Beats Novedades

Obvious Transfer are back with a killer third release from QNTM CTRL. The super limited OBTRAN003 EP delves further into the wormhole, with a heady mix of dub and techno on 'Smokehouse Shift'. An unmissable release from the new Cultivated Electronics-born experimental collective!

Tape

Rico Friebe (otherwise known as Rico Puestel) enters the stage, carrying the weight of his peerless debut album "Jenni". Based on completely unanticipated events from personal matters, the album quickly emerged during a state of deeper challenges, worries and depression, subversively operating as reprocessing and self-reflective counselling in a state of uncertainty. A fusion of electronic and organic origins, combining sensitive production work and vintage songwriting, tells an incisive story within a widespread stilistic diversity from the realms of Ambient, Trip Hop and beyond. An album of esteem and acknowledgement with a deeply personal tiding. A salute, a tribute, a reminder.

Rico Friebe (sonstig umtriebig als Rico Puestel) betritt die Bühne, die Last seines vergleichlosen Debüt-Albums "Jenni" tragend. Auf gänzlich unabsehbaren Geschehnissen persönlicher Natur basierend, entstand das Album in einer sehr kurzen, dennoch hochgradig intensiven Zeit tiefgehender Herausforderungen, Sorgen und Depressionen und fungierte daraufhin zugleich als Methode der Aufarbeitung und Therapie im Status der Ungewissheit. Die Fusion elektronischer und organischer Ursprünge, die einer Vereinung feinfühliger Produktion und klassischen Songwritings zugewandt ist, eröffnet die Erzählungen zu einer einschneidenden Geschichte mit dem Sprachrohr breitgefächerter, stilistischer Strömungen aus den Sphären von Ambient, Trip Hop und darüber hinaus. Ein Album voller Wertschätzung und Anerkennung mit einer zutiefst persönlichen Botschaft. Ein Salut, eine Widmung und Mahnung zugleich.

Rumore debuts on Hot Haus Recs with 6 low lung house jackers, super deep breakbeat houz 4 the headz!

"Voyager / Strange Thoughts" is the debut on Insomnius Music from producer and DJ Section 63, also known as Blade from The Sect, and is also the first vinyl release on the label as a whole. Rolling, techy drum & bass shoots through dark galaxies - both in digital format and as a clear blue 180g vinyl, with a printed cover and a blue padded inner sleeve. Mastering through Beau Thomas (Ten Eight Seven).

Steve Fors offers deeply physical music on his Hallow Ground debut »it's nothing, but still.« Having already established himself as a composer of visceral drone and noise pieces in various Chicago- and New York-based underground projects, Fors’s first release under his given name is even more dense and evocative than his earlier work. A concept album on the subject of breath, the Siavash Amini-produced record sees the now Swiss-based composer blend field recordings with electronic and acoustic sounds—most notably towering cello drones—to almost overwhelming effect.

Initially taking inspiration from living with a chronic lung condition, Fors meticulously crafts pieces that transcend his personal experience and reach for something universal. »The album is a study in melancholy and transience,« he explains. »And my intention is that the sounds trigger a memory, an image, a feeling in each of us. While our specific circumstances are momentary and discrete; joy, rage, and despair remain existential to our common experience.«

At first listen, Fors describes moments in time by building on a foundation of simple field recordings—an afternoon in a cathedral, the idling of COVID-19 morgue trucks outside Brooklyn Hospital, or the fleeting sound of wind in the trees—and then progressively overlays electronic and acoustic textures. On repeated plays however, the songs unfold, revealing a complexity, depth, and presence uncommon in current ambient music.

