok Time” and “Seven Directions” were made with Hijokaidan in collaboration. While Hijokaidan’s sound has been described as a continuous climax of your entire progressive rock collection, Sissy Spacek’s “Twenty-Five Fragments” is a sequence of peak chaos from their 2018 tour, recorded on walkman for maximum effect.

A download code is included. With Velvet Desert Music Vol. 2, curator Jörg Burger has intensified his vision for this new series of compilations on Kompakt. The music he’s collected here has a unique vibration, perhaps an audio equivalent to the legendary ‘acid Western’ films of the 1960s and 1970s, when the wild frontier logic of the western met the consciousness-altering psychedelia of the counterculture. ‘Velvet Desert Music’ is Burger exploring possibilities: what happens when you extract the essence from genres as diverse as spaghetti Western soundtracks, moody lamp-lit pop, downtempo, Krautrock, minimalism, classic ‘60s psychedelia, and more, and let their scents intermingle, Des Esseintes-style?

15 tracks by Seven Star, Climber, Mr Cooper,Soarse Spoken, Epstein, Rumpistol, Induce, Set in sand, Calm, Manuvers, XNDL, Betties Blues, Glen Porter, and many more... incl. promo video track ...