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* 300 COPIES FOR UK/EU* With a friendship stretching back nearly 20 years, it strangely ended up being a couple of childhood photographs that finally brought Ben Chasny and Rick Tomlinson together as collaborators. Both have rich musical backgrounds: Chasny being a member of the psych-rock outfit Comets on Fire but probably best known for his solo project, Six Organs of Admittance, while Tomlinson has released numerous records as Voice of the Seven Woods/Thunders and under his own name. “A mutual acquaintance, Jamie Tugwell, took me to go see Rick play live around 2005,” remembers Chasny. “Jamie kept saying how Rick was sort of an ornery fellow and that I would like him a lot. He was right. I loved his guitar playing right away, which seemed so far from what a lot of players were doing. We had drinks and hit it off. We remained friends over the years.” Chasny became a regular visitor to Tomlinson when on tour in the UK and one particular stay unearthed something serendipitous that would kickstart the making of a joint album. “I was staying at Rick’s house after a show and I looked over and saw a photo of him in a Halloween costume as a box of matches,” Chasny recalls. “It cracked me up because I have a similar photo of me as a robot and I tried to explain to him how it matched his photo.” About 6 months later Chasny found it and sent it to Tomlinson to show him the uncanny likeness of their childhood outfits. “Pretty soon after that we realized we needed to do a duo record and have those photos be on the cover,” says Chasny. “The entire record comes from the photos on the cover.” Tomlinson adds: “It was a pretty odd coincidence. Even down to us both standing on flags with a conifer behind us. We obviously had no option but to use these for the sleeve.” Recorded at Tomlinson’s house in Todmorden over three days one June, initially the pair didn’t quite know where they wanted to go with their musical direction. Tomlinson kept pulling out super rare records from his vast collection for inspiration and they sat and listened to the solo piano recordings of Popol Vuh’s Florian Fricke but they knew they needed to land on something that was intrinsically them. “We knew we wanted to do a record together but we weren’t sure what direction to take,” says Chasny. “When we first sat down to work out some ideas it was pretty much just us getting down to finally having a guitar showdown where each of us tried to outdo each other with flashy moves and ridiculous riffs and playing. After we got that out of our system, we were able to settle down and concentrate on a mood for the record to focus on.” The result is 6 instrumental tracks that capture beautifully fluid and interlocking guitars played with deft grace and skill but also a subtle looseness. On the 9 minute-plus ‘Wait For Low Tide’, the sparse and spacious back and forth playing becomes utterly hypnotic, neatly capturing the kind of natural and intuitive playing that can only come from music made between friends who understand the crucialness of leaving space for one another. While acoustic guitars are the primary means of expression on the record - from the soothing and gentle ‘i’ to the intricate playing of ‘Waking of Insects’ - the pair delve into ambient drone tape loop territory on the humming 16 minute ‘Paths of Ocean Currents and Wind Belts’, which further adds to the deeply textural, spacious and immersive feel of the album. All the tracks were recorded in one take, with the titles all stemming from translations from the Chinese book, The Dream Pool Essays, and then mixed in London at Jimmy Robertson's SNAFU studio, with additional mixing and mastering from Andrew Liles. The laid back, breezy and spontaneous approach to making this record is one that was reflective of the pair’s friendship and camaraderie, with their relationship ultimately driving the tone and feel of the finished album. “We hiked around the countryside, climbed into church bell towers, drank delicious beer in the middle of sunny afternoons, and had fantastic dinners,” says Chasny of the three-day recording period. “I think all of that wound up in the music. I really had the best time in the world.

New INDEX:Records transmission comes courtesy of Texan vibist Gi Gi. Trodding his own path of introspective, nu-age-infused ambient scapes and trip-hop-laced downtempo divagations, Gi Gi eases us in a distinctively soothing headspace. A self-driven, immersive audio bubble engineering a polychromatic mix of organic field-recording, exotic dub shades, lushly textured envelopes and smooth loungey jazz accents.

From the A1, “The Lower”, a steady-churning combo of retro-stepping UK dynamics, 90s-schooled atmospheric dub and low-slung, LA beat-style swagger, down to the verbed-out summer pop of “Sinews” featuring Hysterical Love Project, Gi Gi puts on a riveting synthesis of seemingly distant varietals.

On “Maiolica”, the mystique-imbued power of drums and shadowiness of the bass collides with the faux-organic vibrancy of singing robot birds; “Pyxis Glint” shows off an ambiguously feverish ASMR-like temper with its tightly woven web of chimey Andean melody and straight out Rephlex-fashioned escapism, whereas “Palm Slick” heads for further exhilarating heights through Hassellian brass flights a la “Blues Nile" and breaksy off-piste, all set at buckling a few knees along the way.

A full-fledged, soulful trip-hop number disguised in matching neo-vintage camo, “Lilted Song” treats us to a fulfilling blend of bleached pads and FX-laden slo-mo percussions swaying with a strong couldn’t-give-a-damn attitude. Gi Gi coming up with the mind trip.

Foghornia is the sequel to Tapani Rinne's previous album Radioton, which was received well by both critics and fans last year. It will be the second album to be released on the Signature Dark label, first digitally and later on vinyl.

The musical basis of the new album remains the same as earlier, consisting mainly of bass clarinet and electronic soundscapes. However, this time Tapani Rinne dives deeper into melancholic waves all the way to the depths of dark ambient.

The current state of the world has influenced the music of Rinne as well, while some of the songs are based merely on personal experiences and memories. The track Kirjurinluoto for example could be heard as the soundtrack of Tapani’s childhood hometown Pori, known both from its industrial nature as well as the home turf of internationally acknowledged Pori Jazz Festival. Tapani says ”The song is dedicated most of all to the festival and its two founders, Tapani Kontula and Jyrki Kangas, who both deceased during the last years. Without their influence i would had never made this particular album neither.” Another track, Confirmation, was originally composed for the confirmation ceremony of Tapani’s nephew. As often within art that makes strong impression, private things mold into public and vice versa. "Music is not a separate island of its own but a part of everyday life", Rinne describes.

Drop a needle on Psyché's debut album and you'll see visions, or rather Mediterranean visions, be they of waves of heat shimmering above dunes of sand, or of women dancing around a bonfire on a rocky plain, or of bushy cliffs overlooking emerald-green and turquoise sea. The name Psyché is of course ancient Greek for 'soul' or 'mind', signifying the band's love of psychedelic funk, but also the wide range of Mediterranean influences – from Southern Europe to the Balkan Peninsula, and from Anatolia to the Maghreb – that provide an endless source of inspiration for their hypnotic sound and minimalist style.

Psyché members Marcello Giannini (Guru, Nu Genea, Slivovitz), Andrea De Fazio (Parbleu, Nu Genea, Funkin Machine) and Paolo Petrella (Nu Genea) have been active in the Naples music scene for almost two decades, most notably during the first wave of the new Neapolitan Power movement (Slivovitz, Revenaz Quartet). Over the years they have often crossed paths and collaborated on side projects in various genres (math-rock duo Arduo and, more recently, synth-pop duo Fratelli Malibu), before working together as the rhythm section of Nu Genea's live band. Following their first tour with Nu Genea in 2018, they started Psyché with the intent of exploring more minimalist styles and making music with just a few elements.

A unique combination of psychedelia, groove and improvisation, the music of Psyché goes back to the roots of our future; it evokes visions of a mythical past, blending centuries-old music traditions and mixing them with modern genres. Like a warm Mediterranean breeze, it travels across lands, seas and eras, distilling essential rhythms and cosmic pulsations.

