Electronic & Dance CD 450 Items

Produced by Brian Eno and Fred Gibson

4th April 2020 - 23rd December 2022

Mastered by Kieran Hebden

Lacquer cut by Bernie Grundman

Artwork by loose

Gatefold photograph by Brian Eno

Avalon Emerson & the Charm is an evolution.

Created during an extended break from the hectic blur of her life as a touring DJ, the album is a personal statement of intent from an artist who’s long looked beyond the club for inspiration. It’s also the first time that Emerson has put herself, her emotions and, most notably, her voice fully into the spotlight.

Having spent her entire career working more or less alone, Emerson purposely sought out a small cast of like-minded artists to help bring the album to life. A Chief among them was UK avant-pop savant Bullion, who executive produced the record and, most importantly, shares both Emerson’s predilection for shimmering pop melodies and her boundary- less approach to music-making.

Working together, they cracked open her head and heart alike, creating a space where she could intimately reflect on the people and places she’s loved and left behind.

It wasn't so long ago we were writing about the joys of BVDUB's Fumika Fades, a new double pack in February that sunk us deep into moving ambient soundscapes. Now the Bay Area dub techno titan Brock van Wey is back once again with yet another album - he dropped plenty of them last year too so is clearly in a mad creative patch. Slowly Shifting Lakes comes in multiple formats, this one being a double CD. The ambient here is coarse and textured, fizzing synths stretching out over skittish rhythmic frameworks before sinking into calmer waters on cuts like the escapist 'Searching For Glowing Shores.' Another triumphant album for sure.

The latest by Canadian composer Tim Hecker serves as a beacon of unease against the deluge of false positive corporate ambient currently in vogue.

Whether taken as warning or promise, No Highs delivers – this is music of austerity and ambiguity, purgatorial and seasick. A jagged anti-relaxant for our medicated age, rough-hewn and undefined.

Morse code pulse programming flickers like distress signals while a gathering storm of strings, noise, and low-end looms in the distance. Processed electronics shiver and shudder against pitch-shifting assemblages of crackling voltage, mantric horns (including exquisite modal sax by Colin Stetson), and cathedral keys. Throughout, the pieces both accrue and avoid drama, more attuned to undertow than crescendo. Hecker mentions “negation” as a muse of sorts – the sense of tumult without bombast, tethered ecstasies, an escape from escapism. His is an antagonism both brusque and beguiling, devoid of resolution, beckoning the listener ever deeper into its greyscale alchemies of magisterial disquiet.

Barely a week goes by without BVDUB popping up with a vast new collection of his absorbing ambient music. Hot on the heels of February's Fumika Fades album is this, Slowly Shifting Lakes, another epic collection of fuzzy, lo-fi, gorgeously textured and lived-in ambient. It's intense and full by some ambient standards - soundscapes that demand the attention and go from misty, rainy visions to more serene and blissed-out vibes. This is the perfect way to pick this album up - as both a double CD and also a double cassette including download codes.

Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003)’ is a new in-depth compilation of works by Japanese musician Dream Dolphin. Co-compiled by Eiji Taniguchi, it draws from a vast discography of music oscillating between IDM, Pop and Electronic Dance Music. First appearing on Eiji’s compilation ’Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996)’, this selection of rediscoveries, further shines a light on the singular musician known as Dream Dolphin and her place in Japan’s rich electronic music legacy.

Dream Dolphin was originally an Ambient and Electronic project by the Japanese artist referred to simply as Noriko, who moved from studying classic Italian songs as a child, to increasingly being inspired by artists such as PIL, Yellow Magic Orchestra, KLF and movies such as ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘Le Grand Bleu’. The music she released under the name Dream Dolphin, from the age of sixteen, is unique and versatile in style, encompassing Ambient, IDM, Techno, Trance and Drum & Bass, whilst fusing natural sounds with her own spoken word lyrics.

Dream Dolphin released an incredible twenty albums in just eight years. In addition to her own projects, she has also put together a number of fascinating compilations herself, as well as composing ambient music to be used in hospitals and other caring contexts. ‘Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003)’ contains 15 tracks thoughtfully selected from various albums that until now were only released on CD format.

Wrwtfww Records couldn't be happier to announce the release of Yutaka Hirose’s never-heard before 11-track collection Trace: Sound Design Works 1986-1989, available on double LP and double CD, with liner notes from the artist.

Trace is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose between 1986 and 1989, during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of the Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on these projects.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers, using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

Trace: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. The Reflection segment is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played in entrance halls, at events, in cafes and bars. The Voice from Past Technology segment expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, Trace is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ashikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

Four years after Nuova Napoli, Nu Genea are back with Bar Mediterraneo, a new album and journey, which projects the sounds of the Neapolitan duo formed by Massimo Di Lena and Lucio Aquilina even further. Nu Genea's Bar Mediterraneo is an idea of a shared place where people meet and fuse together; a space that leaves its doors open to travellers and their lives, always exposed to the whims of fate. Some of this can be experienced through the multitude of sounds that come together in the tracks, layers of different acoustic instruments, voices and synthesizers merging in a unique musical blend. Opening up to the voices of many different people, separated by languages but united by the sea and the music, Nu Genea's hometown, Napoli, becomes a true place of encounter. You can hear this all along. In "Gelbi", a gorgeously deep and propulsive Ney flute plunges into murky waters of the melancholic Tunisian dialect sung by Marzouk Mejri. In "Marechia'", unbridled happiness and sun ooze from the delicate vocals of Célia Kameni and create an acrobatic bridge between French and Neapolitan language. In "Straniero", your soul is arrested from the moment the slow spell-binding mandolin ignites the hypnotic patterns recorded by the legendary Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen. In "Bar Mediterraneo", the title track, bittersweet guitar’s riffs, analog waves and choirs are overwhelming the song giving you what you would like to hear on a boat trip along the Amalfi Coast. Nu Genea couldn't afford to overlook their firmly anchored roots into the Neapolitan culture and its dialect with "Tienaté", where the power of neapolitan language (interpreted by Fabiana Martone) supports those quarter-tone strings and the uncessant folk-disco groove that spreads to the entire song. In "Praja Magia", repetitive mandolin riffs lead the song, giving space to a choral yet tight vocal line that speaks of Varcaturo, a village close to Napoli. In "Rire", a volley of poetic, deceptively laidback, lyrical fury interpreted by Sicilian Marco Castello intimately combines with a highly musical, multitextured instrumental backbone and the swoon of a chanson in its heart. In "La Crisi'', the lyrics of a Raffaele Viviani’s poem from 1930 have been adapted to a laidback jazz-funk groove in full NG style. In "Vesuvio", revaluing the evocative verses and powerful mantra of Vesuvio, Nu Genea re-adapted to the dancefloor a folk song by the working-class band E’ Zezi from Pomigliano D'Arco, combining the voices of a school choir with Jupiter-6 arpeggios and bold percussions. Bar Mediterraneo is the place where people constantly return to transform curiosity into participation, tradition into sharing, unfamiliar into familiar. When travellers come through its “doors”, carrying their treasures of words and emotions, they aren’t strangers any more. They take part in a shared experience, enriching themselves and others by leading to unexpected musical journeys

Rifling through booty bass, jungle, soul, breaks, dubstep, drumstep and drum ‘n’ bass with the kind of assurance one might expect from DJs who have sent bodies flying round the room at club venues across the globe for more than a decade, the UK production duo drop a no-nonsense selection of bass music anthems to get your hands in the air as the low-end frequencies move your derriere.

