Cerca:flux

A radiant manifesto of artistic freedom, fLuXkit Vancouver (its suite but sacred) brings together a composition in four movements written and performed by Jones on alto saxophone, long-time collaborator Gerald Cleaver on drums, and four Vancouver-based string musicians: violinists Jesse Zubot and Josh Zubot, cellist Peggy Lee and bassist James Meger; with original artwork by Stan Douglas and liner notes by poet Harmony Holiday.

A radiant manifesto of artistic freedom, fLuXkit Vancouver (its suite but sacred) brings together a composition in four movements written and performed by Jones on alto saxophone, long-time collaborator Gerald Cleaver on drums, and four Vancouver-based string musicians: violinists Jesse Zubot and Josh Zubot, cellist Peggy Lee and bassist James Meger; with original artwork by Stan Douglas and liner notes by poet Harmony Holiday.

Eigenartige, schmutzige Geschichten über Unglück. Ohne lange zu überlegen, griff Fushigi nach dem Album, dessen buntes Cover aus der Wand mit den Zeitschriften, Büchern und Schallplatten herausragte. Neben den japanischen Schriftzeichen konnte sie auf der Hülle auch die deutschen Worte Husten und "Aus allen Nähten" erkennen. Fushigi bezahlte und machte sich zuhause daran, die auf Vinyl versammelten Lieder zu erforschen. Obwohl sie nur Bruchstücke der fremden Sprache verstand, träumte sie in der Nacht von der in einem Song beschriebenen Nahtoderfahrung, von dem Mann, der sich in einem anderen Lied in eine Vaterschaft hinein illusioniert, schreckte um Viertel vor drei hoch, weil sie sich sicher war, dass - wie auf Platte - eine Krankenschwester um diese Zeit anrufen würde. Später sah sie im Schlaf das gelbe Haus der Ausgestiegenen und durchlebte die in szenischen Miniaturen geschilderte tragische Lebensliebesgeschichte eines anonymen Paares. Hörte noch im morgendlichen Halbschlaf neben dem deutschen Sänger die Schweizerin Sophie Hunger nachhallen. Sofort nach dem Frühstück recherchierte Fushigi und fand heraus, dass "Aus allen Nähten" nach vier EPs das erste Husten-Album war. Warum es ein unglücklicher Zufall in dieser an Zufällen und glücklichen Unglücken so reichen Band-Geschichte war, dass deren Mitglieder Moses Schneider, Gisbert zu Knyphausen und der dünne Mann sich 2019 entschlossen hatten, ihre Tour 500 Tage im voraus anzukündigen und die Pandemie daraus über 1.200 Tage zwischen Mitteilung und Konzertbeginn machte. Sie erfuhr von der anfänglichen fluxusartigen Liederresteverwertung der Musiker, die inzwischen einer live aufnehmenden Band gewichen war. Doch kreidebleich wurde Fushigi erst, als sie las, dass jemand sie selbst ausschließlich für das Info der Band erfunden hatte.

Stomu Yamash'ta's ultra-rare cult 1971 LP is reissued for the first time, it is a deep, cosmic, at time ambient performance recorded live and
featuring two other Japanese legends: Takehisa Kosugi from the TajMahal Travellers and jazz pianist Masahiko Satoh

Remastered from the master tapes with original gatefold artwork, obi and newintroduction by Paul Bowler. Recorded live at Yamaha Hall in Tokyo on April 18, 1971, the all- night concert was recorded in front of an invite- only audience consisting of friends and musicians. Yamash'ta had Satoh on keyboards along with Fluxus master and leader of the Taj Mahal Travellers Takehisa Kosugi on violin and Hideakira Sakurai on electric shamisen.

Edited down to fit two sides of an album that will become 'Sunrise From West
Sea', the performance is both hypnotic and ethereal. It starts with Kosugi's
distinctive electric violin and develops into a deep, spiritual free form
conversation between the four musicians, giving them all the space, they need to
freely improvise and interact with each other, mixing electronics, percussion,
electric organ and shamizen without ever clashing. The interaction alternates
between quiet, tranquil Eastern meditations and more paced parts, fuelled by
Yamash'ta's extraordinary percussion playing.
Yamash'ta never reached the creativity heard in 'Sunrise From West Sea' again.
The album was recorded during one of the most fertile periods in Japan where
such groups as Les Rallizes Denudes and Taj Mahal Travellers and jazz
musicians like Masahiko Satoh and Yamash'ta were revolutionising the Japanese
music scene.

Earlier this year, Subwax Bcn made an important contribution to the electronic music community by having the timeless dub techno compilation Vibrant Forms II by Fluxion remastered and reissued. First released in the year 2000 on Chain Reaction, Earlier this year, Subwax Bcn made an important contribution to the electronic music community by having the timeless dub techno compilation Vibrant Forms II by Fluxion remastered and reissued. First released in the year 2000 on Chain Reaction, Vibrant Forms II is widely considered to be one of the greatest achievements in the genre. As it turned out, Vibrant Forms II became one of the last records to be released on Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald's classic label - a suitable swan song if there ever was one. And that's it, right

Well not quite.

If one would search for Fluxion - Vibrant Forms III, Discogs would come up empty and Google would treat it as a misspelling. Until now.
Konstantinos Soublis, aka Fluxion, and Subwax Bcn have decided to pick up the banner and release Vibrant Forms III as a CD as well as four individual 12" records under 2016. It contains everything you could hope for and more: The massive, booming basses, the clicks and hisses, the atmospheric thunderstorms, the opium smoke-scented streaks of reverb and dub echoes. The warmth. Yes, above all else the warmth: Sometimes moist and dripping as in Safe Harbour, sometimes blisteringly dry as in Variant. It's no easy task, giving cold, dead machines warm breaths. And no-one quite does it like Fluxion.

The Reissue of Vibrant Forms II was an act of cultural preservation. It reminded us about the legacy of the Basic Channel label family, in which Chain Reaction played an important part. Without this legacy, the contemporary body of electronic music would look different and make very different sounds. With the Release of Vibrant Forms III, Subwax Bcn takes it one step further. Fluxion's Vibrant Forms III album remind us of the timelessness of truly great music, never mind the genre.

Black Truffle is pleased to welcome free jazz legend Joe McPhee back to the fold with Oblique Strategies, a wild trio recorded in Antwerp in 2018 in the company of Mette Rasmussen’s fire-breathing alto saxophone and Dennis Tyfus’s post-Fluxus antics on tape, voice, and percussion. Rasmussen and Tyfus have previously recorded together as Bazuinschal, and some similar strategies are on display here: mysterious metallic scrapes, extended tones in which voice and sax become indistinguishable, comic explosions of varispeed tape. With McPhee on board, however, proceedings are more sumptuous, with the two horns moving fluidly from expeditions into the extremes of their instruments’ registers to pointillistic note-splatter and Ayler-esque folk melodies; we even get to bask in some of the slow-motion free blues that McPhee has now been playing for half a century. McPhee is heard primarily on tenor, Rasmussen mainly on alto, but with Rasmussen doubling on sundry objects, and the whole trio contributing vocals, certainty about who is doing what becomes nigh impossible.