The album's opener "Kuma" (titled after the first ancient Greek colony on the Italian mainland, now an archeological site near Naples) is like a vibrant, magical wave. With its deliberately simple harmony and sharp guitar riffs, it travels across the Mediterranean from Italy to North Africa, first lapping gently on Greek and Turkish shores – with some compositional elements reminiscent of Italian pop legend Lucio Battisti – and then speeding up and landing on the driving, syncopated rhythms of afrobeat. While listening to it your eyes fill with images of small white houses shining in the sun, of fig trees heavy with fruit, of spice bazaars and colourful medinas, and you can almost feel the desert wind blowing in your hair.

The journey continues with two examples of Psyché's bold and elegant approach to contemporary afrobeat and cumbia fusion: "Cumbia Mahàre" and "Amma". The former combines minimal synths and exhilarating rhythmic patterns of drums, percussion, guitar and bass, drawing us into the movements of an imaginary ritual dance (the term mahàre was used in Southern Italian dialects to indicate witches). Next is the cinematic and mysterious ambiance of "Angizia" (a snake goddess worshipped by the Marsi in ancient Italy), another fascinating mixture of different sonic traditions and cultures where hip-hop/funk drums are blended with Maghreb influences, Balkan echoes, and hypnotic, Theremin-like synths that have sort of a sci-fi movie quality to them.

The title track "Psyché", with its uptempo afro-rhythms, ethereal vocalizations and refined percussion, is almost a manifesto of the band's style and confirms the freshness of their minimalism, which is not afraid of taking in the sun of lands confined between the sea and the desert. The following "Manea" (named after the Roman-Etruscan goddess of the dead) is an afro-funk number with smooth and introspective dreamy jazz touches, and with an arrangement dominated by a guitar that, dripping notes like drops of water, creates a delicate, cinematic sound. Next, we come to "Hekate" (the Greek goddess of magic, witchcraft and crossroads), a track that fuses psychedelia, spacious Latin guitars and a fast, tight groove. The album comes to a close with the exquisite melodic ballad "Kelebek", which seamlessly combines hip-hop drums and dreamy guitars, and whose warm, flowing sonorities and evocative atmospheres conjure the image of a butterfly (which is what kelebek means, in Turkish) floating over the Mediterranean and, from there, the world.

Mysterious Belgian experimental electronics duo Suumhow returns with their third album, Years Failed Successfully.


The album opens with the duo's signature melodicism and broken glitched-up beatwork. It then ebbs into more sinewy territory with swaths of pulsing static and overarching widescreen vivid ambiance. It's new ground for the duo that displays some rather aurally fitting symbolism to the state of the pandemic era, with ambient music on the edge of hysterical hope and arrested emotions.


It's a gripping album that displays fine detail in its coarseness and somehow relief in its muted melodicism. When things seem like they might be getting too ominous, the duo boomerangs the listener back to their harmonious and glitched-up world as a means of much needed escapism.

Fresh out of high school, Hannah Jadagu released her debut EP, What Is Going On?, a collection of intimate bedroom pop tracks recorded entirely on an iPhone 7, which was, at the time, Jadagu's most accessible mode of production. An off-the-cuff approach to music making and instinctive ability to write unforgettable hooks belied the intensity of Jadagu's subject matter. What Is Going On? confronted some of the nation's most urgent struggles through Jadagu's compassionate perspective. What Is Going On? built on the small online fanbase Jadagu had developed by releasing music on SoundCloud for years as she realized her growing passion for songwriting. Now, Jadagu is releasing Aperture, her first LP and most ambitious work to date. Written in the years between graduating from high school in Mesquite, TX and her sophomore year of college in New York, Aperture finds Jadagu in a state of transition. "Where I grew up, everyone is Christian; even if you don't go to church, you're still practicing in some form," Jadagu says, laughing. "Moving out of my small hometown has made me reflect on how embedded Christianity is in the culture down there, and though I've been questioning my relationship to the church since high school, it's definitely a theme on this album, but so is family." As a kid, Jadagu followed her older sister - a major source of inspiration - to a local children's chorus, where she received choral training. "I hated it," Jadagu admits. "But it taught me how to harmonize, how to discover my tone, how to recognize and write melody." The aching single "Admit It" is dedicated to Jadagu's sister, whose love and impeccable taste have been a constant since Jadagu was a kid. The siblings were raised on mom's Young Money mixtapes and the Black Eyed Peas (to whom Hannah credits her love of vocoder) but it was in the sanctity of her sister's car that Jadagu discovered the indie artists who inspire her work. With Aperture, Jadagu faced the challenge of finding a co-producer capable of complementing her work without dominating it. Enter Max Robert Baby, a French songwriter and producer who captured Jadagu's attention with his take on Aperture's lead single "Say It Now." The duo worked remotely, sending stems to one another via email, before meeting in-person for the first time at Greasy Studios on the outskirts of Paris. "When I recorded my EP, it was all MIDI, but in the studio Max and I worked with a ton of analog instruments," Jadagu says. "Every track on this album, except for 'Admit It,' was written first on guitar. But the blanket of synths throughout helps me move between sensibilities. There's rock Hannah, there's hip-hop Hannah, and so on. I didn't want any of the songs to sound too alike." An aperture is defined as an opening, a hole, a gap. On a camera, it's the mechanism that light passes through, allowing a photographer to immortalize a moment in time. For Jadagu, the word perfectly encapsulates the mood of her debut album. In the years it took her to complete, she faced moments of darkness, sure, but the process of making it was ultimately a cathartic experience, one she now shares with you. Let the light in.

Tape

Fresh out of high school, Hannah Jadagu released her debut EP, What Is Going On?, a collection of intimate bedroom pop tracks recorded entirely on an iPhone 7, which was, at the time, Jadagu's most accessible mode of production. An off-the-cuff approach to music making and instinctive ability to write unforgettable hooks belied the intensity of Jadagu's subject matter. What Is Going On? confronted some of the nation's most urgent struggles through Jadagu's compassionate perspective. What Is Going On? built on the small online fanbase Jadagu had developed by releasing music on SoundCloud for years as she realized her growing passion for songwriting. Now, Jadagu is releasing Aperture, her first LP and most ambitious work to date. Written in the years between graduating from high school in Mesquite, TX and her sophomore year of college in New York, Aperture finds Jadagu in a state of transition. "Where I grew up, everyone is Christian; even if you don't go to church, you're still practicing in some form," Jadagu says, laughing. "Moving out of my small hometown has made me reflect on how embedded Christianity is in the culture down there, and though I've been questioning my relationship to the church since high school, it's definitely a theme on this album, but so is family." As a kid, Jadagu followed her older sister - a major source of inspiration - to a local children's chorus, where she received choral training. "I hated it," Jadagu admits. "But it taught me how to harmonize, how to discover my tone, how to recognize and write melody." The aching single "Admit It" is dedicated to Jadagu's sister, whose love and impeccable taste have been a constant since Jadagu was a kid. The siblings were raised on mom's Young Money mixtapes and the Black Eyed Peas (to whom Hannah credits her love of vocoder) but it was in the sanctity of her sister's car that Jadagu discovered the indie artists who inspire her work. With Aperture, Jadagu faced the challenge of finding a co-producer capable of complementing her work without dominating it. Enter Max Robert Baby, a French songwriter and producer who captured Jadagu's attention with his take on Aperture's lead single "Say It Now." The duo worked remotely, sending stems to one another via email, before meeting in-person for the first time at Greasy Studios on the outskirts of Paris. "When I recorded my EP, it was all MIDI, but in the studio Max and I worked with a ton of analog instruments," Jadagu says. "Every track on this album, except for 'Admit It,' was written first on guitar. But the blanket of synths throughout helps me move between sensibilities. There's rock Hannah, there's hip-hop Hannah, and so on. I didn't want any of the songs to sound too alike." An aperture is defined as an opening, a hole, a gap. On a camera, it's the mechanism that light passes through, allowing a photographer to immortalize a moment in time. For Jadagu, the word perfectly encapsulates the mood of her debut album. In the years it took her to complete, she faced moments of darkness, sure, but the process of making it was ultimately a cathartic experience, one she now shares with you. Let the light in.