Produced by DJ Koze

The new album from Hysterical Love Project is a moody collection of guitar-shimmered downtempo odes. Lashed by the blue-hot debris of missing, it reverbs with adoration for those dear and far. It says I'm sorry for taking photos of sunsets, I couldn't wait to be alive.

A two CD set containing Eliane Radigue's live performance of »Chry-Ptus« (1971), her first work for modular synthesizer, and the world premier of parts one and three of »Triptych« (1978) – Part 2« is also performed. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Radigue's sublime renderings of these major pieces are full of illusory stasis, slow change and dense, slow motion drone that has characterized her pioneering electronic work.

America's most prolific and distinctive ambient label hooks up with Slow Dancing Society of Richland, Washington, for 14 tracks of properly deep state slow motion behaviour. This is drone music at its very sweetest, with the likes of 'We're All In The Dark Looking For A Light' and 'Tethered To Dusk' proving to be big, gradually evolving pieces using mainly gorgeously sustained synth notes and occasionally garnished with lilting guitar notes. 'Sun Makes Sound', meanwhile, has a more tactile, organic feel, with a raw recording complete with the creak of piano hammers. Dreamy, all-enveloping melodies mapped out on a interstellar scale.

Digitalis's Brad E. Rose (aka The North Sea, Charlatan etc) debuts on Room40 with his most rapturous collection yet - six tracks of bewitching, blissed-out synth drones that bear up to comparison with AFX's "Selected Ambient Works II", Steve Roach's "Structures From Silence" or Brian Eno's "Apollo".

Tulsa, Oklahoma-based Brad E. Rose has been quietly churning out music for decades at this point, working under so many different monikers and in so many different outfits it's been hard to keep track. Apart from heading up the beloved but now defunct Digitalis imprint, Rose also runs The Jewel Garden, where they've been releasing mostly their own private press-style material since 2020. "Annular Silhouettes" is Rose's first non-Jewel Garden solo drop in ages, and sounds like a subtle summation of their recent loose musical threads. Written in "the depths of 2020", the material is Rose's attempt at creating a love-letter to the place where they grew up, created in the house where their grandparents lived for over two decades, only a few minutes walk from their childhood home.

Tulsa is a complicated city with often uneasy politics, but Rose's view is holistic, empathic and sensitive - their memorial is melancholy and sometimes even cold, but never lacking hope. The album is split into six separate pieces that play together as a whole, all made in the same style with the same instrumentation. It's more of a continuing thought than an assembly of different tracks; Rose acknowledges that they enjoy the feeling of not completely knowing what they're doing, and letting their subconscious thoughts guide the creative process. Certainly that gives the music a level of spiritual kinship with Aphex's seminal "Selected Ambient Works II", which was allegedly partly written in lucid dream states. Rose's compositions are nowhere near as dark, but strike a similarly ambivalent mood that feels nostalgic, but not completely rooted in the past.

"Annular Silhouettes" sounds like an elongated take on Brian Eno's "Apollo" classic 'An Ending (Ascent)', and Rose uses the soft-focus synth tones to represent the sun rising and setting across Tulsa's wide, flat plains. It's hard not to be moved.

Born of a conversation centered on the notion of “rich sources” as a forge for electronic music, Colours Of Air is a collection of recordings of a century old pipe organ housed at the historic Old Museum in Brisbane, Australia, which were then processed, transformed, and elevated into eight majestic electro-acoustic threshold devotionals. The timbre of the instrument and spatial fluctuations of room tone infuse the music with a subdued, sacred feel, like vaulted light in a nave of stained glass. They describe the album as “an iterative project, a reduction and eventual expansion,” sifting the swells and drones of the organ for every shivering shade of radiance. The tracks are named for the hue each piece suggests – from the gauzy levitational miasma of “Yellow” to the pulsing melancholic mirage of “Violet” to the seething twilit sandstorm of “Magenta.” Morgan and English are both adept at conjuring moods of muted grandeur, like landscapes veiled in dusk, still looming and luminous. Here their combined powers open pathways to heightened realms of deep listening and bewitching restraint, finding flickering infinities in ancient configurations of wind, brass, stone, and dust.

The music of Amir Telem wanders through the human consciousness like a mighty endorphine storm with torrential downpours of happiness-inducing neurotransmitters. The analogue thunder of the bassline rolls through our nervous system until it finds its grounding in the stomping of our feet, the stroboscopic flashes of digital lightning bath us in the dazzling light of pure euphoria. It leaves us with a feeling of freshness and peaceful calm similar to what lingers in the air after a summer rain. In hearing distance to Progressive House, Melodic Techno and Neo Trance, Amir Telem opened up his very own groove universe, and his album Art Of Compassion reflects the stunning elegance of his unique sound. From the sunlit melodies of Sage Tear and the housey updraught of Krishna to the kaleidoscopic escalations of One More Prayer, from the broken beats and electroid 80s vibes in Do You Believe In Magics to the vocal tracks Fight It and Mode Of Service, the stylistic bandwidth is a truly enlightening trip, especially when enjoyed as the coherent story this album tells.

It's by some strange inversion that since his untimely death in 1999 Bryn Jones' Muslimgauze project has become evermore enigmatic as his publicly available recordings have become evermore vast. The Mancunian artist's sudden passing at the age of 37 prematurely resolved a body of work that remains as experimental as it is diffuse, with an informal archive that was left spread between favoured labels and confidantes. And though this monadic project never abided by genre specifications, it all feels as if it is taking the critical pulses of its time and rendering them into something other than the sum of its obscure compulsions. Jones' double album 'Veiled Sisters' from 1993 is no exception, and it persists as a magnificent outlier in his singular and bewildering discography.