The recording and production add to this hazy unclarity. Where much contemporary improvised music aims at dryly clinical hi-fi, the lively reverberant space of Oblique Strategies calls to mind the less-than-pristine sonics of classic free jazz artefacts like John Tchicai’s Afrodisiaca or McPhee’s own Underground Railroad. A further dimension of oblique unpredictability is added by subtle changes in the sense of space: at times merely a reverb tail glimpsed between phrases, at other points the whole mix seems to be momentarily swallowed up in slap-back, blurring the lines between acoustic instruments and the decayed fidelity of Tyfus’ tape playback. Spread across four pieces ranging from four to nineteen minutes in length, Oblique Strategies moves with anarchic swagger from explosions of clattering cymbals and bellowing horns to near-silent episodes of mysterious rumble and clunk. ‘Death or Dinner?’ opens the record with a lovely duet of climbing melodic patterns shared between the two saxophones, played with a buzzing oboe-like tone. A long, wavering note sung by Tyfus cues the first of countless changes of direction, eventually leading to a crescendo of watery splutters and duelling saxes. At points Tyfus’ keening resemble the signature moves of his friend and collaborator, Ghédelia Tazartès; at others, his tape-sped huffs and puffs possess a rawness reminiscent of Henri Chopin or Gil Wolman. The dialogue between wailing saxophones and vocal cries, punctuated by percussive thuds and crashes, can at times feel less like a musical performance and more like the calls of some mysterious forest creatures, possessing a primordial energy that might remind some listeners of the outdoor antics of Brötzmann and Bennink’s Schwarzwaldfahrt.

Oblique Strategies can also be delicate at times, as on the beautiful third piece, ‘Destilled Edible’, dominated by a slow, microtonal melody played with a breathy tone resembling a shakuhachi. The closing side-long ‘Light My Fire’ ranges across classic improv call and response, skittering trumpet blurts, inept cymbal clatter, mock-operatic vocals, and crude tape manoeuvres. Momentarily pausing at the ten-minute mark for an interlude of ghostly room sound and crackling texture, its closing moments unfurl a glorious dual saxophone finale, the almost epic tone subtly undermined by Tyfus quietly tapping out swing rhythms. Arriving in a striking sleeve adorned with Tyfus’ drawings, Oblique Strategies is an invigoratingly free-spirited blast of improvisation.
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Bold arrangements, excitingly honest lyricism and a riveting voice: Viennese Singer-Songwriter “Lorenz Ambeek” emanates the virtuosity of José Gonzalez and Eliott Smith (MUSIKEXPRESS / FM4). With his first two singles counting over a million streams, paired with chart positions and international airplay, Lorenz’ first album “Look at Me Now” sets sail for a promising musical future: 2023 will thus see the young artist release his 10-track debut-album, alongside several singles and live concerts.

“Look at Me Now” comes with a professional marketing-campaign of visualizer promotion on social media (TikTok & Meta), online marketing and print&online PR for Europe. Previously on chart positions and rotation in Germany (NDR2, EgoFm, FluxFM), Austria (FM4, 88.6) and France (FIP).

'The Devil, The Heart & The Fight' is Skinny Lister's third studio album and is repressed here on yellow vinyl. The band are currently supporting Flogging Molly across the US, have summer festivals confirmed and will be touring across UK and Europe by the end of the year. 'The Devil, The Heart & The Fight' was recorded over five weeks in Newcastle Under Lyme’s Silk Mill Studio in May 2016 with producer Tristan Ivemy (Frank Turner, The Holloways), it is Skinny Lister’s most far-reaching, exciting and accomplished album yet. It’s a full-on rock record that splashes even more punk vigour and eighties pop elements across their fervent folk canvas, taking in hints of Adam Ant and The Clash. It also brings the folk storytelling tradition bang up to date with its brutally honest and close to the knuckle lyrics of real-life stories (‘Geordie Lad’, ‘Charlie’) and on-the-road mayhem, the Pogue-ish ‘Hamburg Drunk’. A mature, vibrant and varied record, it mingles classic Skinny folk romances (‘Grace’, ‘Reunion’) with epic rock takes on rafter-rattling shanties (‘Beat It From The Chest’) and hearty Dexys-style tributes to the fans they meet on the road (‘Fair Winds & Following Seas’), plus a hitherto unseen darker side. Take the deceptively upbeat ‘Injuries’, Dan’s ode on the bruising nature of life, or ‘Devil In Me’, in which Lorna comes on like a particularly melodic Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. • The Devil, The Heart & The Fight hit the UK Top 40 in the two independent album charts (#38 ‘Breakers’ chart, and #11 Independent Album Chart). • Has received over 2.5million streams on Spotify and the videos have reached over 400K views on YouTube. • Global radio support from 6Music, Radio X in UK Radio Eins, Flux FM, Star FM in Germany and WBSD, WRFL, WYCE, KSJS, WAWL, KPNT, WRIF, KXRN, Indie.FM, WVMO, and WCSF in USA. PRESS QUOTES: “…considerably upped their game.” 4/5 Q Magazine album review “…a deafening and visceral experience.” 5/5 Independent live review from London Garage. "This album has a wholesome kind of dirtiness woven deep into the tapestry of each of the songs." Subba Cultcha "The Devil, The Heart & The Fight’ sees them break their own mould, in places amplifying the popular influences on their sound yet retaining their fundamental roots." Punktastic “(a) kaleidoscope of high octane folk punk via Dexy’s and The Pogues” Louder Than War

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Exceptional debut album of Military Space Music and / or Fluxus Techno rave drills from the inimitable, acronymic duo for Diagonal. RIYL Belgian Techno, SuperCollider, Powell, Lorenzo Senni,
the bleep test At long last N.M.O. execute their crazed debut album for Diagonal, distilling the playful calisthenics of their laptop and drum kit live show in a totally unique manner that somehow deconstructs and alliterates tracky acid techno with avant no-wave rock, computer music and the kind of snare-
driven tattoos coming out of Portugal's Príncipe label. Best just call it Military Space Music - Cleft as two corresponding but individual sides entitled Nordic Mediterranean Organisation
& Numerous Miscommunications Occur, it finds the Romantic Viking duo ratcheting the psychotomimetic intensity of their previous tape and trio of 12"s for Anòmia, The Death of Rave
and Where To Now according to their central mantra of As Strict As Possible, resulting in 5 alarming, powerful dancefloor raids intersected by infuriating locked grooves, or Neoliberal
Madness Offering #1-4, plus a series of barking trained Unit drills.
The razor sharp and raucous results don't sit comfortably in any pre-ordained category, preferring to scythe their own route thru the time-flattened field of contemporary music by employing
the fundamentals of physical pressure and precise psychoacoustic frequencies in a disciplined pursuit of new, syncretic sensations that toy with rave convention and serve to demystify notions of aerobic mysticism.
Nose to tail, they spell out their ideas with playfully pedantic attention to detail, whether physically making you get up to nudge the needle from its pervasive locked groove, putting you thru your
paces in their German Trained Unit challenges, or simply driving you to delirium in the album's full blown dance tracks.
Cut almost a side-a-piece for optimal intensity, those five dance cuts veer from the clashing sharp and wet, tight-but-distended dichotomies of RIYL Roma to the ploughing pneu-beta bass drum
and giddy top end tickle of New Bulgaria on the Nordic Mediterranean Organisation plate, to take
in the scuffling, compartmented swerve and teeth-chattering acid of Armchair Evader and what

Arad, real name Dara Smith, is the latest to join the VOITAX catalogue. The multidisciplinary artist previously made seminal moves with his work as one half of Lakker, alongside Eomac, dropping groundbreaking music on heavyweight labels such as R&S, Blueprint and Stroboscopic Artefacts. This time for VOITAX, the Irish artist serves us up "Radiance Haze" - a 6 track EP, spanning from heavy-hitting breaks to the ethereal ambience, with heavy features of Smith's vocals.