Harte Gitarren gepaart mit emotionalen Gesangsdarbietungen und pointierter Melancholie: Mit "Red Light Habits" wandeln die aufstrebenden Jungs von BIRD'S VIEW auf den Spuren von Bands wie Foo Fighters und Turnstile.
Das Quartett beeindruckt mit einem Debüt von höchster Qualität, das Alternative-Rock-Liebhaber rund um den Globus begeistern wird.

"Red Light Habits" ist das Debüt der neuen deutschen Überflieger BIRD'S VIEW. Die vierköpfige Rockband ist eine messerscharfe Truppe junger, fesselnder Musiker, die darauf brennt, klangliche und ideologische Grenzen einzureißen! "Red Light Habits" enthält 13 frische Alternative-Rock-Songs bei denen man heraushören kann, wer die Jungs musikalisch geprägt hat. BIRD'S VIEW ist aber auch eine Band, die es trotzdem verstanden hat, dabei unverkennbar zu klingen und ihren ganz eigenen Style in ihr Werk einfließen zu lassen.
Dieses Debutalbum wird mit Sicherheit einigen Staub aufwirbeln und sollte in keiner Plattensammlung fehlen!

Harte Gitarren gepaart mit emotionalen Gesangsdarbietungen und pointierter Melancholie: Mit "Red Light Habits" wandeln die aufstrebenden Jungs von BIRD'S VIEW auf den Spuren von Bands wie Foo Fighters und Turnstile.
Das Quartett beeindruckt mit einem Debüt von höchster Qualität, das Alternative-Rock-Liebhaber rund um den Globus begeistern wird.

"Red Light Habits" ist das Debüt der neuen deutschen Überflieger BIRD'S VIEW. Die vierköpfige Rockband ist eine messerscharfe Truppe junger, fesselnder Musiker, die darauf brennt, klangliche und ideologische Grenzen einzureißen! "Red Light Habits" enthält 13 frische Alternative-Rock-Songs bei denen man heraushören kann, wer die Jungs musikalisch geprägt hat. BIRD'S VIEW ist aber auch eine Band, die es trotzdem verstanden hat, dabei unverkennbar zu klingen und ihren ganz eigenen Style in ihr Werk einfließen zu lassen.
Dieses Debutalbum wird mit Sicherheit einigen Staub aufwirbeln und sollte in keiner Plattensammlung fehlen!

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, black vinyl, ltd 250, insert

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, aqua blue/ white splatter vinyl, ltd 250, insert

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, black vinyl, ltd 250, insert

High Roller Records, reissue 2023, orange/ white splatter vinyl, ltd 250

Bevor Surf Curse am 7. Oktober ihr neues Album " MAGIC HOUR " veröffentlichen, lassen sie uns ein Selbstporträt von sich da - in Gestalt ihres neuen Songs. Geschrieben von Surf Curse und produziert von Chris Coady liefert "Self Portrait" einen weiteren
Eindruck des kommenden Albums "MAGIC HOUR".

Zuvor hatten bereits energiegeladene Singles wie "Lost Honor",
"TVI" und die Power-Pop-Hymne "Sugar" Lust auf das neue Werk gemacht, dem insgesamt vierten der US-Platin-ausgezeichneten Band aus Los Angeles und zugleich ihr Debüt bei Atlantic Records.

Für die Aufnahmen ihres neuen Albums "MAGIC HOUR" begaben sich Surf Curse in die heiligen Hallen der Electric Lady Studios in New York City. Ausgehend von ihrem bewährten Indie-Rock-Ansatz, erforschen Surf Curse in den neuen Songs eine größere Bandbreite an Klangstilen und -farben als je zuvor in ihrer knapp zehnjährige Bandhistorie. Mit dem Album feiern zugleich zwei neue Bandmitglieder ihren offiziellen Einstand, Noah Kohll und Henry Dillon . Die neue Besetzung ermöglichte es Surf Curse, ihr ohnehin schon ambitioniertes Songwriting-Handwerk in ganz neue Höhen
zu treiben.
Die Spanne reicht dabei von glühenden Songs wie dem Album-Opener "Arrow" bis hin zum schwermütigen Bluesrock von "No Tomorrows".

After the mind blowing success of Witchcraft's Legend (2012), mastermind Magnus Pelander outdid himself once again with the band's 2016 offering Nucleus. Combining what made it's predecessor the modern classic it quickly became as well as elements of the band's earlier days makes Nucleus a melancholic, raging, fragile, melodic and at times noisy masterpiece filed somewhere between classic rock, doom and ambient music. With a renewed line-up (Rage Widerberg on drums and Tobias Anger on bass) the band sounds more hungry and powerful than ever. In combination with the thrilling, yet very down-to-earth production by Pelander, Philip Gabriel Saxin and Anton Sundell, Nucleus throws you in dreamy sonic landscapes that will mesmerize and haunt you alike. Svart Records are proud to release an official reissue of this album on black and limited green vinyl on May 19th

After the mind blowing success of Witchcraft's Legend (2012), mastermind Magnus Pelander outdid himself once again with the band's 2016 offering Nucleus. Combining what made it's predecessor the modern classic it quickly became as well as elements of the band's earlier days makes Nucleus a melancholic, raging, fragile, melodic and at times noisy masterpiece filed somewhere between classic rock, doom and ambient music. With a renewed line-up (Rage Widerberg on drums and Tobias Anger on bass) the band sounds more hungry and powerful than ever. In combination with the thrilling, yet very down-to-earth production by Pelander, Philip Gabriel Saxin and Anton Sundell, Nucleus throws you in dreamy sonic landscapes that will mesmerize and haunt you alike. Svart Records are proud to release an official reissue of this album on black and limited green vinyl on May 19th

Power, Pain, Privilege is Specimens fourth album & most personal work to date, it follows up on his collaboration album ‘Intersections’ with Peter Broderick, Benoît Pioulard, Midori Hirano & Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch.

Power, Pain, Privilege is a commissioned piece by London’s Southbank Centre and is an abstract sonic exploration of biracial identity, in its historicity as well as through the lens of Ives’ own personal experience of being British-Jamaican. The album is a departure from his largely ambient work and explores haunted and twisted dancehall rhythms, industrial drones, and spoken word pieces that track a course through painful incidents of imposter syndrome, shame, privilege & racism.

The album opens with a computerised robotic voice reading excerpts of the 1930s Fletcher Report: “an Investigation into the Colour Problem in Liverpool and other ports” a report which heavily stigmatises children and mixed heritage families of African and European origin. It could be deemed the official outset in defining Liverpool's ‘half castes’ as a problem and blight to the “British way of life”. Ives’ states “this track sets the tone to the album, the cold analytical and dehumanising approach to reports like this, whilst over 80 years old set the standard for viewing biracial families and to have used a Human voice to recite these pieces of text would have been to give it too much life”

The album is accompanied by a film directed by the photographer & director Lucie Rox which was live scored at The Southbank Centre in London and in Paris at 3537.