Originally released by the label Soleilmoon, an early and lifelong supporter of Jones' work along with Staalplaat, the album is a notable example of the uniquely recombinant fragility and fervour of Jones' work. This 3LP edition marks the album's first appearance on vinyl. Like much of the Muslimgauze catalogue, 'Veiled Sisters' is dedicated to the Palestine Liberation Organization, with its two halves—Sister One and Sister Two—calling on the history and conflicts of the modern Islamic world through opaque titles and snatches of musical oration.

Forgoing the raucous timbre and abrasion that Jones could occasionally employ, this album balances a medley of shrill instrumental bursts with a complex patterning of ambient atmospheres. 'Veiled Sisters' moves with a hypnotic gait across its extended runtime with a dynamic ensemble of electronics grounded in a pulsing yet evasive combination of low-slung kicks and dub-soaked bass. The hissy wash of drums, both played and machined, decorate a restless patina all over, and the cacophony of samples send impressions scattershot into Jones' idiosyncratic yet readymade psychedelia. With a quiet intensity that is not often captured this succinctly in the Muslimgauze catalogue, this new edition of 'Veiled Sisters' is a reminder of the haunting wonder that Jones was capable of manifesting.

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.

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

Pioneers in their own musical approaches, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto, began their exploration of sound in the evocatively titled V.I.R.U.S series in 2002. After more than a decade from the release of the collection's final installment with "Summvs" in 2011, Noton reissues all the five albums between June and October 2022.

With its impressionistic atmosphere, in this collaborative project two generations met and shared the idea of electronic music as an inspiration source for new musical structures. Over a series of five albums, Vrioon (2002),Insen (2005), Revep (2006), utp_ (2008), and summvs (2011), the duo have explored blending electronic and acoustic sounds into a meditative whole that is at once expressive, breathing and precision-engineered.

Remastered in collaboration with Calyx Mastering, the recordings of Vrioon, Insen, Revep, Utp_, and Summvs are made available on vinyl and CD under the title 'reMASTER, accompanied by exclusive, unreleased compositions and housed in a beautifully designed sleeve with original cover art by Carsten Nicolai.

DJ Micky More & DJ Andy Tee's Italy based Groove Culture imprint celebrates their fifth year in existence with a mouth-wateringly good mixed double CD. The duo seamlessly blend classics, remixes and original material from themselves, label friends and legends into a sunshine soaked, melting pot of vibes. From its humble beginnings Groove Culture has grown to become a highly recognized and respected brand in the global dance music scene boasting a catalogue that includes some of the biggest names on the global dance music scene, including: Incognito, Dave Lee & The Sunburst Band, Dimitri From Paris, David Penn, Miguel Migs, Matt Johnson & Derrick Mckanzie(Jamiroquai), Richard Earnshaw, Ron Carroll, Michele Chiavarini, Full Intention, Angelo Ferreri, Opolopo, Dr Packer, John Morales, Angela Johnson, Roland Clark, Dj James Ingram, Funkatomic, Serge Funk, Kathy Brown, Reverendos Of Soul and many more...

Following its appearance on all streaming platforms in December 2020, the Kraftwerk ‘Remixes’ compilation will be released on Vinyl and CD by Parlophone Records on 25 March 2022.

Available on triple, heavyweight black vinyl LP and a double CD

The compilation showcases Kraftwerk’s immense influence on Club & DJ culture, techno and all forms of electronic dance music. Featuring 19 official remixes, it collates Kraftwerk’s own remixes alongside contributions from some of the world’s biggest DJ’s and producers including François Kervorkian, William Orbit, Étienne de Crécy, Orbital, Underground Resistance, DJ Rolando and Hot Chip. The remixes are taken from various Kraftwerk 12” singles, CD singles and digital releases from 1991-2021.

The album also plays host to Kraftwerk’s very latest Kling Klang studio output with ‘Non Stop’, and remixes of ‘Home Computer’ and ‘Tour De France (Etape 2)’. ‘Non Stop’ actually began life as a soundbite recorded for MTV in the 1980s, but in 2020, Kraftwerk took the original 30 second sound clip and then transformed it into a full 8 minute odyssey as it appears here.

Fans and collectors will be pleased to see the inclusion of the William Orbit Hardcore Mix of ‘Radioactivity’ which was previously only available on the 1991 US 12”, other notable additions include DJ Rolando’s reworking of ‘Expo 2000’, Francois K’s & Étienne de Crécy’s remixes of ‘Aéro Dynamik’, Kraftwerk’s own remix of ‘The Robots’ (‘Robotnik’) and Hot Chip’s extended mix of ‘La Forme’. Whilst all the featured remixes are available on streaming services, physical copies have long been out of print, so this triple vinyl and double CD release is a welcome addition to the Kraftwerk catalogue, and particularly a must have for electro DJs.
It’s significant that ‘Remixes’ features some of the biggest DJs in the annals of club culture, since the link between Kraftwerk and DJs has played an integral role in the band’s legacy. The seeds of which were sown in New York one night in 1977 when, on a visit to an afterhours club, Kraftwerk founders Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider witnessed Afrika Bambaataa cut up ‘Trans Europe Express’ and ‘Metal On Metal’ across 2 turntables, stretching it into a 20 minute extended mix that had Black America dancing on its feet. Then came ‘Planet Rock’’ and the rest is history...

Kraftwerk’s creativity sees no stopping in 2022 as they take their multimedia 3-D show around the globe including a 24 date North American tour and a co-headlining appearance with the Chemical Brothers at All Points East, London on Saturday 20th August 2022 – see full dates below.
https://www.allpointseastfestival.com/2022-lineup/

The multimedia exhibition Electro - From Kraftwerk To Techno is currently hosting audiences in Kraftwerk’s native Dusseldorf and runs until May 22nd. Since its appearance in London at the Design Museum in 2019, the exhibition has now been expanded with Ralf Hütter contributing a selection of futuristic new images and graphic designs which perfectly illustrate that unique Kraftwerk vision.
https://www.kunstpalast.de/electro

'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.

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!

The 5 CD box set+24 page booklet „Electroacoustic Works“ celebrates the 100th anniversary of Iannis Xenakis (on May 29th, 2022), one of the most influential 20th century avantgarde composers. All tracks have been newly mixed by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer Martin Wurmnest and mastered by Rashad Becker and finally reveal their full sonic range and dynamics. Booklet with English / German liner notes by Reinhold Friedl (zeitkratzer) and rare photos from the Xenakis archive.