Early support by Blawan, Dave Clarke, Eomac, Francios X, Inigo Kennedy, Lucy, Marcel Dettmann, Vivian Koch, Neumann and many more.

ENG Batov Records opens another chapter, introducing "Five Seasons, the debut album of Eje Eje, the brand new solo project of Itamar Klüger, of the Satellites, presenting a fresh and contemporary world incorporating the rich diversity of Middle Eastern and Mediterranean musical styles with psych, funk, dub and other internationally known sounds.

Hailing from the seaside communities surrounding Enoshima, a small island located 50 km southwest of Tokyo, Maya Ongaku is a ragtag collective of local musicians whose brand of earthy psychedelia transcends widely beyond the roots of their inner souls. The name derives not from any kind of ancient civilization, but rather a neologism defined as the imagined view outside one’s field of vision. The band—currently a trio of Tsutomu Sonoda, Ryota Takano, and Shoei Ikeda—finds sanctuary at the Ace General Store, a beachy vintage shop and salon-like space just hidden from sight from the bustling, touristy riverside Subana Street. Between discussions on music and art, curating the vinyl section and manning the register, and chatting up with locals young and old, the members find time to jam and record their spontaneous ideas in the studio tucked away in the back. It’s in this unlikely setting where Maya Ongaku finds its origins, the culmination of what Sonoda describes as 自然発生 (shizen hassei), meaning spontaneous generation, or the supposed production of living organisms from nonliving matter.

Approach to Anima, the group’s debut album released on Guruguru Brain, finds Maya Ongaku building a foundational groove while tapping into their innermost psyche. Sonoda’s malleable guitar and vocals, Takano’s sinuous bass lines, Ikeda’s floating woodwinds, and a sprinkling of delicate percussion—all coalesce into an aural experience that’s assertive yet abstract, calm but unsettling. The slow building, sax-laden “Approach” serves as an introduction to Maya Ongaku’s world, while the appropriately-named “Water Dream” floats its way toward the gentle finale of “Pillow Song.” It’s a concise distillation of their many interests and influences, from Neo-Dada and Fluxus, to where contemporary art intersects with the development of modern recording technology in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

As the title suggests, Approach to Anima is not intended to be a terminus; it’s merely the beginning of an exploration. The three childhood friends that comprise Maya Ongaku are always looking beyond the confines of the idyllic but rapidly gentrifying enclave of their beloved Enoshima. Feeding off of the energy that still radiates from the triumphant, decade-long journey of their label bosses’ band Kikagaku Moyo, who rose to global prominence from scrappy beginnings busking on the streets of Takadanobaba, they hope to go wherever inspiration takes them, to anywhere around the globe where their music can find a home.

Ultimately, Maya Ongaku’s uninhibited world-building will make it possible for us to see the unseen, expand the possibilities of the naked eye—all through the unbridled vibrancy of their music.

After performing at the same Boiler Room a cool decade ago and connecting through a love of the same genre-blurring sonics that have defined their respective careers to date, King Kashmere and Letherette were always destined to make music together.

It was only a matter of time.

And space.

As an artist who champions a dozen or so sounds, rooted in gripping pop culture aesthetics, genre-smashing production and impeccable versemanship, King Kashmere’s quest to perfect the unperfectable has seen him carve out a unique (and ever-shifting) point on the rap map.

Letherette are a duo; two school friends from Wolverhampton, with a rich release history spanning Ninja Tune and beyond, however, their current form fluxes and shifts with each creative endeavour (depending on where either they find themselves at any given fork in the road).

King Kashmere x Letherette’s collaborative EP represents something of a distillation process; avenues of thought and feeling presented as ‘TR3B’; a 7-track EP that feels more like a tapestry than a record, weighted in the experiments of the aforementioned decade, expertly presented for 2022 and beyond.

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Japanese crustpunk and grindcore icon Eri Fuzz-Kristiansen, aka Gallhammer’s Viviankrist, keeps
the curveballs coming on Diagonal with a bloodied mastication of charred noise and and rhythmic
electronics, following up the label’s acclaimed sides by Sote and Not Waving/Jim O’Rourke
Co-released with the metal-minded Ritual Productions label, ‘Cross-Modulation’ is a brutal
testament to the acridly personalised sound that Viviankrist has explored solo since 1995 in Tokyo,
when she performing vocals, sax and SP-202 sampler in her first industrial/noise unit. 23 years
later her music is still sorely raw, yet riddled with a new found poignance and atmospheric unease
that places her music sometimes as close to Kali Malone’s see-sawing dissonance as the power
electronics of Pan Sonic or the possessed pulses of Conrad Schnitzler and Merzbow.
Since the demise of Eri’s main project Gallhammer at the start of this decade, when she moved
from Tokyo to Oslo (home of her husband and bandmate in Sehnsucht, Maniac - also former
vocalist for BM legends Mayhem), she returned to her early Viviankrist alias from 2017 as a place
to express her primitivist-futurist urges, resulting a trio of CDs including the vicious solo strike
of ‘Morgenrøde’ for Cold Spring. Now on ‘Cross-Modulation’ she intuitively tempers that album’s
phosphorous burn with a deadly incisive application of what Black Metal/Techno pioneer Black
Mecha terms “mentation electronics.”
Alloying avant-metal with rhythmic noise, ambient techno and mind-bending drone to a
metallurgic tang, ‘Cross-Modulation’ serves a dense flux of energies in seven parts, piercing a path
thru maelstrom electronics in ‘Eleventh’ to churn up grizzled Vainio-esque rhythms in ‘Blue Iron’,
while the tenderly bruised ambience of ‘Midnight Sun’ provides a bittersweet palette cleanser for
the tart technoid prang of ‘Insects’, a bout of slow gripping psychedelia in ‘Out of Body’, and the
rugged North European pastoralism of ‘Behind Mirror.’

Born from the fractal innerworld of Vymethoxy Redspiders,
better known as Urocerus Gigas from Leeds-based xenofeminist
crisis energy rock duo Guttersnipe, The Ephemeron Loop's
debut is a synaesthetic acid bath that cracks open the doors of
perception to reveal a sonic landscape of ineffable beauty,
divine femininity and continual transformation.