Vinyl release compiling both Nukuluk EPs on one LP. Curating their own unique sound and captivating crowds with their refreshing approach to hip-hop, electronica and indie, Nukuluk return with their new EP ‘SUPERGLUE’ on 21 April. The writing and recording process has never been executed in a conventional style for the group, a series of laptops and bedrooms manifesting the groups’ studio, aspiring to a fundamentally collaborative process as they piece their separate parts together in ever surprising ways. Respective members lead through a variety of formats, bringing a demo, a motif or concept in what can be a deeply stimulating process, ensuring the sound is ever-evolving. The EP acted as an educational vehicle that held the group together as they learned how to overcome certain challenges, and hold it together as one, hence the title SUPERGLUE. It presents a fractured journey and chaotic growth of five individuals trying to create the new together; honest vulnerable expression married with complex soundscapes, pulling from whatever genre feels natural and trying new combinations of internal collaborations in the group. The release spans genres from hip-hop to alternative rock, ambient to metal, dance music to r’n’b in what the band note as: “a kaleidoscope of sonics, songs, beats, noises and stories lurching between vulnerability and bravado, as a body of work growing in all directions at the same time.” Their latest single ‘I Just Wanna Luv U’, the follow up to the high octane ‘Covered In Gold’, marks a charged change of pace; an introspective, meditative trip-hop piece, with creeping synths, electronic drums and gruff vocals transitioning into acoustic guitars, live drums and rap verses. It tells the story of wrestling with childhood trauma, isolation and self-acceptance. Vocalist/producer Syd Nuku explores an eerie modern condition before conversing with an inner child’s trauma and memory - “be slow kid, go and take a place below the ceiling where it won’t fall”. The accompanying video was co-directed by Luke Kulukundis (Syd Nuku) and Iso Attrill, and takes reference from the likes of Michel Gondry, Charlie Kaufman and David Lynch. Nukuluk are Monika, Syd, Mateo, Louis and olivia. Entirely self made the collective successfully blend genres and styles to reach new spaces through a broad range of influences (including JPEGMAFIA, Jockstrap, SOPHIE, Wu-Lu and Yves Tumor as well as esteemed groups like Massive Attack, Portishead and Gorillaz). Formed in the midst of lockdown, the collective played their first show in July 2021 before releasing their debut EP DISASTER POP to critical acclaim in November, which subsequently led to multiple festival appearances and a 3-night sold out residency at Bermondsey Social Club in 2022. Their release campaign was littered with videos and creative visuals that were constructed by the collective and its extended family of artists - this multifaceted creative output of the group making them a unique prospect; directing and producing their own videos, exploring many avenues of creation and trying to exist in a unique contemporary DIY space. With nods across the spectrum of the music media – including The Quietus, CLASH, NME, Ransom Note, DIY, DORK, So Young and many more – Nukuluk are steadily carving out their own space in the British leftfield.

„Intentions“ eine musikalisch-spirituelle Reise über Wachstum und Emotionen - zusammen Mercury KX veröffentlicht ANNA ihr Debut Ambient-Elektronik-Album und eröffnet den Blick auf eine melodische und weitläufige Klanglandschaft, die mit Klangheilungstechniken, tanzbaren Beats, binauralen Beats und ANNA auf Flöte und Synthesizer verschmilzt und ihre Emotionen kanalisiert.

Auch enthält es Kollaborationen mit dem legendären Ambient-Pionier Laraaji und zeitgenössisch-klassischen Musiker East Forest sowie Remixe des Electronica- und Techno-Produzenten Max Cooper und Grammy-Preisträgers Jon Hopkins.
Seinen Ursprung hat ANNAs „Intentions“ jedoch hauptsächlich in der Meditation. So experimentierte sie mit Klängen und Frequenzen der Klangheiltechniken und ergänzte diese mit Erfahrungen aus Natur sowie ihrem Leben als solches.

180 Gram Vinyl Following the success of the 2021 reissue of Ambient Warrior’s cult classic Dub Journey's (1995), Isle of Jura is pleased to present their unreleased second album, II. Born from the same oceanside fusion of instrumental dub, reggae, bossa nova and tango music that made Dub Journey's so distinctive and memorable, II is an equally sublime collection of eleven unheard tracks from the brilliant minds of Ronnie Lion and Andrea Terrano.

Evoking the delights of white sands, palm trees and sunsets, all set against clear waters and endless blue skies, Dub Journey’s and II document the golden moment when Ambient Warrior came together during the mid-90s to create some of the most Balearic Dub ever made. “Music is the greatest traveler, isn’t it?” says Ronnie. “It gets to places the actual artists can’t even get to really.”

The son of an orphaned Jamaican jazz trumpet player and professional boxer who enlisted in the military after stowing away on a boat to London, Ronnie grew up between Germany, Singapore and the UK before becoming a working musician in his mid-teens. A bass player by trade, he honed his skills playing in a series of soul, jazz-funk, blues, rock and reggae bands that performed throughout the UK.

By the time Ambient Warrior released Dub Journey’s, Ronnie and his business partner Ras Joseph were running the Lion Inc. recording studio and record label in Brixton, London. Having set up distribution arrangements with Roots Records (UK) and Semaphore (DEU/NL), they recorded and released a series of singles, compilations and solo albums from a who’s who of roots reggae artists, including Twinkle Brothers, Delroy Washington, Michael Prophet, Alton Ellis, Little Roy, and Ronnie’s own band The Amharic. “Lion was a regular port of call for visiting Jamaican artists,” reflects Ronnie. “When you were in London, it was on the route.”

An accomplished guitarist, producer and recording engineer from Trieste, Italy, Andrea grew up listening to Russian folk, Klezmer and the Italian harmony tradition in a Sicilian-Ukrainian family. After completing compulsory Italian military service, he moved to London to continue studying music. One night, he turned up at Lion Inc. and approached them about running audio engineering classes from the studio.

In Andrea, Ronnie found a collaborator who shared his desire to create borderless music that reflected the diversity of their backgrounds. “I wanted to do something that had no boundaries,” Ronnie explains. “If you’re working on a roots album, it has to sound a certain way, but with Ambient, especially in the nineties, it was just a license to let off. You could do whatever you wanted to do.” “It was a melting pot of influences like London itself,” adds Andrea.

Although they wrote most of II at the same time as they were recording Dub Journey’s, it took them several years to finish off the album. “Things never got done quickly,” Ronnie remembers. By the time it was complete, Roots Records had gone out of business, leaving Lion Inc. without UK distribution. Not long after, their Brixton studio flooded, bringing the label to a close.

These days, Andrea continues to work as a session guitarist, recording engineer and producer in London. Over the last two decades, he has collaborated regularly with Basement Jaxx and released several solo albums. Ronnie, on the other hand, lives on a boat equipped with an onboard studio, where he has recorded a series of oceanic dub albums off the British coast. Twenty-eight years after the release of Dub Journey’s, he recently started working on demos for a third Ambient Warrior album he hopes to record with Andrea in the not-so-distant future.

Artwork By Bradley Pinkerton.

Total Annihilation Beach is the latest collection from Caveman LSD, one of the handful of monikers of Special Guest DJ / uon / sometimes just shy. Their releases under this name have always had the character of sonic transmissions – crushed sine-waves hurtling out of a wormhole, remote pirate radio bandwidths, whale-song picked up on radar, and so on. Here, the signal seems to come from a place whose remoteness is not defined by distance, but adjacency: these are alternate reality bops.