Iannis Xenakis (1922-2001) is one of the most important composers of the 20th century avantgarde whose influence on music can be traced to the present day – not only in the world of conservatory-trained composers but also in various streams of current non-academic underground aesthetics such as experimental electronic music, noise and industrial.

After he arrived in Paris in 1947, Xenakis not only studied composition with Messiaen and later became a member of the famous GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales), he also worked as assistant to the famous architect LE Corbusier and realized a.o. the Philips Pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels 1958. His compositions often are based on mathematical principles which give his music an unprecedented aesthetic and “shocking otherness” (The Guardian). Although Xenakis also composed for orchestra (his most famous works are “Metastasis“, “Pithoprakta” and “Terretektorh”), electronic music became his way for exploring new ideas and concepts and to develop new techniques like a graphic interface for sound synthesis or later, when computers were easier accessible, his so-called "stochastic synthesis" (Gendy 3, S.709 > Disc V, Late Works). Xenakis’ first electroacoustic pieces (Disc I) like “Diamorphoses” or “Bohor” turned out groundbreaking works while the latter even caused, as Michel Chion put it, the “greatest scandal of electroacoustic music” on the occasion of its performance 1968 at the GRM in Paris.

His so-called „Polytopes“ (Discs II - IV) were overwhelming multimedia performances with especially designed architectures, laser and light shows etc. where sometimes up to several hundred loudspeakers were used to move the sounds in space. For example his most famous composition “Persepolis”, commissioned by the Persian Shah, premiered in 1971 in Shiraz- Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation.

The most radical aspects of sound can be found in Xenakis' late work and its merciless reduction to harsh, almost ruthless sound synthesis. In the early nineties, he devoted himself to the concept of a composing machine: a machine that designs everything independently and calculates the finished piece, the algorithm is the work.

For the first time, the complete electroacoustic works of Xenakis are now available on record the truly overdue testimony and legacy of a restless investigator and explorer of sound. Years of source studies and comparative research by zeitkratzer director Reinhold Friedl, in collaboration with sound engineer Martin Wurmnest, made these critically reflected stereo mixes possible, which were appropriately mastered by Rashad Becker and which, in addition to the aspect of fidelity to the source, put the listener in the center. Xenakis' adventurous music can now finally be enjoyed in its full sonic range and dynamic.

To quote The Wire’s review from May 2018:
“This is the definitive Persepolis“

14 tracks incl. 6 bonus tracks & 7 videos!

Quiet Sines, Meditative Drones, and Eternal Resonance' is a collection of selected, short excerpts of arrangements that originally appeared on zake's subscription series. [2020-2021]

“We have always been very fortunate to meet and know many talented producers. In recent years, we have been exploring those relationships with different remixes and collaborations, and every time something exciting came out. That’s why we started our Synchronicity project. To challenge ourselves making inspiring, fun and beautiful music.‘Synchronicity’ means "the simultaneous occurrence of events which appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. This very well describes how our path led to the place we are now – somewhere between the club and indie scenes.” – WhoMadeWho. Kompakt welcomes back Copenhagen’s WhoMadeWho. Tomas Barfod’s penchant for electronic music poetically juxtaposed with Tomas Høffding and Jeppe Kjellberg’s respective backgrounds in rock and jazz, gives their music an electrifying combination of sounds, merging a variety of influences to produce a unique sonic fingerprint that is emotive, irresistible and immensely satisfying.

Nach dem Welt-Erfolg der mittlerweile zum Klassiker avancierten Compilation Rio Baile Funk: Favela Booty Beats hat sich Daniel Haaksman noch einmal auf die Suche nach dem Funk aus Rio gemacht. Rio Baile Funk ist der Sound der Strassen von Rio de Janeiro's Favelas. Kickende Booty Beats mit portugiesischen Raps, Electro Breaks und ein nonchalantes, kreatives Spiel mit Samples, die jeden Rechtsanwalt um den Verstand bringen würden sind die charakteristischen Merkmale dieser aufregenden Musik. Baile Funk spiegelt Brasilien wieder, den großen Schmelztiegel, eine Musik, die Funk, Miami Bass, Electro, HipHop, Freestyle und Bastardpop mit einander verbindet.

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.

New music from Simon Green aka Bonobo is always an event, but when it heralds the arrival of a whole new album (his first since 2013’s “The North Borders”), it’s really something to get excited about. The masterful, magisterial “Migration” is Green’s sixth album and it’s a record which cements his place in the very highest echelons of electronic music and beyond.
It might be difficult to imagine it, but “Migration” will take his beautiful, emotive, intricate music to an even bigger audience. “My own personal idea of identity has played into this record and the theme of migration,” Green explains. “Is home where you are or where you are from, when you move around?” The personal, it seems, can also be universal.

classic 13 tracks plus full length bonus cd with alternate mixes and unreleased bonus material !

First part of the Drexciya re-issue series! Drexciya is one of the most influential techno project ever. Part of the heritage of Detroit's Underground Resistance, he explored techno music like no-one else before. The aesthetics and the mythical approach combined with the unique music made this one of the biggest cult projects in techno music. Drexciya arguably stands for the darker side of techno and electro.

First missive on new label from Simon Gabriel, late of 2 Bridges NYC, and Georgia’s Justin Tripp. Disarming and timely cornucopia of stateless, off-kilter tendencies. Cryptic puzzle of pop, tech, noise, bangers and outsiders. Nu-digital folklore, disembodied voices, Midi caprices. Through-line of vital currency. Designed to confound and excite. Early ‘00s slimline mixtape packaging, built for repeat plays.

•7" vinyl •Lyric insert •Blue and pink swirled 7" •Download card

Deadlife is back. Welcome home. A new album full of dark and emotional synth awaits you.

" Somewhere North West lies a body with zealous veins. On TV, “Afterlight Special”, a band of 5 friends venturing into the unknown of their rundown town. Because what else is there to do when you feel lost in the pipes, the gloom swallowing you as you attempt to illuminate the dark. You tell those close to you that you are a call away, whilst asking, “Who am I?”. Battling emotional barriers as you drive through bitter streets of hubris day after day. But the creature in me lives on, despite a series of dead ends week in, week out, missing those halcyon days in the home we know. Hallucinating fantastical lands with a needle in my neck. "

Included are electronic music works created by Hiroshi Siotani, the first technician of the NHK (nippon Hoso Kyokai - Japan Broadcasting Corporation) Electronic Music Studio. Works from 1955 ~ 1966.

Hajj's Dawn label returns with a limited CD drop from Modern Collaspe Recommended if you're into Youth & Bfdm.