"PsychonauticEscapism" sublimes Guttersnipe's teeth-gnashing spacegrindaesthetic leaving washes of dream pop ambience, dilated
speedcore fusillades and shapeshifting psychedelic dub effects.

It's an album that lodges itself creatively between Cocteau
Twins, Arca, Basic Channel and Napalm Death, lysergically
fluxing imperceptibly between seemingly contradictory sonics
and philosophies. Miss VR took 14 long, difficult years to write
the album, which developed cautiously as she broke through
the misery of her pre-transition life with shoegaze music, rave
and psychedelic drugs in Leeds' queer underground. An
existence languishing in negativity, soundtracked by extreme
music was replaced with the opportunity to experience
euphoria, elation and ecstatic freedom, emotions that coalesce
sensually on "Psychonautic Escapism".

These formativeexperiences are the album's initial building blocks, assembled between 2007 and 2018 as Miss VR came to grips with her
reality as an autistic/ADHD trans woman and the multidimensional psychotropic experiences that assisted that realization. And as V's worldview expanded and shifted as she lived a fresh life, the music itself developed spiritually. In 2018,after being impressed with producer Ross Halden's work with Guttersnipe, Miss VR asked him to assist her with developing The Ephemeron Loop's fragmented songs and visions. "I learned a lot about why people don't usually combine various kinds of sounds or styles in music," she admits. "It is very difficult to get it to all work together!" But after two-and-a-half years of the duo navigating a "labyrinth of fragmented Reason 5 and Logic
projects," re-recording and processing, and working tirelessly on
complex arrangements and compositions, they eventually found
a light at the end of the tunnel. The finished album is towering
and ambitious, Escher-like in its illusory reconstruction of
familiar elements into brain-altering forms. The album begins
with 'Psychonautic Escapism (Cold Alienation)', decorating Miss
VR's disembodied moans with throbbing dub techno synths,
insectoid digital percussion and disorientating high-BPM
electronics.

Her vocals hover weightlessly between My Bloody Valentine's Bilinda Butcher and Cocteau Twins' Elizabeth Fraser, and on 'Lattice Dysmorphism of Lysothymic Oneiroid Cytoterrain' drift against grinding industrial hardcore kicks, serrated bass and Lorenzo Senni-esque trance pointillism. On 'Trench Through Pink Death', Miss VR's voice mutates into a shrill scream as she directs the music from splattered freeflowing doom into harsh hyper-speed death metal and
breakcore. Woven together with both precision and delicacy, "Psychonautic Escapism" turns a rough patchwork of ideas,
experiences, feelings and vivid emotions into a glorious neon
tapestry. In living and exploring the realities of autism, ADHD
and trans identity, Vymethoxy Redspiders has masterminded a
sonic language that feels fresh, urgent and shockingly honest.
Psychedelic is a term that gets thrown around far too loosely at
the moment - in this case there's just no better way of
describing the album's scope.

Das 5. Studioalbum von Django Django trägt den Titel ”Off Planet” und besteht aus 21 Titeln, die in vier Teile aufgeteilt sind. Ursprünglich sollten es vier experimentelle EPs werden, die aber schnell in ein richtiges Album verwandelt wurden, als die Band das Potenzial der Aufnahmesession erkannte. ”Off Planet” enthält einige der aufregendsten und dynamischsten Stücke, die Django Django je produziert haben. Das Album ist eine Rückbesinnung auf ihre experimentellen und elektronischen Wurzeln und enthält außerdem spannende Gastauftritte von Self Esteem, Jack Penate und vielen anderen.

Jeder Teil des Albums wird digital veröffentlicht und am Tag der Veröffentlichung des vierten Teils wird das gesamte Album auf Doppel-Vinyl und Doppel-CD erscheinen.

Das 5. Studioalbum von Django Django trägt den Titel ”Off Planet” und besteht aus 21 Titeln, die in vier Teile aufgeteilt sind. Ursprünglich sollten es vier experimentelle EPs werden, die aber schnell in ein richtiges Album verwandelt wurden, als die Band das Potenzial der Aufnahmesession erkannte. ”Off Planet” enthält einige der aufregendsten und dynamischsten Stücke, die Django Django je produziert haben. Das Album ist eine Rückbesinnung auf ihre experimentellen und elektronischen Wurzeln und enthält außerdem spannende Gastauftritte von Self Esteem, Jack Penate und vielen anderen.

Jeder Teil des Albums wird digital veröffentlicht und am Tag der Veröffentlichung des vierten Teils wird das gesamte Album auf Doppel-Vinyl und Doppel-CD erscheinen.

Night shifting patiently, slowly drifting in constant flux. Where Ancient Plastix’ debut used rhythm to create geometrical sound architectures and craft elaborate mazes, his new offering ‘II’ glides effortlessly, combining incredibly rich textures with soft swan-like strokes, oscillating gently, an unhurried pace that combines the depth of Japanese ambient maestros and the choppy British mist.

Liverpool producer Paul Rafferty aka Ancient Plastix, recorded ‘II’ straight to cassette with a number of different synths (Yamaha Reface, Korg MS20) and keyboards (90s casio and 70s Gem organ) via a collection of guitar pedals, outboard (Roland Space Echo, Melos delay, spring reverb). His tape machine this time was a Japanese Sansui from the 90s, a strange 6 track machine with a pleasing fidelity bought off from an old rave dad who was finally giving up the ghost.

“Musically, this album is more patient in its approach to the predecessor. Recorded towards the end of lockdown in my highstreet basement below a used record shop, the arrangements reflect the personal era. No responsibility, no reasons to adhere to the previous patterns in my music making. As a result the album is a patient trawl through new discoveries and possibilities presented by improvising with old technology.”

There is a widescreen grandeur that permeates Ancient Plastix’ production, a cinematic instinct that steers clear of crescendos by creating paths that revel in warmth and emotion. Flotsam & jetsam, instinct, burnout, heartbreak.

End of Everything is the intrepid seventh album from Mega Bog, a nightmarish experimental pop ensemble led by Erin Elizabeth Birgy. In 2020, Birgy was surrounded by seemingly endless turmoil: mass death, a burning planet, and a personal reckoning when past traumas met fresh ones. Living in Los Angeles, against the backdrop of brilliantly horrifying forest fires, she questioned what perspective to use moving forward in such dumbfounded awe. Deciding to seize something tangible, she produced a record that spoke of surrender, of mourning, and support in the face of tumultuous self-reflection. Writing on piano and synthesizer, instead of the familiar guitar, Birgy explored a spectrum of new sounds to illuminate a state of volatility and flux that was both universal and personal. Speaking of this transition, she describes the need “to feel… instantly. I didn’t want to dig into secret codes. I no longer wanted to hide behind difficult music. I was curious to give others the same with the music I create; to make music someone could use to explore drama, playfulness, and dancing, to shake the trauma loose.” Heavy grooves, metal guitar squeals, Italo disco bass lines, rhapsodic synth layers, and huge choruses stomp around the delightfully sanguine pop drama. Where previous records stretched out into the abstract and ethereal, End of Everything delivers a hit straight to collective awareness and healing. A seemingly disparate jukebox of sounds – ranging from Thin Lizzy, Bronski Beat, Franco Battiato and Ozzy Osbourne to 90’s house classics like Haddaway’s ‘What is Love’ and Corona's ‘Rhythm of the Night’ - foregrounded a new punchy theatricality in Birgy’s music. The songs she was creating at home followed suit with bolder hooks and more dancefloor energy than she’d ever dared before.