What makes »it's nothing, but still« such a memorable album is that it doesn’t impose anything on the listener, but rather offers them something to get lost in. From the first lush drones on the opener »(good enough) for now,« to the solemn piano chords on the title track, to the glistening cello feedback on »the way to heaven,« Fors’s sentiment about the record rings true. »If we surrender ourselves, these sounds can move us out of our present condition into a distinctly different existence, if only for a moment. If we choose to listen closely, we can experience the superpositioning of both memory and imagination in real time.«

Just as a film or painting does, recorded music proposes a space in three dimensions, it may not be permanent and it could be said to be illusory, but to us, in the moment, it is there.
Sunstroke were Ben Bollaert and Etienne Delaruye, both were obsessed with the burgeoning possibilities of electronic music it made sense that they collaborate in the studio.

The resulting experiments culminated in the 1985 release of Nothing's Wrong in Paradise.
The record was conceived as a soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist - a sophisticated meeting of post-Berlin-school dreaming, Yen-records hi-tech calm and Impressionist Café music ennui. What makes it most compelling though, is that even while it conjures a seemingly perfect world, something around the edges lets you know that all might not be as it seems. Maybe there is nothing wrong in paradise. Or maybe that’s just wallpapering over the cracks. The rough edges and regret of everyday life cannot help but intrude. Once you have spent some time with it, the whole record starts to seem bathed in a dim half-light, suggesting utopia glimpsed through a smudged lens.

Just like the ethereal space in their music Sunstroke only existed for a moment, a second LP was planned but never materialised, Delaruye returned to theatre music and Bollaert opened a successful synthesiser store and was active in the New Beat scene. Briefly they created a paradise and pointed out its temporary nature, all at the same time.

Remastered from the Master tapes.e.

'Infinite Branches' explores multi-textural sound illustrations that encompass an array of calm tones and gentle movements. The ep features four beautiful arrangements by the artist with eight reworked vignettes- where two branches of the theme share a certain commonality, but never intersect. Infinite Branches is a compelling and inspirational paean to various forms and patterns of the ambient genre which include reworks by: 36, zake, Pausal, City of Dawn, Ai Yamamoto, awakened souls, Patricia Wolf, and Christina Giannone.

Repress

Debut release, its origins remaining in the murky shadows of anonymity for now. While drenched in sounds spanning back to early Jungle and Hardcore, these tunes are crafted with a sense for modern tastes, ready to flip the vibe in a brave DJ's 4/4-set. "Dream Support" bopps along nicely with warm chords and a skippy breakbeat, until the bottom end opens up with a big reese-workout and suddenly you're down at the blue note in 1996, filtered mentasm-samples and all. "Dawn Queen" follows a similar path, it's chugging breakbeat slowly getting friskier with some tasty amen-cuts.

Pareidolia Recordings is glad to present for her seventh chapter the first 2xLP "Electro Became Electro", a labyrinth where the deepest nuances of the electro blend togheter.
Seven artists, seven different ways of feels, interpreting and conceiving this genre, seven innovative minds.

The electro music without spaces and borders.

*delayed until September**

2LP Gatefold, with essay by Felipe Maia.

NTS presents funk.BR - São Paulo, an exploration into the magical and menacing world of the Brazilian city’s current baile funk sounds.

São Paulo has built up a reputation for its confrontational funk output over the past decade, and the emergence of the mandelão sound has underlined this. This riotous strain of baile funk has been tailor made for the favela parties (so-called bailes or fluxos) of the Brazilian megalopolis. Played across the bailes do Helipa, Bega, Marcone and Casinhas, mandelão now spans a wide range of sub-genres; from hypnotic ritmado to brutal bruxaria.

This 22-track collection of previously unreleased songs finds starlet producers like Blakes, Arana, and Bonekinha Iraquiana sat alongside scene stalwarts and national icons like Deekapz, Mu540, and the inimitable MC GW. It all serves to make funk.BR - São Paulo a vital snapshot of this sensational city’s musical magic.

The symbol on side A is a more than 3000y old Chinese letter signifying "dance", probably a shamanic dance for the gods or a rain dance.