Now on NRW! Mecha Maiko is back to blow you away with her most dance-oriented record to date. For Let’s! she has drawn inspiration from her favourite upbeat 90s dance and freestyle jams to create a sound that is uniquely hers. Aimed at a more DJ-friendly approach, these tracks will find a happy home on the dance floor.

Mecha Maiko has taken a stylized, deliberate approach to the writing process with hardware accompaniments that expand on the stylistic framework laid out in Okiya, released earlier this year. This record draws on the anxiety felt in a late-stage capitalist society and seeks to agitate that uncomfortable energy within us to shake us from our collective paralysis of shock. Inspiring, uplifting and motivating, these songs are unmistakably laser-lit dirges of the dystopia.

Xades (pronounced shades) is the newest creation of the DJ and cu- rator known mostly under MSJY. Whilst MSJY's DJ sets are known for their heavy bass drip and bouncy rhythmic darkness, Xades is an ode to the sweet latina soul hidden underneath the tiny powerhouse boun- cing behind the booth. Whilst it is certainly new to hear the voice be- hind the sound, MSJY has been spreading her music all over the world for more than 8 years. By using it as a portal to connect to people and interact with her surroundings, she enjoys exploring its various sound- scapes with a sharp mind, sensitive ear and a dedicated heart. The Dekmantel affiliated selector as well as former resident at Amsterdam's De School, Groningen's OOST and Berlin's Griessmuehle is known for thought- and playful sets that dig into bass and breaks adding dashes of her passed influences of trip hop and IDM.
As Xades, Jenny explores her voice and songwriting, extending her tentacles into different genres, serving a vulnerable exploration that transitions smoothly from dub, downtempo electronica and contempo- rary R&B. Her multiplicitous musical and cultural roots (Brazilian mother, Argentinian father, Swiss passport) seep through all the versatile layers of her sound. A perfectionist at heart, it needed a gentle push by her partner (in crime, music, and life) to find the confidence to share an al- bum that proves that finesse for depth and layer her long time listeners have always admired her for.

Featuring Remixes by acclaimed Atrice (Illian Tape), Coffintexts (Club Q), LUZ1E (VOITAX), Maroki (Lobster Theremin)

Amen Seat is music for anyone's inner insane teenage girl. This duo project from MCB & Wobbly (of Negativland), presents a wide pallet of agreeably disorienting sounds that lunge, shriek and panic their way into song-like shapes. If one must dance for a living, this is the album to set yourself on fire to, music to break up with yourself over — a message in a bottle from vocalist MCB’s younger self, reflecting the deeply personal and universal truths about the patriarchal institutions which shape our lives. Flutes, percussion, choral vocals and musique concrète flow together here to stare down the myths of the last two to five thousand years. The duo are joined by Jonathan Snipes of Clipping. (Sub Pop), Drew Daniel of Matmos (Thrill Jockey), Corey Fogel of Julia Holter's ensemble (Domino), Zeena Parkins, Craig McFarland, and Dominique Leone. This is Amen Seat's first album.

Programmed by footie-mad graphic designer/DJ, Andrew Lyster, ’Sports 3’ casts a wide net over work by Youth label friends and extended family with results limning a dead cranky conception of club music and blooz/beatdown pressure. All sharing a taste for texture that sounds like the masters were left to decompose for winter, the 16 cuts map odd gooches and ginnels of the contemporary soundsphere from the washed-out jazz reminiscence of Zesknel next to harder-to- place works such as the metallic cyborgian slug of ‘Driesh’ by Craig Birrel, or the groggy breaks of ‘Cocaine’ from HR For Drug Dealers. Pigbaby plays the game with a highlight of midnight keys on ‘Far From Home’, and we spy a zinger from Sockethead on the feral yowl of ‘Coarse Ground’, while Dave Saved keeps it slanted on ‘Abisso 66’ and into a super glum one by the still enigmatic Yugen Disciple. That sense of entropy also infects the set’s more energetic bits, as with the PointilisticT arp flight of ’T’ by S, and the drowning struggle of ‘When It Rains (It Pours)’ from Significant Other complementing the worn out acid trample of Iueke’s ‘Videoslash’ and Jessic*nt’s murky stealth bomb ‘Manic/Panic’. Rat Heart, Michael J. Blood x Sockethead unsurprisingly steal the show on the slow cymbal-crash blooz of ‘True’, and the album ends with Lyster’s own VIP of NW / HR tripped & screwed hardcore submersion.

Hot on the heels of their third album Forget The Curse (Mammas Mysteriska Jukebox, 2023), Fördämning Arkiv presents a Troth anthology compiling early non-album material and other odds and ends from the Australian duo. A massive 15-track retrospective, Uncut Flowers consists of the tracks from the Our Opaque Wreath cassette (Moontown Records, 2019), The Optimist (Essential Minerals, 2019), the Garland And Gauze 7" (Altered States Tapes, 2020) as well as various compilation contributions. 74 minutes.

"In evidence throughout is Troth’s penchant for capturing and collecting sounds from their environments, transforming field recordings, organic and non-organic sonic sources into textures of a palette that they then compose and improvise with. There’s a virtuosity of sampling and sound manipulation. The recurrent sounds from Besseny and Bowman’s intrepid field and bush explorations often verge on an indistinguishability between the synthesised and the concrete-organic. Permutated hand percussion or the throbbing of a waterfall; xylophonic melody or the tape loop of a bird call. The clank and tings of unidentified objects, matter itself writhing in the veggie garden. An environment starts speaking from iron gates in a paddock anywhere, close to the damp leaf and loam of a forest floor far below unseen birds and their cacophony of song and chatter. Tracks often collapse into a grey zone stretched between composition and improvisation." - Chris Colla

Digipack in an edition of 500 copies including a 8-page booklet with liner notes, photos etc. Mastered by Joakim Karlsson. Artwork by Charlott Malmenholt. Fördämning Arkiv 10.