Anarcho Punk was the one sub-genre of Punk that emerged in isolation from the rock & roll establishment. During its pioneering days of the early 1980s it thrived in opposition to the music industry, existing as a fiercely underground alternative to the bands, labels and venues of the commercialised mainstream Punk scene. It continues to do so. Anarcho Punk represented one of the last truly underground and autonomous music movements ever witnessed and remains a movement that has never sold out and has never gone away.

The major differentiation between the Anarcho Punk acts and the more traditional Punk outfits was that for the former, albeit often more due to musical limitation than intent, the message was more important than the music. Standard song structures were often dispersed with in favour of a relentless lyrical polemic accompanied by a similarly uncompromising aural assault. As the scene grew, so did the diversity of records that emerged under the Anarcho Punk umbrella: from D & V (drums & vocals) to the proto-EBM synth-pop of Belfast’s one-man Hit Parade and the Dadaist Beefheart hybrid of The Cravats. In later days the two biggest acts of the scene, Flux of Pink Indians and Crass themselves, both released LPs which had more in common with improv Jazz than hardcore punk.

The resounding victory of Anarcho Punk is that it is now a the unifying soundtrack to a culture of resistance that spans Scotland to Indonesia and remains without compromise. It is still as removed from mainstream music and oppositional to conventional culture as it was over forty years ago and shows no sign of changing. Quite the opposite: the more popular Anarcho Punk becomes the less it has to engage with the music establishment and the more control it can enjoy. In 2023, that message remains as uncompromising as ever.

This is a double vinyl retrospective compilation of some of the most radical music ever made, a musical force that changed lives. Covering the years 1979 - 86 and including classic tracks from Crass, Poison Girls, Flux Of Pink Indians, The Mob, Zounds, Annie Anxiety, The Ex, ATV plus 10 more, all newly remastered by iconic Punk mastering engineer Daniel Husayn. It has been lovingly compiled by JD Twitch and Anarcho legend Chris Low and was ten years in the making. There are also a couple of previously unreleased mixes included. It comes as a high quality double vinyl pressing, and has a full colour sleeve with back and front images designed by the legendary Gee Vaucher. It also comes with a 6 page fold out poster on one side with detailed sleeve notes, recollections and essays on the other side.

The compilation is a fundraiser for Faslane Peace Camp. Not so far from Glasgow Faslane Naval Base is home to Britain's abhorrent Trident nuclear missiles. The camp has been there, protesting since 1982 and is still active to this day. We hope in our lifetime we will see those missiles leave Scottish soil. We have so much respect for those who have dedicated their lives to protesting these weapons and it seemed an obvious choice that the proceeds from this release should go to help them, and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Berlin-based French-Irish sound artist Zoë Mc Pherson levels up on their third full-length "Pitch Blender", mangling years of experience DJing and performing live into a tight set of cybernetic soundsystem experiments that flicker between the rave and the art space. Described as a "vanguard" by DJ Mag and "fearless" by Hyponik, Mc Pherson has performed tirelessly across the world, appearing at Berlin's CTM Festival, Madrid's LEV, Malmö's Intonal and presenting installations at Berlin's Silent Green and Monom. They also curate the ambitious A/V-focused imprint SFX with visual artist Alessandra Leone and maintain creative partnerships with Jessica Ekomane and Ciarra Black (as Carbon 96).

Pulling in influence from British bass music and the outer fringes of experimental sound art, "Pitch Blender" is Mc Pherson's most ambitious album to date, splicing bold vocal performances with psychedelic modular synth flourishes, illusory environmental recordings and relentlessly abstract polyrhythmic beats. It's music that's able to balance a constant exploration for newness with a rhythmic pulse that never ignores the dancefloor, connecting the nodes between artists like aya, Elvin Brandhi, ZULI and Slikback. Cinematic and sub-heavy, "Pitch Blender" is a dizzying work of sonic fiction that's permanently in flux, dissolving breaks, beats and acidic leads into queasy, pressurized tracks that act as an antidote to contemporary malaise.

Chontane presents the first edition on his own label TANE.
4 tracks available on 12"

Dauw presents 'babel', the debut album from Belgian duo ZONDERWERK. The duo’s name means ‘’without work’’, but it also comes from “bijzonder werk”, where bijzonder is particular, special, unique. They like to work with images/paintings that are “bijzondere werken”, odd works.

babel is an ambitious exercise in translating images into sound. babel was initially created for the eponymous theatre piece by architect and artist Steve Salembier. Inspired by the biblical legend, Salembier envisions the legendary city as an abstract, sprawling modern metropolis in continuous flux. Its steel and glass skeleton is a representation of both an accumulation of overlapping contemporary cityscapes and a metaphor for the anonymous repetitiveness of our daily routines mirrored by the architecture. Subway lines, sky scrapers and whirling highways converge into a megalopolis of monstrous proportions. Despite the composition’s initial context as soundtrack for a theatre play, for the band this album is seen as a standalone work, whose complex sonic material can be appreciated without having seen the piece.

Their score focuses on fleshing out the imposing imaginary universe both in terms of scale and meaning. One of their biggest inspirations were Michael Woolf’s photographs, which served as the basis for the original theatre piece. His use of grey and repetition is translated into looped harmonies and fine-grained drones that progressively open up like blooming ice flowers.

With sounds of bells and metal as their primary materials, Carrijn and Sanders build soundscapes that are at once seductive and unsettling. The atmosphere on tracks like “DreamArp4Kort4” make for majestic, mysterious synths conjuring otherworldly visions, while the angelic glockenspiel set against subtle explosions in “VuurFeest” suggest a serene yet potentially dangerous place. Other tracks like “RoomCarousselTapeLoop5” create multi- layered textured drones through the process of tape decay, a commentary on the cannibalistic nature of the city.

Resulting from an arduous improvisational processusingold samplers with elements such as the Beam harp, a self-made metal instrument with piano strings, reel to reel tape recorders, field recordings and violin, babel perfectly captures the oxymoron of the man-made concrete jungle that is at once inhospitable yet endlessly awe-inducing.

ZONDERWERK is a duo consisting of Linde Carrijn and Dijf Sanders who started this project during the pandemic as a way of exploring their relationship as creative partners. Carrijn has a background in acting but recently came more to the fore as composer/performer with original scores for theatre and her other band Brik Tu-Tok founded with multi-disciplinary artist Maxim Storms. Sanders is a composer and gear enthusiast, more well-known for his eclectic works that draw from a wide-array of non-Western music. His milestone-album Moonlit Planetarium paved to way to a broader audience and recognition from major press in Belgium. In 2021, his work as a producer was recognized with a nomination at the Music Industry Awards.