What does it sound like? Kind of solarpunk, but dirty; not at all an artifact from a hopeless culture. Percussion at the forefront; warm timbres and tones – never have I heard this producer play with tabla and tambourine loops as they do in “Lost Hours,” the opening track of the EP. The buildup holds tension and dynamics tight, with a vocoder-smoothed moan – sampled from the caveman’s own voice, on the low – alternating between two notes; when the beat decompresses for the first time two and a half minutes in, one hears the amorphous and cavernous pads we know so well from shy. “Bottle Service Angels” picks up with another acoustic drum loop, and a clap entering 18 seconds in swings the rest of the track into your hips – there’s even an alternate percussion interlude

sandwiched in the middle. The drums are turned over by a distorted and delayed wave, almost like a cop siren, which finds an answer in the track’s final seconds: we hear them blaring, but distantly (the demo version of this track, from spring 2020, was called “ACAB Beat”).

The B side begins with a textured, heaving slab of ambience: “The Sun Will Sink Into the Ocean.” It is perhaps the sun one sees setting over “Total Annihilation Beach” – a phrase that came to shy while tripping on LSD in San Francisco, which felt to them like a post-apocalyptic haven for the rich. Seems on point. There is a machinic repetition to the track, but also sweeping curtains of sound that move like mist. But what comes at nightfall? Not cops, not raiders nor bottle service angels – nothing, actually. Just a void into which one lobs praise. “H6 Remix” adapts a Mesopotamian hymn to the divine wife of a moon deity, dated to 1400 BCE; the strings of the sampled oud playing it out are rich and trail beautifully with reverb. Caveman LSD’s gesture of remixing such a song reads sincere – the reality we inhabit is likely just as brutal as the one to which these transmissions belong; however, in both, honor exists. Love follows.

This two-track release by Perko on Numbers is the Glasgow-born, Copenhagen-based artist’s first release for the label since 2020’s The City Rings. Poking his head out of the foxhole of his solitary FELT imprint for a pair of productions featuring Huerco S. and Cucina Povera, “Prang” highlights Perko’s commitment to natural collaboration as a creative ideal.

“Prang” is a long-simmering dancefloor cut that was torn down and rebuilt alongside Huerco S. during a joint residency at HeimA in East Iceland in late 2022, capturing the immense scale of those surroundings and the accompanying isolation. The result is an undeniable club record – an unexpected but welcome result from the two producers – with ratcheting tension and acute impact that doesn’t sacrifice psychedelic detail.

The dust from this anxious energy settles in the ambient “Sisu.” Created via remote collaboration with Cucina Povera, her voice has a powerful resonance with the spacious production, offering a tonal reset from the A side. The wordless vocals are luminous in an otherwise foggy track, which was developed alongside Perko’s friend and collaborator Aethers Spring.

Suited for dancefloor peaks and calm mornings after, “Prang” reflects the pursuit of collaborative energies and intentions that combine to succeed as more than the sum of their parts.

After last year's release on Shall Not Fade, Paul Rudder & Kresy are back - this time on Exploited for the infamous Black Jukebox Series.

‘Along With You’ bounces along with plenty of feel-good energy, channeling ‘90s energy with its thicc bassline pump and an earworm of a sugar-sweet vocal. Well-chosen vox cuts create an infectious rhythm in between the full vocal sections while soft synth arps tickle the surface of the track and epic snare rolls inject more energy in the breakdown and at key moments. Guaranteed to get massive reactions. Kresy’s Continuum Mix takes things into a lighter direction with gorgeous, sunny piano chords chiming in unison with a driving, uplifting bassline and pretty synth flourishes.

‘Her Dream Road’ pushes the EP into almost ambient house territory with its swirling pads and deep atmospheres, but the energetic percussion and warm bassline throb and melody give it plenty of dancefloor energy. Kresy’s Mellonized Remix pumps it up with plump organ bass, dreamy acid licks, soaring arpeggios, continual automation and epic pad progressions that make for an absolutely huge rework that’s full of life, atmosphere and colour.

Josh Dahlberg is The Valley and the Mountain aka TVTM and is an artist who has made a big move recently from the deep westside of Detroit all the way across to the far reaches of the Pacific Northwest. He he arrives on Central Scientific for its inaugural release with Detroit-based producer and Akka & BeepBeep founder, Jo Rad Silver, taking care of the flip. Next to an array of hardware, there is plenty of improvisation with guitars in this EP - 'Experiment Obscura' is a widescreen and dramatic ambient cut with a meditative feel and 'Immersion Theatre III' is another empty but inviting piece with curlicues, wispy pads, distant guitar echoes and moodiness to spare.

LTD ORANGE COLORED

Das Debütalbum des Queer-Alt-Rock-Duos Arxx aus Brighton enthält neben den Singles 'Call Me Crazy' ft. Pillow Queens und 'Couldn't Help Myself' (bbc Radio 1 Introducing Track of the Week) auch die neueste Auskopplung 'The Last Time', produziert von Steve Ansell (Blood Red Shoes) produziert und gemastert von Katie Tavini (Arlo Parks). Der Song, ein ansteckendes Paket bittersüßer Emotionen, hüllt den Hörer in eine einfühlsame Decke aus kathartischer und doch ambivalenter Post-Herzschmerz-Wärme ein, indem es mit lyrischen Dissonanzen spielt und Gefühle von Niedergeschlagenheit, Selbstmitleid und Akzeptanz gegenüberstellt.

First-ever reissue of the 1988 album. Gatefold LP includes new and restored artwork and a chapbook, featuring forty-eight pages of lyrics, essays, photographs, and Gordon's extraordinary drawings for each song. The Choctaw, Assiniboine, and Texan poet, journalist, visual artist, American Indian Movement activist, and musician Roxy Gordon (First Coyote Boy) (1945-2000) was above all a storyteller, known primarily as a writer of inimitable style and unvarnished candor, whose wide-ranging work encompassed poetry, short fiction, essays, memoirs, journalism, and criticism. Over the course of his career he recorded six albums, wrote six books, and published hundreds of shorter texts in outlets ranging from Rolling Stone and The Village Voice to the Coleman Chronicle and Democrat-Voice, in addition to founding and operating, with his wife Judy Gordon, Wowapi Press and the underground country music journal Picking Up the Tempo. Along the way he cultivated close friendships with fellow Texan songwriters such as Lubbockites Terry Allen, Butch Hancock, and Tommy X. Hancock, as well as Ray Wylie Hubbard, Billy Joe Shaver, and, most famously, Townes Van Zandt, whom he called his brother. Although his work covered a vast array of topics exploring strata personal, local, global, and cosmic alike, Gordon's primary subject as a writer, musician, and visual artist was always American Indian culture, specifically the ways it collided and coexisted with European American culture in the South and West-and within the context of his own life and braided identity. The ten songs on Crazy Horse Never Died, his first officially released and distributed album, were recorded in Dallas in 1988. "Songs" is perhaps an imprecise taxonomy for what Roxy captured on this and his other albums, all of which remain out of print or were released in instantly obscure limited editions of homebrew cassettes and CD-R's. (Paradise of Bachelors plans to reissue remastered, expanded editions of his catalog; Crazy Horse is the first.) He only occasionally attempted to sing, and his musical recordings are primarily corollaries of, and vehicles for, his poems. His sharp West Texan drawl, tinged by formative years of reservation living in Montana and unmistakable once you hear it-high, lonesome, flat, and cold-blooded as a bare rusty blade-instead patiently unfurls in skewed sheets of anecdotal verse and discursive narrative rants. Although Gordon's music at times incorporated powwow style drumming, fiddling, or unaccompanied ballad singing, the majority of it hews to an idiosyncratic spoken word style, accompanied by atmospheric, sometimes synth-damaged country-rock that skirts ambient textures and postpunk deconstructions. His songs are essentially recitations over backing tracks of finger picked guitars, rubbery washtub bass, and buzzing, oscillating keyboards. On the stark yellow and red jacket of Crazy Horse, which he designed himself, Gordon describes these recordings as innately ambivalent in terms of form, content, and identity: These are poems and/or songs about the American West, white and Indian. My life has been Indian and/or white. Maybe there's not a lot of difference-maybe. I guess that's mostly according to which white person or which Indian you're talking about. That's probably what this album's about. Crazy Horse Never Died comprises songs that span the personal and political arcs of his writing practice and the poles of his native and white ancestries.