* Available in three formats: Black Vinyl, Clear Vinyl, and 2CD * Brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from 1993-1996, originally meant as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain” * “The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive * Unlike the 2008 edition, the KontaktAudio edition contains the titlesong 'Backwards' * Mastered by Grammy nominated Jessica Thompson * Artwork by Ian Johnstone, licensed by The Estate of Ian Johnstone * 2CD version contains 8 additional tracks of previously unheard material from the same sessions * 2CD featured image below“The New Backwards” was conceived by Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson in 2007, revisiting stray tracks which hadn’t seemed to gel with the material he had chosen for the more somber “Ape of Naples” from 2005, Coil’s initial posthumous release, a sort of requiem and a kiss-goodbye to his then recently deceased partner John Balance. Significantly different to its sister release, this album collects the brilliantly chaotic and outrageously rhythmic material from the original sessions for the album that was begun as early as 1993 and had originally been conceptualised as the follow-up to “Love’s Secret Domain”. These songs are as diverse and wild as the places they originated from, partly infamously spawned in Sharon Tate’s former home in the Hollywood Hills, the Nine Inch Nails home base in New Orleans and London’s Swanyard, remixed and restructured with the help of long-term friend Danny Hyde in Thailand, this collection has its own unique flow and an atmosphere not found on any other Coil release. Both “ayor” and “Backwards” had by the time the album was first released already become favourites in Coil’s manic live performances. Some of the other tracks had only leaked in demo versions and are here presented updated and polished as Christopherson and Hyde intended them to be heard. It is interesting to consider Balance’s vocal contributions, too. Whilst on the albums Coil did release at the time this material was first put aside (“Black Light District” and “ElpH”) his voice is all but absent, his vocal performances and his lyric writing here are arguably more closely indebted to the previous “Love’s Secret Domain” era, especially the epic “Copacaballa” is noteworthy in that respect. The New Backwards” effectively became the final official Coil studio release of all new material whilst Peter was still alive and is here presented for the first time fully supervised by Danny Hyde, its co-creator. The stunning cover uses a detail from artist Ian Johnstone’s “Cubic Raven” painting, licensed from the estate of IJ.. It is high time to rediscover this timeless album with the Infinite Fog release boasting eight further tracks of previously unheard material from the same sessions, rough working stages and surprising remixes which will surely delight the dedicated Coil archaeologists, as they shine yet another light on the creative process and on what could have been. Recorded at Swanyard, London and at Nothing Studios, New Orleans, 1996. Thanks to everyone there, especially Trent Reznor who made it all possible. Written & Produced by Coil & Danny Hyde. Remixed by Peter Christopherson & Danny Hyde, Bangkok 2007. For that session Coil were: Peter Christopherson, Jhonn Balance & Drew McDowall. Mastered by Jessica Thompson. Front artwork by Ian Johnstone. Artwork licensed from The Estate of Ian Johnstone. Layout Cold Graves and Oleg Galay.

Peter Culshaw was described by Malcolm Mclaren as “the Indiana Jones of World Music” and has tracked down music from the Amazon to Siberia and lived with Pygmies in Central Africa and dervishes in Istanbul. Culshaw interviewed many of the greats including Fela Kuti, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, Caetano Veloso and Ibrahim Ferrer. His book Clandestino, now published in ten languages, was a biography/ travelogue on the road with Manu Chao. The result of decades of research is this, his first solo album. As a composer, his East-West group West India Company’s album New Demons, which featured Bollywood diva Asha Bhosle, was released by Editions EG , a label set up by Brian Eno. He has composed award - winning music for assorted dance companies and animated films. He wrote an “opera” recorded in Havana, to be released soon. Music From The Temple of Light was recorded mainly in Half Step Audio, in Mumbai with some of the most vital contemporary Indian musicians including Paras Nath on bansuri flute and Chandana Bala Kalyan on enchanting vocals. The music is a mysterious mix of East and West, ancient and modern, led by minimal tantric piano, objective, meditative music for a chaotic age. Other recordings took place in pre-war Odesa and it was mixed in London. It is the first part of a trilogy. The project was funded by the sale of Malcolm Mclaren’s classic Mercedes, which he left to Culshaw and some successful bets on Leicester City Football Club. The next release on Iskra in 2023 will be Aeroclube - an anglo-Brazilian fever dream. recorded in Salvador, Bahia. Music From THE Temple OF Light will be released on Vinyl, CD and digitally in March 2023, preceded by a trio of “singles”……

It seems unlikely that Where To Now Records would want to release something made in a shack on a river conservation property outside Melbourne Victoria. I've attempted to make the music that I hear in the dance clubs I dream about. I've never really been to a dance club.. but I'm trying to be sophisticated.” Club music reimagined in an off grid Australian floodplain, of course this is something we’d want to release. Thankfully the accompanying music to the above sentence submitted by Timothy Brown aka TKB is every bit as intriguing as you might hope. ‘Dream Nightclub’ is a truly downbeat and dubbed journey through murky and swamped fourth world bass ambience, and longing, freeform minimal electronics. TKB’s drum programming throughout is primitive, minimal, and unnervingly off kilter - shuffling its way through a world which waits… There’s a palpable sense of spirituality lurking low level below Timothy’s electronic works, where ambient scapes move from the deeply minimal, to the lush sublime, to the dense and agitated seamlessly, all underpinned with this submerged experimentalism - conversing with the still oddities which lurk the swamps and plains that consume Timothy’s day to day. “The floodplain below my house is full at the moment. It's serene with the mountains behind, but as soon as you step outside the air is throbbing with the sound of frogs…” Seeming to draw influence from the minimal pulse of Jan Jelinek, the fourth world ambience of Jon Hassel, and the open Dub experimentalism of Early On-U-Sound acts like The Missing Brazilians and African Head Charge, TKB has channeled these experimental strands into something truly dreamlike - a submerged trip which is shrouded in a dense fog…

As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies.

Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theatre practitioners & performance artists in India making music for theatre as well as curating shows & workshops with actors and performers from around India.

The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travellers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focussed on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concepts.

We at Hive Mind feel privileged to have worked with Seljuk to bring you these deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works which really do defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. Everything appears touched with a mischievous sense of playfulness that's maybe reflected in the face of the grinning camel that adorns the sleeve. We're sure you'll agree there's plenty to delight the listener on this strange dream of an album, Seljuk's first to receive a physical release.'

The CD version comes in a gatefold card digisleeve in an edition of 250 copies

Seljuk Rustum: Piano, Synthesizer, Sequencer, Acoustic & Electric Guitar, Saxophone, Voice, Percussion Sekhar Sudhir: Violin on Tracks 5, 7&8, Acoustic Guitar on Track 4, Mandolin & Melodica on Track 3 Akshay Ashokan: Electric Guitar on Track 4 Joffy Chirayath: Drums on Tracks 3 & 10 Cochin String Orchestra: Strings on Track 1 (Thanks to Duncan Roy Bruce)

Produced, Engineered & Mixed by Seljuk Rustum Tracks 9,4 & 8 Edited by Sekhar Sudhir Track 3 voice from the Alan Lomax Archive from recordings made in Kerala in the 1970s to document the Malayam language Track 2 was composed for BUS (a theatre performance Written & Directed by Firoz Khan

Album Art: Unknown Artist (found on the walls near Palayam Market, Kozhikode).