DAFNE VICENTE-SANDOVAL - MINOS CIRCUIT (2021)

Minos Circuit is the resonance of a double exploration, that of an instrument, the bassoon - an instrument dear to Dafne Vicente-Sandoval - and that of a listening, of a gaze, almost. The first exploration deconstructs the instrument, tearing it apart, reducing it to an archipelago of sound bodies stimulated by an electro-acoustic device that generates feedback and infiltrates each part of the bassoon, in order to carry out a methodical, systematic examination. The second exploration is the inner one of attention and listening, the one that measures, at each moment, the necessity or not of an intervention in the very act of the musical work, of this subtle balance that is established between composition and observation, between action and contemplation.

(fr) Minos Circuit est la mise en résonance d’une exploration double, celle d’un instrument, le basson — instrument cher à Dafne Vicente-Sandoval — et celle d’une écoute, d’un regard, presque. La première exploration déconstruit l’instrument, le met en pièce, le réduisant en un archipel de corps sonores stimulés par un dispositif électroacoustique générateurs de larsens qui vont s’infiltrer dans chacune des parties du basson, pour en faire l’examen méthodique, systématique. La seconde exploration, c’est celle, intérieure, de l’attention et de l’écoute, celle qui mesure, à chaque instant, la nécessité ou non d’une intervention dans l’agir même de l’œuvre, de cette bascule subtile qui s’établit entre composition et observation, entre action et contemplation.

LARS PETTER HAGEN - TRANSFIGURATION 4 (2018)

Both a “meditation on musical ruins” and “a study of the material of Richard Strauss’s Metamorphoses”, Transfiguration 4 works on the musical fragment as an expressive and poetic possibility that can be deployed below or beyond simple musical syntax, a syntax that is still too often equated with music itself. What Lars Petter Hagen highlights in this remarkable work is that the power of music lies at its fringes, that is, at the edge of its own disappearance. Transfiguration 4 floats in a particularly moving way in these troubled lands, where nothing is ever resolved, and where everything, however, is suspended, like a stream of blurred memories that memory would summon to form an intuition. A musical intuition.

(fr) A la fois « méditation sur les ruines musicales » et « étude du matériau de Metamorfosen de Richard Strauss », Transfiguration 4 travaille le fragment musical comme possibilité expressive, poétique, pouvant se déployer en-deçà ou au-delà de la simple syntaxe musicale, syntaxe encore trop souvent assimilée à la musique même. Ce que met en lumière Lars Petter Hagen dans cette œuvre remarquable, c’est que la puissance de la musique se situe à ses franges, c’est-à-dire aux lisières de sa propre disparition. Transfiguration 4 flotte de manière particulièrement émouvante dans ces contrées troubles, où rien jamais ne se résout, et où tout, pourtant, se suspend, comme un flux de souvenirs flous que la mémoire convoquerait pour former une intuition. Une intuition musicale.

Tarotplane's new tape on Constellation Tatsu comes after many years of research and correspondence. They find him seeking to recreate the unique sound of the late great legend that is Manuel Gottsching. As such, his Aeonium album is a truly psychedelic treasure that fuses some magical moments from Krautrock as well as plenty of new and innovative sounds in between. It has twinkling cosmic melodies and sleek synth lines that are in constant flux. This one comes with great cover art in the form of a silkscreen from 1972 by Gernot Bubenik that captures the melting colours of the music.

Anfang Januar spielten die Jungs aus Wigan (Greater Manchester) ihr allererstes Headline Konzert im Berliner Fluxbau. Es war absolut an der Zeit und die Band hinterließ ihr Publikum mit staunenden Mündern
und glücklichen Gesichtern.
Der beeindruckende Live-Ruf, der der Band vorauseilte war also nicht erfunden.
Mit den 4 Singles ”Turmoil“, ”Say My Name“, ”Sad Face Baby” und der aktuellen Single ”Struggle” ist der Weg für das zweite Album geebnet. Dieses erscheint Anfang März und trägt den Titel „From Nothing To A Little Bit More“.

Explore the Duster universe on the far superior 45RPM format. This deluxe triple 7" box contains Duster's first single_1997's Transmission Flux (including "Stars Will Fall" & "Orbitron"), 1998's Apex, Trance- Like (featuring "Four Hours"), plus Stratosphere's painfully absent "Echo, Bravo" and the lost 2002 outtake "What You're Doing To Me." Housed in replica sleeves and placed in a sturdy two-piece box, Moods, Mode s also contains a Duster-branded hanky for those who like to accessorize .

Yellow Vinyl

Explore the Duster universe on the far superior 45RPM format. This deluxe triple 7" box contains Duster's first single_1997's Transmission Flux (including "Stars Will Fall" & "Orbitron"), 1998's Apex, Trance- Like (featuring "Four Hours"), plus Stratosphere's painfully absent "Echo, Bravo" and the lost 2002 outtake "What You're Doing To Me." Housed in replica sleeves and placed in a sturdy two-piece box, Moods, Mode s also contains a Duster-branded hanky for those who like to accessorize .

The past few years have found Sean McBride, the artist behind Martial Canterel, in a state of flux, ebbing back and forth between material displacement and musical aestheticism. His expert pedigree in electronic sound and arrangement bridges the gap created by an undecidability between life at home and abroad His new album, Lost At Sea, is an attempt for the artist to locate this elusive common ground.The album's introductory track, Giving Up, has all of the hallmarks that Martial Canterel has utilized in the past_melodic chorus, upbeat rhythm and classic sequential dynamism. Where the song diverges is in its core theme of nature: nature's return to a period of restoration after the failures and recklessness of humankind.The slower pace of songs like Scampia and Puszta yearn for McBride's complex love affair with far flung destinations. Re-evaluating the political strife and social unrest in these historical locations, McBride delves deeper into political and geological reference points creating symbolic representations using mechanized percussion, white noise and various sine waves.The conceptual nature of Lost at Sea reaches even deeper depths within the waveforms of Astralize, a track based upon academic Donna Haraway's pre-civilized theories of human neglect after the `azstralization'.