Gatefold Green Vinyl Double LP with design by Dian Vandermeulen, the popular Canadian visual artist
(limited edition cassette version will be released by Not Not Fun).

Between December 2018 and 2019, Stefana Fratila embarked on a series of research trips across North America (including to NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and NASA Goddard Space Centre), meeting with astronomers and scientists in order to address a complex question: “If each planet in our solar system were a different room, what would each room sound like?”

Her ongoing creative research culminated in Sononaut, eight open-source VST plug-ins created for digital audio workstations (DAWs) that emulate the atmospheric conditions of the planets in our solar system (made in collaboration with artist and coder Jen Kutler, using calculations by NASA astronomer and planetary scientist Dr. Conor Nixon).

Her forthcoming album I want to leave this Earth behind is the sonic extension of her creative research.

In her own words: “The album is conceptual, in that it centres on outer space exploration and my understanding of 'Crip futurity'. My vision is for the album to engage listeners in an exercise of imagining the sounds of interplanetary atmospheres– conditions which are inherently unlivable, unbreathable, converting all human body-minds into disabled-bodied-ness. Since I identify as Crip, or disabled, this idea deeply resonates with me. I am the first artist (a disabled producer/musician, no less) to have worked with NASA researchers on a sonic imagining of the solar system’s atmospheres that incorporates real scientific data. If we are all 'disabled' in (or by) outer space, my music is concerned with propelling all listeners into space, leaving Earth behind them, through my music.”

The solar system’s planetary bodies are inherently prohibitive even in regards to Earth’s most ‘able-bodied’ subjects. Her project seizes upon a form of radical agency and science-fictive ambition, placing all human subjects within new worlds, into the interplanetary bodies of our solar system, through her own sonic imaginings.

The album will be released by Toronto-based label Halocline Trance (Casey MQ, myst milano, ACT!).

During a 2019 residency at CMMAS (Centro Mexicano para la Música y las Artes Sonoras) in Morelia, Mexico, Fratila began writing the album on an octophonic sound system (8 planets = 8 speakers).

Afterwards, from her home studio in Toronto, she recorded additional synthesizer parts, finalized arrangements, and incorporated Sononaut (her 8 solar system VST plug-ins) into the album’s production. The album was recorded, written, and produced by Fratila. She worked with mixing engineer Jeremy Greenspan (Jessy Lanza, Caribou, Junior Boys), as well as mixing engineer Lisa Conway and mastering engineer Sage Kim.

Underlining each track is a five-minute soundscape representing the weather on that planet, based on Fratila’s research at NASA. The weather patterns are interwoven with layers of synths and time-stretched samples.

There are very few disabled femme electronic artists gaining exposure in Canada today.

'Hold Sacred' ist für das amerikanisch-britisch-deutsche Trio Esben And The Witch ein mehrfacher Neustart. Die Songs entstanden an einem Rückzugsort bei Rom und sind atmosphärisch, fast spirituell, grüblerisch und sanft, fast Ambient, ohne Live-Schlagzeug, während die Instrumentals aus einfachen, spärlichen Gitarren und Tasten bestehen. Aufgenommen ohne externe Produzenten und Tontechniker ist es eine Reminiszenz an frühe Tage, als E&TW ihre Songs im Schlafzimmer aufnahmen. Nach dem Ausflug zum französischen Metal-Label Season Of Mist mit schweren Post-Punk- und Metal-Texturen erscheint das neue Werk wieder auf dem eigenen Imprint Nostromo Records.

LTD BLUE COLORED

Das Debütalbum des Queer-Alt-Rock-Duos Arxx aus Brighton enthält neben den Singles 'Call Me Crazy' ft. Pillow Queens und 'Couldn't Help Myself' (bbc Radio 1 Introducing Track of the Week) auch die neueste Auskopplung 'The Last Time', produziert von Steve Ansell (Blood Red Shoes) produziert und gemastert von Katie Tavini (Arlo Parks). Der Song, ein ansteckendes Paket bittersüßer Emotionen, hüllt den Hörer in eine einfühlsame Decke aus kathartischer und doch ambivalenter Post-Herzschmerz-Wärme ein, indem es mit lyrischen Dissonanzen spielt und Gefühle von Niedergeschlagenheit, Selbstmitleid und Akzeptanz gegenüberstellt.

"Alles glänzt" - Das neue Album von Feine Sahne Fischfilet erscheint am 12.05.2023.

Vor fünf Jahren erschien das letzte Album von Feine Sahne Fischfilet, mit dem es die Gruppe aus Mecklenburg-Vorpommern erstmals weit nach vorne auf Platz 3 in die Charts schaffte und im Anschluss das, was man landläufig den "großen Durchbruch" nennt.

Die darauffolgenden Jahre waren sie konstant auf Tour. Feine Sahne Fischfilet nahmen ihre Hörerinnen und Hörer in den Arm, wenn es brenzlig wurde. Und es brannte eigentlich immer. Alles war dabei: Ernüchterung, Suff, Spaß, Agitation, Vernunft, Randale und Exzess. Und weil sich die Band auch immer wieder politisch einmischte und aneckte, ist Ärger bis heute vorprogrammiert und vielfach Dauerzustand. Nazis, AfD und auch lokale und überregionale Rechtsausleger jeglicher Couleur legten der Band immer wieder Steine in den Weg.

Um all diesen Wahnsinn, all diese Ambivalenzen, all die guten und all die schlechten Tage geht es in den Liedern ihres neuen Albums "Alles glänzt", große Songs zwischen Gefühl und Härte. Und auch eine der besonderen Stärken von Feine Sahne Fischfilet kommt auf dem neuen Werk voll zur Geltung: Immer wieder überqueren sie musikalische Grenzen und machen so ihren Uptempo-Punkrock zu einem facettenreichen Hörvergnügen, das nicht nur die Beine, sondern auch die Herzen ihrer Fans bewegen wird. Produziert hat die 12 neuen Lieder von "Alles glänzt" Philipp "Philsen" Hoppen, der u.a. für seine Produzententätigkeiten für Die Ärzte, Kraftklub und K.I.Z bekannt und gefeiert wurde.

Murmer is the long-standing project for Estonian field recordist and composer Patrick McGinley, and in Tether, The Helen Scarsdale Agency welcomes Murmer back to our roster, over a decade since he graced us with his last production for the Agency. His field recordings often center upon the amplification and activation of resonance from a particular space, landscape, or object. Such sounds emerge from a condition as begin fleeting, inconsequential, or ephemeral and explode into that which alien, sublime, and profound. Here lies the tremendous prowess of the contact microphone, as wielded by an accomplished musician! The source material cited by McGinley includes cables, fences, wires, and vents.

There is a heft to many of these sounds as heard throughout all of "Taevast" with deep throbbing pulsations from arctic wind generating subharmonic patterns upon thick high-tension wires. Elsewhere the subtle dissonance from a rasping cooling fan blooms into a brooding ambience that is sublimely rich in its metallic timbres and complex reverberations. McGingley has long been an exemplary artist in the field of phonography even as he is less prolific than others. On Tether, he has produced a majestic if occasionally foreboding work on par with the mythic wire recordings of Alan Lamb, Jacob Kirkegaard's haunted resonance from Chernobyl, and much of the Touch catalogue for that matter!