Modal Analysis proudly presents Het Zweet - Archives Volume 1: 1982-1988, a compilation of the Dutch outsider legend painstakingly picked from over 100 hours of unheard tape. An early electronic pioneer who deployed an array of homemade instruments alongside synths and a tape recorder to craft his searching sound, Marien Van Oers occupies a lonely branch on the tree of this music's early efforts, sliding between pounding industrial grooves, ambient fragments, and extended, entrancing compositions bridging this divide. Most closely akin to Muslimgauze, Test Dept. or Fad Gadget, who shared his outsider practice while remaining thoroughly entrenched in contemporary sounds, Het Zweet is striking for his diversity and for its meticulous composition, formed of carefully arranged layers of sonic detritus culled from his collection of homemade devices and electronic distortions. Finally rising to greater exposure since his death in 2013, Modal Analysis passionately continues this mission with our first volume of archives dedicated to the memory of this bold innovator gone before his time.

French electroacoustic veteran Lionel Marchetti returns to Room 40 with a special release composed in Australia and recorded telematically between three separate locations..

For his second Room 40 release following 2018's "The Last Days of Reality", Marchetti again collaborates with Aussie chamber ensemble Decibel. He worked out what he wanted to do in 2019 while visiting Australia, and devised a way of composing the piece that avoided a traditional score, instead working with conversation, listening and experimentation. After rehearsing with different instrumentation and imaginatively placed speakers, he adapted what he calls the 'partition concrète’ using his various studio techniques. But when he was due to record the final version of the piece, he was hit with a problem - Australia was in pandemic lockdown, and Marchetti was in France. So a special recording method was developed; some musicians were based in Melbourne, some in Perth, and Marchetti joined from Europe, everyone was connected via conferencing software that was adjusted to improve sound quality and latency.

Marchetti worked into the final recordings in his studio, adding the finishing touches and making sure it sounded as close to his original vision as possible. The final version clocks in at almost 37 minutes in length, and is as impressive as you'd hope from the story of its construction. Decibel's work from two different sides of Australia is at the center of the recording, but it's Marchetti's smart, restrained processes that have us coming back for more. If you're not completely concentrating you might miss it, but the small glitches and spacial effects that Marchetti provides gives the orchestral elements a distant charm. It's not completely acoustic music, and it's bending the possibilities of the sonic presentation just as Marchetti did with the recording process itself. He finishes off the album with a shorter two-minute composition recorded for Decibel's "2 Minutes from Home" project, a hand-scored piece that he wrote on crumpled paper using ink and white-out. Each member of the orchestra recorded their part separately in their own home, and the result is beguiling - otherworldly and tonally exhilarating without being overwhelming or overstaying its welcome.

Absorbingly paced and inventive electro-acoustic/concrète chicanery by Melbourne’s clarinet improvisor Aviva Endean, giving the ear something to chase with her micro-to-macroscopic proprioceptions.

Dynamically recorded across multiple spaces and hugely variegated in texture and tone, ‘Moths & Stars’ is titled for the artist’s attempt to zoom the ear’s eye between natural intimacy and the sidereal. Fucking with fundamentals of time and space she uses canny microphone placement and feedback systems to poetically mess with the listener’s sense of place and atmospheric pressure in a way crossing lines with the sound arts of Leila Bordreuil and Teresa Winter. In the process Aviva evinces a an underlying narrative by meshing and wrapping perceptions of the abstract with more palpably human vocal tones in a very instinctive and sensually haptic manner where it’s hard not to get wrapped up in the surprising folds and discreet dimensions she delves into.

“The microphones became extensions of my instruments, getting right up close to capture the microscopic, creating tones of feedback which captivated me, or zooming out to capture multiple acoustic spaces. My recording and composing process became more intuitive and explorative, another form of play. I could start creating and see where the piece would take me, and notice how new relationships were formed as I folded multiple time/spaces in and over each other.

Sometimes I would begin by gleaning sounds from my archives, and listening to how they could be reimagined and transformed alongside the discoveries my microphones and instruments were finding. In ‘Nightwork’ I wanted to find a way to revisit some microtonal humming that I had recorded for a sound design project, and then discovered the Leslie speaker as a way to spin my bass clarinet sound around the microphones, creating bass tones emerging as waves out of the densely layered pitches. Sometimes a new instrumental fascination, such as the e-bows and magnets on ‘Mirror Signals’ or the binaural microphone feedback on ‘Moths & Stars’ would call for me to find further layers of clarinets and field recordings to be woven into their story.”

Subtly hallucinatory, Burroughsian field recording collage by CM Von Hauswolff and Eric Pauser’s Phauss, stitching abstract meta-narratives from the ether of mid ‘80s Switzerland, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Pakistan, India, Thailand, The Philippines and USA, Morocco, Algeria, Niger, Benin and Nigeria, with assistance of engineer Zbigniew Karkowski. Reissued for first time in 35 years.

“Audiodrome collects together two discreet works that sit somewhere between field recording, chance composition and experimental soundscape. Both pieces pre-date the widespread arrival of field recording as a creative practice, and expand outward the work that had been developed by musique concréte and other experimental music approaches concerned with the intersections of found sound and composition. Both works were devised using the same working methodology, whereby an alarm would sound every few days and wherever and whenever it sounded the pair would start recording their surroundings. Those raw material became the basis for the pieces.

The first composition Zürich - Zürich is a piece that traces a line around the world, Phauss travelling on a round the world air ticket stopping only in countries where conflict was present. This unsettling journey became a meditation on the evolving state of the world in those moments. Voices, traffic, cafes, radios, transportation system and other incidental environments float into one another in a kind of stream of (temporally incongruous) consciousness.

The second work Alger - Lagos brings to mind some of Brion Gysin and William S. Burroughs tape cut-ups. Street musicians are splice against bursts of radio, roadside conversations and searing blasts of industrial noise captured from aircraft and other unfamiliar sources. It is an unsteadying journey where even the sounds of the everyday feel alien and repositioned. The sounds call to us prompting a sensing that is at its heart utterly fascinated, and fascinating.

The edition includes a book featuring an exhaustive collection of photographs, documents and artworks made by Von Hausswolff and Pauser during their journeys undertaken to complete each of the compositions. Many of these images and artworks have never been published previously.”

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."

No 226/4000. A couple if scratches in front cover.