The second instalment from London Odense Ensemble digs deeper into the group's vision of what modern psychedelic jazz should sound like. Cut from the same sessions as Jaiyede Sessions vol. 1, released last summer, vol. 2 presents a more nuanced approach to the material. On this set the ensemble focuses on shorter, layered pieces - travelling from deep spiritual jazz grooves to gorgeous free-flowing minimalism to full-on acid jazz. There's echo-drenched flutes being absorbed into layers of analog synth pads and guitars, bossa beats and double bass sequences merging with electronics. It's an intoxicating mélange of sounds and styles, spanning wide temporal and geographical distances. London Odense Ensemble came together when two of the finest exponents of London's flourishing jazz scene, flautist and saxofonist Tamar Osborn and keyboard specialist Al MacSween, came over to Denmark to explore new sounds with Causa Sui's Jakob Skott and Jonas Munk, as well as local bass player Martin Rude. For two days the group laid down grooves and ideas and experimented in the studio, and later the best segments were edited and mixed by Jonas Munk, who took a somewhat liberal approach to the mixing process, often dyeing the material with external effects and synthesizers. Jaiyede Sessions are the kinds of records that defy genre-terms, yet have its own instantly recognizable fingerprint. It carries a unique shared vision between the players of what modern psychedelic jazz sounds like. bios: Tamar Osborn: Saxophonist, composer and multi-wind instrumentalist is the creative force behind modal jazz ensemble Collocutor (On The Corner Records). She is a member of the Dele Sosimi Afrobeat Orchestra, performs and collaborates regularly with Sarathy Korwar, Jessica Lauren, Emanative, Ill Considered and DJ Khalab. Al MacSween: Keyboard player & founding member of Kefaya. Collaborations include American jazz legend Gary Bartz, Syrian qanun master Maya Youseff, London Community Gospel Choir, Palestinian jazz singer Reem Kelani & kora player Kadialy Kouyate. Martin Rude: Multi-string instrumentalist & lead singer in Sun River & Edena Gardens with members of Papir & Causa Sui. Jakob Skott: Drummer in Causa Sui with a slew of side projects on El Paraiso, including Chicago Odense Ensemble, Jonas Munk: Guitarist in Causa Sui & studio wizard on most releases on El Paraiso.

Honoring the craft and the ones that came before him through undeniably infectious beats that brace the weight of his choice samples and original layers. Getting his chops up through his younger days, Shane spent his time developing instrumental obstacle courses for local emcees to dance around including Gift Of Gab (Blackalicious), Spills (NY) Kinetic Source (Ozomatli) and Cashus King (LA.) By the age of 21 Shane threw himself into the ring of the Stones Throw beat making contest. To only the surprise of himself, Shane walked away twice as a weekly winner of the battles. After a small hiatus due to the birth of his daughter Clementine, Shane jumped back on the pads and began crafting the instrumentals for what would become Apostolos. With the instrumentals in flux Shane reached out via Instagram to an upcoming emcee out of the Duck Down Camp, a prodigy of the late, great Sean Price, Rim. After chatting back and forth for a small time, making sure Rim knew Shane was in this project for the right reasons, Rim jumped on board and even helped land other up and coming NY emcees like Eddie Kaine & Spills. From there everything snowballed. One feature led to another and soon enough the album was taking shape with features from not only Rim and Eddie Kaine, but hip-hop heroes such as Masta Ace, Planet Asia, A.G. of D.I.T.C. and Geechi Suede. With a few more instrumentals and spaces to fill Shane reached out to long-time bay area engineer/producer Deegan Mack Adams to help with the mixing and mastering and overall release of the project. Apostolos gets its namesake and back cover imagery from Shane Sounds' great great Grandfather, Apostolos Christakis who immigrated to the United States from Greece at the turn of the 20th century. The documents you see on the back cover are Apostolos’s army registration documents only a week after coming to the United States. We pay our respects to the ones who came before us and allowed us to be here to create this project. Salute!

OHM Series 6 presents Sirko Müller, Shcuro & Vil, Giacomo Pellegrino and Philipp Priebe!
Very strong selection again by label head Ohm!

Celebrate the technical expertise of the world's finest LP pressing plant — Quality Record Pressings — with the finest LP sampler ever assembled!

The Wonderful Sounds Of Quality Record Pressings includes music hand-picked by Acoustic Sounds CEO Chad Kassem and classical music tracks chosen by the team at Reference Recordings.

Every song meets the criteria of excellent performance, perfect recording and flawless mastering. What better way to celebrate such a monumental anniversary for one of the absolute leading brands in analog high fidelity than with this to-die-for LP sampler? Contains most genres of music — blues, jazz, classical, R&B and female vocal. From now on, you'll only need to carry one demo record around with you.

Vinyl expert Michael Fremer, of Analogue Planet and Stereophile, gives you a track-by-track tour of the history and production of the songs on this special album.

What separates our world-renowned Quality Record Pressings LPs from other manufacturers? Since Acoustic Sounds CEO Chad Kassem launched QRP in 2011, the focus has been on producing consistently virtually silent vinyl playing surfaces, as well as reproducing details that were hallmarks of vintage labels — the "deep groove" label of Blue Note LPs, for example.

The craft of pressing fine vinyl is perfected in such details. Such as plating lacquers within 24 hours of their arrival at the plant. Cut grooves are prone to change with temperature fluxuations, high humidity and time. The sooner that lacquers are plated, the better the fidelity of the final pressing. Other keys include using a proprietary silver spray formulation, made fresh daily. And incorporating computer microprocessors on our presses to precisely control press functions with absolute precision. And an imbedded temperature sensor in the dye cycles the press with just as much control. The result — more consistency in each LP, high fidelity and reduced distortion. The ultimate sonic advantage.

Earlier this year, Subwax Bcn made an important contribution to the electronic music community by having the timeless dub techno compilation Vibrant Forms II by Fluxion remastered and reissued. First released in the year 2000 on Chain Reaction, Earlier this year, Subwax Bcn made an important contribution to the electronic music community by having the timeless dub techno compilation Vibrant Forms II by Fluxion remastered and reissued. First released in the year 2000 on Chain Reaction, Vibrant Forms II is widely considered to be one of the greatest achievements in the genre. As it turned out, Vibrant Forms II became one of the last records to be released on Mark Ernestus and Moritz von Oswald's classic label - a suitable swan song if there ever was one. And that's it, right

Well not quite.

If one would search for Fluxion - Vibrant Forms III, Discogs would come up empty and Google would treat it as a misspelling. Until now.
Konstantinos Soublis, aka Fluxion, and Subwax Bcn have decided to pick up the banner and release Vibrant Forms III as a CD as well as four individual 12" records under 2016. It contains everything you could hope for and more: The massive, booming basses, the clicks and hisses, the atmospheric thunderstorms, the opium smoke-scented streaks of reverb and dub echoes. The warmth. Yes, above all else the warmth: Sometimes moist and dripping as in Safe Harbour, sometimes blisteringly dry as in Variant. It's no easy task, giving cold, dead machines warm breaths. And no-one quite does it like Fluxion.

The Reissue of Vibrant Forms II was an act of cultural preservation. It reminded us about the legacy of the Basic Channel label family, in which Chain Reaction played an important part. Without this legacy, the contemporary body of electronic music would look different and make very different sounds. With the Release of Vibrant Forms III, Subwax Bcn takes it one step further. Fluxion's Vibrant Forms III album remind us of the timelessness of truly great music, never mind the genre.

Brixton in South London has to be the place whee legends in Reggae & Dub meet up for a collaboration. The result is this 8 track all-analogue mixed Dubwise adventure that features the UK’s hardest Roots Reggae bass player & drummer (Mafia & Fluxy) playing the UK’s deepest dubs (Vibronics).
This fascinating and intricate LP merges old stool Jamaican reggae musicianship with the swirling euphoria found in contemporary dub music.

Vibronics is one of the most established names in UK Dub/Reggae music. From their base, in the Dub Cupboard Studio in Leicester, their music has achieved millions of views on YouTube, millions of Spotify streams and many tens of thousands of vinyl record sales. Vibronics have collaborated with reggae legends Michael prophet, Macka B, Iration Steppas, Soom T, Aba-Shanti and so many more.