Patrick McGingley on Tether:

In 2006, I made a collection of recordings at a mobile phone mast in Mooste, southeast Estonia. It is a guyed tower, 80 meters tall, affixed to 3 support points with heavy cables. I attached my self-made contact microphones to these cables with poster tack, and spent many hours over several weeks recording the various wind and weather variances (it was summer), and the birds that passed or settled on the tower or cables. This was one of my first visits to estonia, where i now live, and one of the things that marked me about that experience was the access: the tower had no fences or protections around it (I have not been back there recently to answer my own question of whether or not this is still the case); it stands in the middle of a field of tall grass along a dirt road in the countryside, just out of view of the few nearby houses, and during all the hours I spent there I was never disturbed or shooed away.

For more than 16 years, I have been thinking about this location and these recordings, and have made several attempts to work with them. I have used the sounds in installations a handful of times, and uploaded one short edit to the Aporee soundmaps, but have never managed to use them in any composed work. They always seemed too big for any structure I could provide them, whether I left them on their own, or partnered them with other sounds. Finally, in 2019, after putting them down and picking them up again repeatedly over so many years, they seemed to allow me in, although it took me another few years before they were happy with what I could offer. They stand now not quite alone - the majority of the layered sounds in the piece come from various edits of those cable recordings, but I added two other contrasting sounds, related to one another: one is snowflakes landing delicately on a plastic cakebox with microphones inside it, and the other is a frosted field of grass thawing on a lightly warming autumn morning (both these recordings can also be heard on their own on the Aporee maps).

Coming back to those cables brought to mind so many other wind-driven sounds that I had spent time with and recorded, but never returned to, that I began digging through my archives looking for them. I ended up with a pool of sounds from resonant wires, cables, fences, poles, fans, and vents, which became the basis for the 2nd work on this release. One of these sounds is among the first sounds I ever recorded, possibly within a month or so of buying my first microphone and minidisc recorder: the rhythmic fan of a beer cooler in a pub where I worked in North London in 1999. Other sounds in the piece include another phone tower, recorded on the northern coast of France in 2008, a telephone pole recorded in the Beaujolais region in 2010, the drone of ventilator fans at a factory in Tezno, Slovenia in 2012, an electric sheep fence in the Scottish borders in 2013, a hanging wire in a storage space in Rovaniemi, Finland in 2016, and, with no relation to cables or wind at all, calcium deposits being cleaned from the inside of an electric kettle here in Estonia in 2019.

I offer these two new pieces as my first solo publication since 2018, the first release on a physical medium since 2016. No one has ever accused me of working too fast, or being too prolific. I have a need, it seems, to leave a physical space of time around my work, before I can consider it 'finished'. Perhaps it is a simple need to forget how I did something, or that I did something; perhaps I have a need to be able to hear a work as a first-time listener would, before I can consider it ready for such an encounter. In some part of my mind I have to forget it before I can let it go. Well, I've just about forgotten that London beer cooler now, and that walk in the Beaujolais (with my father, who has since passed away), and that sheep fence next to our campsite in the borders, and that kettle that is now leaky. So I guess it's time.

Having emerged as a luminary of the Los Angeles Beat Scene, MatthewDavid immersed himself for several years in the rich, neglected, and all-too-often-derided archive of New Age sound/culture, stewarding a kind of New New Age sensibility into being. Mycelium Music constitutes a synthesis of these aesthetics, an alchemical marriage of sorts, in which the digital and the organic, the earthen and the aethereal, the bloom and the rot all collide and coexist. How might the Mycelium sing? Where other sound artists might be tempted to capture the phenomena, reaching for a field recorder, MatthewDavid responds with a succinct, impressionistic, and diaristic suite of “songs” (although, as with the mycelium itself, one cannot easily distinguish where one song/organism ends and another begins). Leaving Records founder Matthewdavid announces his new album Mycelium Music, his first proper full-length since 2018. The first single to be taken from the album 'Liquidity', was created as a direct response to ambient pioneer Laraaji encouraging Matthewdavid to innovate zither music. Beautifully textural, Mycelium Music constitutes an alchemical marriage in which the digital and the organic, the earthen and the aethereal, the bloom and the rot all collide and coexist. The record is a product of serious contemplation on the meaning, the problems, and the promises of interdependence.

FOR FANS OF: LOUNGE-MUSIC, PACHA, AMBIENT MUSIC.
Sommer, Sonne, Ibiza-Feeling: IBIZA BEACH BEATS ist die ultimative Chill-, Relax- und Lounge Music Compilation im LP-Format; gepresst in schneeweißem Vinyl. 24 Tracks, emotionale cool-down Klänge für Ibiza-Lovers.

Electro and acid breaks, smooth or hard, 140 or 160 BPM... whatever, all tunes brings a global newskool sound and ambiance...
BIG UP !

Offering a three track EP on Token, emblematic UK producer James Ruskin proves his capability and linear focus once again through 'From the Ashes'. Looking past trends to create a lasting record rich in texture and thick with impact, the project affirms what the scene has already known to be true about his work for the past 25 years.

Setting his intentions from the A1, Ruskin wastes no time by creating an intimidating introduction. Saturated percussion and stuttering keys whip through a 4 minute masterclass of sound system focused production. Adventurous in structure, Ruskin remains unquestionably in control of a bursting, almost chaotic track. 'From the Ashes 2' picks up what was left off, containing a hard-set groove with hi hats slithering in progressively from the stereo image to slightly destabilize an impressive club-heavy tool. With intricate work being done in the ambience, the EP's hard hitting second track booms through a cavernous acoustic, giving the record not only body, but dimension. Switching up the rhythm and focusing on more mental synth work for the third act, Ruskin quickly and mercilessly rips through his work with a shrill pad, creating overwhelming tension to be released in the first third of the recording. He brings a dosed dissonance between his elements, reflective of the qualities of vintage techno with today's capabilities and arrangement. Pushing intensity through waves, Ruskin leaves us in anticipation of a fourth track that is never given.

Irish-born, Manchester-based Kerrie is a multi-disciplinary artist, incorporating live sets, DJing, producing and running her label Dark Machine Funk across her repertoire of work. Now, Kerrie follows up last year's 'Raw Regimen' (BP063) with a second EP for James Ruskin's seminal Blueprint Records.

Having garnered a rich musical education through working at and holding a DJ residency for one of the UK's most respected record shops Eastern Bloc, Kerrie's in-depth knowledge and unwavering dedication to music shines through her notable back catalogue and bolshy, unforgiving DJ and Live sets. Honing her craft for over a decade, Kerrie has played worldwide in celebrated venues such as Tresor, Berghain, fabric, FOLD, Elsewhere NYC and festivals including Freedom Medellin, Freerotation, Drift and Basilar.

First learning to mix via her brother's turntables in the early 2000s, it wasn't until 2009 that Kerrie invested in her own set-up and built an extensive record collection, covering everything from ambient, electronic, house, EBM, acid, electro, and her go-to genre, techno. Kerrie delivers tough moods from the turntables, as conveyed in her mixes for Reclaim Your City, Bassiani, SLAM and Crack, where she carefully blended high-energy styles of UK, Detroit, and European techno, many of which stem from the 90s and the 00s. It's frequent to hear Kerrie weave broken elements into her mixes too, chopping up the 4/4 groove at just the right moment to keep things propulsive. Kerrie's Live sets are fast becoming renowned for their trippy motifs and high impact on the dancefloor, applauded by Berlin's long-running club Tresor, where she made several appearances with her Elektron machines. Kerrie's Live set at Freerotation in 2019 was one of the festival's most talked-about debuts, and this year, Kerrie will return to and debut at multiple festivals and clubs across Europe and the Americas.