Heralded by the “Soul Drum” 12” EP (scep507, 2022), Gerardo Frisina’s new double record “Joyful Sound” represents another step forward on his ongoing travel towards new musical paths. Joyful sounds narrate a journey made of wisely distilled notes, bright and sometimes mysterious atmospheres, harmonies that wander through shadows, silences, and lights. A chameleonic Gerardo enchants with every release, mixing jazz, Latin, Afro-Cuban sounds, oriental fragrances, electronic beats, tribal percussions, funky variations and, to summarize, elegant symphonic arrangements with refined mastery. “Joyful Sound” once again sees the participation of the late Enzo Frassi (double bass), Fabrizio Bernasconi (piano, Rhodes), Gendrickson Mena (trumpet, piano), Alfonso Deidda (sax, flute) and Ernesto Lopez (drums, percussion), with the addition of Piero Perelli on drums and Giovanni Guerretti on piano, Hammond and Rhodes. This new record, carefully orchestrated and produced by Gerardo, required over a year of intense work, however it is worth every second of its 75 minutes of music. As the great Charles Mingus once said, “Play it in the key of your soul”. Without a doubt, Gerardo always gives his soul in full!

теплота is the London-based duo of Grundik Kasyansky & Tom Wheatley. Their work interrogates the haptic, social and liberating relationships with technologies old and new; using feedback synthesizer and computer-acoustic bass, they fuse a spontaneous interplay orthogonally over cyclical structures, with techno as perpetual fulcrum.

Following their debut Heat/work on Cafe Oto’s TakuRoku label and the monthly ЭС research series, Skynned will be landing on Accidental Meetings. A match made in heaven with the forward-thinking label a perfect fit, adding to their already esteemed catalogue. Half techno, half free jazz, the music is both hypnotic and open-ended, relentless and ephemeral.

Accidental Meetings return with their yearly compilation, dark, mysterious and full spectrum bangers this time round DJ Support SO FAR from: Ben UFO, Shy One, Surgeon, Danielle, OKO DJ, 96 Back, Laksa, Solid Blake, Yushh, Giant Swan, Ciel, Ziur, Om Unit, Jon K, Lena Willikens, Stenny + more.

Eka Faune offers a surprising mix of Asian cultures, shamanism and post-punk in the form of a record called Healing of the Nation. The band merges dark mantras, hypnotic rhythms, ethnic samples and the acid sounds of Seika Faune. Delphine Poupard's voice and Robin Plastre's sax are added to produce a haunting music, dark and luminous at the same time, alternating dance and trance, taking the listener far inside... Similarly to the other albums by Eka Faune, Seika first recorded his drums and sounds machines as well as his sampler-sequencer in one take. Then he added the instruments and voices. Sax, bass, sarod, tambourine and vocals accompany loops captured on the streets of Delhi, the mountains of Asia or old acid house vinyls.

Eka Faune is a musical project based in Nantes, France, initiated in 2014 by the artist Guyseika. The project evolves under the influence of guitarists, cellists, singers or dancers who join the band for a concert, a recording, a tour - or more. Over the years, Amélie from Breedz Insane, Steph from Modules Étranges, Budwarrior or Vincent Roy, have taken part in the project. Recorded in 2021, the album Healing of the Nation is a deeply thought-out answer to the crisis we are all going through. It offers a way to heal from it: sounds coming straight out of a feverish cave located between the Himalayas and Detroit bewitch us into quite a trip.

Esteemed ambient auteurs, zake and ossa's collaborative output continues to soothe and delight in equal measure. After Syntheticopia in August 2022 and the dark long-player 'A Pale Shelter' in 2021 between zake, ossa, and City of Dawn comes Module, a collaboration that includes seasoned electronic producer Ruben A. Tamayo, under the alias FAX. The power trio brings forth an eight-track excursion into heavy ambient atmospheres with moody soundscapes and a real weight of melancholy. As always, the textures are grainy and lo-fi, the drones long-held, and the chords which poke through the clouds, bring subtle rays of hope and optimism. It is the latest and maybe the greatest chapter in this ongoing story from zake and ossa with featured collaborators.

Esteemed ambient auteurs, zake and ossa's collaborative output continues to soothe and delight in equal measure. After Syntheticopia in August 2022 and the dark long-player 'A Pale Shelter' in 2021 between zake, ossa, and City of Dawn comes Module, a collaboration that includes seasoned electronic producer Ruben A. Tamayo, under the alias FAX. The power trio brings forth an eight-track excursion into heavy ambient atmospheres with moody soundscapes and a real weight of melancholy. As always, the textures are grainy and lo-fi, the drones long-held, and the chords which poke through the clouds, bring subtle rays of hope and optimism. It is the latest and maybe the greatest chapter in this ongoing story from zake and ossa with featured collaborators.

Music for Real Airports is a series of exciting live art events and installations in art galleries/spaces that are artistic response to the reality of occupying the semi-public space of an airport, and a contemporary reply to Brian Eno´s work from the 70s. Produced by musicians and artists with an international reputation - the Black Dog and Human - the project will portray airports as they really are, rather than idealised utopian vision of what they should be. Combining performances of electronic music and live-mixed animation and digital video projected on multiple screens, Music for Release Airports will be a unique, immersive experience that will draw in new audiences to art galleries.

Sought-after Belgian minimal synth finally reissued.

They were interesting times, the early eighties. Against a backdrop of cold war and economic crises, the DIY attitude of the earlier punk movement had spawned near countless new genres where artists and bands broke the three-chord guitar mould and experimented with new content matter, singular song structures and – in many cases – new instruments. Synthesizers became affordable and were no longer the sole privilege of rock millionaires. All around the globe, musical creativity boomed as never before, and Belgium was no exception: Digital Dance, Snowy Red, The Names, Pseudocode, Marine, 1000 Ohm, De Kommeniste, M.Bryo & D.M.T., De Brassers, Struggler, Siglo XX are but a few legendary names of bands and artists who started making a name for themselves.

In Leuven, things were happening as well. Until then, the music scene in this rather provincial town had been dominated by straightforward rock and blues acts. Not for much longer, though: in places like Arno'z and (later) The Gladhouse, where young budding artists met with kindred spirits, bands were often formed on the spot and, more importantly, started to make ripples.

Ludo Camberlin and Karel 'Bam' Saelemaekers already had a certain track record in Leuven's burgeoning music microcosm. But what they shared would become the cornerstone of A Blaze Colour (Against The Dark Trees Beyond): a fascination for new forms and instruments, a penchant for sonic adventure and a profound love for gripping songs. The full band name, by the way, was inspired by a phrase from the Irish-American novelist J.P. Donleavy, a writer who belongs in the definitely-worth-checking-out section.