Mafia & Fluxy are the UK’s foremost Reggae rhythm section and were initially inspired by Sly And Robbie, consisting of brothers Mafia (Bass) and Fluxy (drums). Legends of the stage and the studio, they record regularly in the UK & Jamaica, building rhythm tracks for Bunny Lee, Blacker Dread, King Jammy, Exterminator and Jah Shaka. They continue to work with the cream of the crop in terms of Reggae, having recently backed Luciano & Eek-A-Mouse on their world tours.

red/clear splatter vinyl

Shake Chain will also be performing at Marina Abramovic’s private view at Modern Art Oxford on September 23rd.

Shake Chain have been busy demolishing audiences and expectations for the best part of three years. Vocalist Kate Mahony sets that standard by starting each live performance by crawling from the back of the room through a disbelieving crowd’s legs in a shiny yellow raincoat. The resulting questions that frantically arise of ‘what’s going on?’, ‘am I hallucinating?’ and ‘is this part of the show?’ are hallmarks of how Shake Chain approach making their unruly, lyric-bespattered rock music.

The four-piece from London are completed by Robert Syres (guitar, synth), Chris Hopkins (bass, synth) and Joe Fergey (drums), all artists hailing from Goldsmiths College, Nottingham Trent and Wimbledon, University of the Arts. A mutual love of thought-provoking performance art and a yearning for disruption have helped Shake Chain lock into their wayward sound. Twitchy guitar lines jolt and jerk, synths burble noisily and tack-sharp drums pin things down for Kate’s reeling vocal to vault and slur. Kate’s singing has drawn comparisons with Yoko Ono, Su Tissue and even a seance with it’s unique embrace of flights of atonal fancy, head-first repetition and ecstatic frenzy. Opinion-dividing arguably, but singular in making Shake Chain dauntingly brilliant.

Shake Chain’s debut album ‘Snake Chain’ was recorded in the New Forest’s Chuckalumba Studios early in 2022. The tranquil setting only slightly skewed by the intense extratropical cyclone occuring outside. When asked to sum up the album the group collectively settled on it sounding like “crying in a Catholic sex dungeon with Eastenders on”, perhaps only half tongue in cheek given the soapy dramatics of opening track ‘Stace’. ‘RU’ is a stompy triumph of ad lib monotony, heavy and wonky, its vocal slowly unwinding into residual sense. Shake Chain’s songs are populated with cowboys, cherry-pickers, content-addicts, private investments, a careless driver called Mike, architects and by much lamentation at the state of our confusing existencies. This last point underlined in luminous marker pen with slow-building vortex ‘Highly Conpeptual’ and whispered closer ‘Duck’.

‘Copy Me’ races along with radiant headbangs of dynamic abandon, one part tumble, two parts pummel, “hold your breath til something changes” commands Kate whilst everything of course is in hammering flux. ‘Second Home’ is similarly coruscating yet bouyant, whilst ‘Arthur’ feels like it could tear inside in two amid sobbing wails and the twining of its disparate parts. Throughout all the unhinged freakouts, found sounds and blasting rhythms though is Kate’s questioning, resilient presence, anchoring everything. On bruising creeper ‘Birthday’ she asks most tellingly “Do we speak language or does language speak us? Is there a mouth in the middle of the desert? Do you ask how cups are designed? Would you say yes when you really mean I don’t know”? Shake Chain are cathartic and absurd, humorous and deadly serious yet always inspired. Its this tightrope walk which makes their album such a thrilling, vital listen.

Tape



Originally released in 2019, Craig Tattersall unspooled a gorgeous tape of disintegrated piano meditations and dusty lower case ephemera.

On the A-side it’s a dreamily searching, silty flux of piano notes peeling in slow motion. Strings drift over, connoting cold breezes and infrasonic, spectral presences, but the effect is far from menacing, it’s more a tranquil shade of sublime, like those hours after midnight when the meridian sounds of road traffic and human life have ebbed off into the distance and you’re left with the sighing creaks of a room.

The sound is remarkably different on the B-side. Here the air gradually thickens with murkier sub-harmonic distortion, bordering on a seething sense of aggression relative to most of Tattersall’s other output, pushing the grim murk to a logical entropy that precipitates elegiac pauses for reflection and warbling closure.

Los Angeles Free Music Society (LAFMS) formed in the mid-1970s as a loose-knit experimental music collective and multimedia publishing vehicle. Founded by teenage Le Forte Four members Chip Chapman, Joe Potts and Rick Potts and soon joined by Tom Recchion of Doo-Dooettes, LAFMS incorporated free improvisation, modular synthesizers, tape music, sampling, musique concrète, homemade instruments, noise, mail art and avant-rock in permissive and anarchic sessions at the Raymond Building and Poo-Bah Record Shop in old Pasadena. Inspired by The Residents, LAFMS self-released records and periodicals, organized performances and connected with fellow outsiders via post in the years before punk. Their uninhibited, egalitarian ideal of music-making and DIY distribution would influence generations of underground musicians.

Live At The Brand documents the second performance of newly formed LAFMS core groups Le Forte Four and Doo-Dooettes on July 8, 1976 at the recital hall of the Brand Library in Glendale. Le Forte Four (now joined by Tom Potts) did not actually perform live, but rather created 44 pyramid-shaped headphone helmets with internal quadraphonic speakers and countless wires in order to share their latest tape assemblages with showgoers deprived of sight. The recordings delivered in this Fluxus-inspired manner feature the Buchla synthesizer at nearby CalArts, radio interpolations, group improvisations, addled outbursts and splices from source material lost to time. Doo-Dooettes – Tom Recchion, Harold Schroeder, Juan Gomez, Dennis Duck and Fredrik Nilsen – performed a series of alternately droning and chaotic duets with guitar, percussion, piano, tape loops and synthesizer, all improvised around loosely structured compositions and culminating in a spontaneous group composition at the end of the program. Originally released in 1976, the double LP would be LAFMS' third release.

This first-time vinyl reissue is limited to 500 numbered copies. Comes with inserts.

Recorded in the summer of 2020 whilst the world was in flux, the album is drenched with a feeling of freedom as Garwood and drummer Paul May sheltered from the world outside. It was, Garwood explains, “a heat soaked fever dream of our soul nectar in sonic form”. Recalling the past, gathering the elements from the present, the two artists – whose knowledge of one another’s playing is apparent throughout – work together with exquisite tones and percussive detail in this intimate recording. Garwood expands, “In the deep summer heat wave of ‘20, when everything was closed and people were hiding, I hit the road West to join my brother in music in his place, bungalow magic. We knew we had to play - for our souls, for the soul of humanity, to bring down the machine and tyranny, to invite the angels in, to save ourselves from insanity. Play we did, the guitars detuned until bee’s wings would make the strings sing. We began with the drum, and the things that shake and rattle, the drones of the heat, we sweated and we worked it until the night calmed us.This is not a lock down album, for we were free in our spirits when this was created, free from any desires to conquer and fill our pockets with the booty of success.”