Following well-received releases on labels such as Don't Be Afraid, Cultivated Electronics, I Love Acid and Symbolism, Kerrie launched her imprint Dark Machine Funk DMF in 2020. The label homes her distinctly raw aesthetic and honours her love for dark, gritty, metallic and industrial sounds melded with elements of funk, heavily influenced by second-wave Detroit artists, UK techno and music by some of her favourite artists; James Ruskin, Blawan and Surgeon. Kerrie's first release on DMF, 'Inner Space PT1', was praised by Resident Advisor, who credited her ability to make "lean, fierce techno that knows how to groove."

2022 was a watershed year for Kerrie's productions. She debuted on the monumental UK techno label Blueprint with her EP 'Raw Regimen', which landed acclaimed reviews. Truly welcomed to the Blueprint family, Kerrie shares her second EP on the label in May and joins the crew at Blueprint showcases around the globe. This year marks the release of Kerrie's 10th EP on vinyl, and considering her consistent output on DMF, Blueprint and many more labels, the producer shows no sign of slowing down.

Coming to international prominence in more recent years, regardless of her decade-long tenure in Manchester's vibrant scene, Kerrie is deeply invested in the culture of electronic music, starting from her teenage era as a raver in Ireland up to her innovative projects today. In 2017, she founded Eastern Bloc's in-house event space to nurture local talent, which remains at the heart of Manchester's music community. Having ended her 11-year stint at the shop in 2023 to fully commit to the studio and accommodate her increasingly busy tour schedule, Kerrie is forging a long-lasting path fuelled by drive, passion, authenticity and a community-first way of thinking.

Since relocating to Brazil some years back, Needs Music co-founder Lars Bartkuhn has returned to his long-held love of musical improvisation. Although it’s a product of his jazz roots and classical training, the German producer has constantly found new ways to apply it to his work in the sphere of electronic music.

‘Dystopia’, his first solo album for almost nine years, was born out of two interlinked ideas: a desire to create improvised music without the aid of computer sequencers or an electronic drum set, and a deeply held love of storytelling through sound. Bartkuhn set to work improvising with modular synthesizers, acoustic instruments and hand percussion, later adding light-touch overdubs to a handful of pieces. When he listened back to the recordings, an aural narrative emerged, and you’ll hear it if you listen to the album from start to finish, as is intended.

As you’d expect from a musician and composer of Bartkuhn’s undoubted ability, ‘Dystopia’ is a stunning album – an undulating, expansive ambient journey packed with emotional resonance. While Bartkuhn naturally sees it as a logical progression of his previous ambient-leaning work with Kabuki as The First Minute of a New Day (and particularly their self-titled 2020 album Séance Centre), ‘Dystopia’ also features subtle nods to many of his long-held musical loves, including John Hassell’s ‘fourth world’ recordings, the impossible-to-pigeonhole 1970s catalogue of deep jazz imprint ECM, and the far-sighted American minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich.

The album’s emotional depth is evident early on, with the slow-burn title track – all bubbling electronics, billowing chords, clarinet-style notes and gently strummed guitars offering the most melancholic and bittersweet of openings. The becalmed ‘A Drop Of Water In The Ocean’ follows, with discordant aural textures and hand percussion mimicking the rolling ocean, before ‘Largo (Calm Before The Storm)’ hints at unsettling times ahead.

‘Water and Warm Air’, the only track on the album whose starting point was not Bartkuhn’s cherished modular set-up, bleeps and bubbles across the sound space, adding a starry and otherworldly slant to proceedings, while ‘Disembodied Journey (Parts 1, 2 and 3)’ is a sublime, slowly unfurling journey in three movements – all Tangerine Dream style synthesizer motifs, Pat Metheny-esque guitars and jazz-fusion instrumentation.

So the album continues, with the poignant warmth and looped motifs of ‘Still Existing’ and the sparse, dubbed-out minimalism of ‘Do You Know How To Get Out?’ – a kind of 21st century jazz-fusionist’s take on sparse electronic hypnotism – giving wat to closing cut ‘Into The Waves’, a gentle combination of undulating electronic arpeggios and echoing instrumentation that offers a hopeful and undeniably picturesque conclusion.

Fittingly, the album cover features a painting by the late Dutch artist Franz Deckwitz (1934-94), whose images of alien landscapes were used by Phillips on a series of music concrete compilations. The image featured on the cover of ‘Dystopia’, depicting a deep blue ocean and shoreline, was painted by Deckwitz in Amsterdam in the late 1970s and inspired by a trip to the island of Ponza, Italy.

Matt Anniss

Essex-based trio Statues have made their presence felt with a string of impressive singles for a variety of labels from Sweden's Lovely and Plastic Idol in the US. Here they offer up their timely summer breezer 'Clear Skies' with crystal cleat synth lines evocative of John Carpenter or Tangerine Dream powered by a simple but effective groove. Coyote Ambient are the first of two guests invited to remix it, and theirs is more of a classic 90s chillout reworking, while Vendetta Suite combine a similar vibe with some soaring solar guitars and live drums. Another original from Statues, 'The Creek ', completes the package, with arpeggios melded with organic voices and guitars.

Fittingly, Control Freak's first full length LP comes from the artist who launched our imprint near-on 4 years ago. Keplrr’s ‘Petra’ is a remarkable entry into the canon of contemporary ‘non-functional’ techno.

After a string of acclaimed EPs and singles, the South London-based DJ/producer brings his unique ear for sound design to the forefront across his debut album, a continuous piece with many recurring musical themes and motifs. Drifting between dream states and the psychedelic, ‘Petra’ sees Keplrr set aside the rigid constraints of club music and delve deep into the wells of the subconscious.

The album moves deftly through styles: meandering ambient/downtempo pieces, including a collaboration with classically trained Jazz singer Livi Graham, to the deep & techno-influenced ‘Two Prophets Lay Here’, reaching its crescendo in the IDM-inflected ‘Celestial Body’.

For fans of: Call Super, Leif, Koreless, Perila, Lorraine James.

Voice Magnetic by Hainbach is the enigmatic Berlin based artist’s sonic diary of 2022. On his sixth release on Seil Records, Stefan Goetsch collages the sounds he made and the ones that surrounded him over the course of twelve months into a powerfully intimate ambient experience.

In his studio or on travels — Hainbach always is working on new material and allows the locations he records his tracks in to find their way into the music. Consequently, on many tracks you can can hear the outside bleeding in — seagulls and waves on "Izmir", the voices of his children while record the piano or the sirens of Neukölln’s police cars in background.

The connecting threads between these pieces are magnetic tape and the human voice — hiss and breath. The result are 15 immersive ambient pieces that make up Voice Magnetic. Often short like the moments that spark them. Fading and intricate, honest and pure.

Based out of Berlin, Germany, electro-acoustic music composer and performer Hainbach creates shifting audio landscapes, using esoteric synthesizers, nuclear test equipment, magnetic tape and a collection of idiophones. Hainbach has become known for his immersive live shows and an unique sound that is both abstract yet very much a corporal experience. Otherworldly and intimate, raw and heartfelt. On his wildly popular YouTube channel, Hainbach shares his love for experimental music techniques and his passion for forgotten machines with a wide audience. Inspiring over one hundred thousand each week to explore synthesis, electronics - and to leave beaten paths.