The illustrations on side B are both from France, the menhir is the "Dame de Saint Sernin" and the bison "de la Madeleine".
Picture in the background was taken in Yakushima, a southern island in Japan that is the model for Gibli's Princess Mononoke
Concerning the music, take a break and relax

Solenoid is back with SLN019, this time Label owner Erta Ale shares the sides with the welcomed Italian duo we.amps. Connection, vibrations and affinity - all aspects that bring together a remarkable release between the two producers. 'Suck my/ Oblivious' is the perfect example of the meaning of connection and keeping true to one's own “style”. 'Drummy ya' is the essence of being eclectic and simultaneously dance floor oriented. A stormy chord combined with a twisty acid melody that clashes on the unexpected vocal break, moving onto the second part of the track where a stormy loop becomes raw and gritty yet arranged in an intentional and accurate manner. 'Suck my' is fast and "break" with a 4/4 beat making the arrangement experienced, at the same time , the electro baseline with the deep male vocal, throws the listener into its vortex of sound. Side B showcases Erta's experimental breakbeat track “Oblivious” , perfect for a sophisticated dance floor or a radio podcast. The last track “Odyssey” is one of the most intimate and hypnotic tracks by the record label owner. An atmospheric and even sentimental track which was created during his last South African tour.

Since he first landed on our radar via Vivid a few years back, Yosh has dished out enough high grade garage and breakbeat gear to fuel the scene on his own. Not only a prolific producer, he's also got a razor sharp flair which edges him in front of a crowded scene, and now he's back to Vivid to show us exactly what he's about with a 12-track double-pack, his biggest release to date. In one sense you should know exactly what to expect - elevated steppers and deft rollers, but the fundamental appeal of Yosh is all those ear-snagging traits which make his tracks sparkle, and you never know what they're going to be until the needle's tracking in that groove. Now you can enjoy that sensation 12 times over - a good deal if ever we saw one.

Björk announces her tenth studio album Fossora - each album always starts with a feeling that i try to shape into sound the feeling was landing ( after my last album utopia which was all island in the clouds element air and no bass ) on the earth and digging my feet into the ground it was also woven into how i experienced the "now" this time around 7 billion of us did it together nesting in our homes quarantining being long enough in one place that we shot down roots my new album "fossora" is about that it is a word i made up it is the feminine of fossore ( digger, delver, ditcher ) so in short it means "she who digs" ( into the ground ) so sonically it is about bass , heavy bottom-end , we have 6 bass clarinets and punchy sub i would like to especially thank bergur þórisson and heba kadry and side project , el guincho , hamrahlíð choir , soraya nayyar , clarinet sextet murmuri , siggi string quartet ensemble , emilie nicolas , serpentwithfeet viibra and last but not least : sindri and dóa .

visuals were made by viðar logi , james merry , m/m , nick knight , andy huang , edda , isshehungry , tomi , sayaka , sunna , sara and heimir and my ever so loyal and magnificent team : derek , rosamary , catherine , chiara , hilma and móa

CHBB was a project by Beate Bartel and Chris Haas that developed from their collaboration in 1981, while working on the self-titled album 'Liaisons Dangereuses‘. They released their music only on four limited cassettes.

This compilation presents the complete works of CHBB, including all recordings from their original cassettes alongside previously unreleased tracks produced by both artists.

The music on this album includes the audio explorations and experiments that led to the creation of the finished soundtrack - the used and unused elements as I worked to find the ‘Delia’ sounds I felt best connected not only directly to her life experiences that influenced her music, but were expressive of, and representative of her. The compositions are inspired by my research of the Delia Derbyshire audio archive, Delia's original compositional notes and techniques which in combination with my admiration and love of Delia’s

work provided a way to integrate her style and approach to music with my own. An alliance of our sensibilities. Cosey Fanni Tutti

Instrumentation: Synthesisers, Guitar, Cornet, Coolicon, Cymbals, Nagra Tape Recorder,Tape Manipulationsand Field Recordings.

Vocals by: Cosey Fanni Tutti & Caroline Catz.

Music written, composed, performed and produced by Cosey Fanni Tutti 2019 - 2021. Recorded at Studio 47, Norfolk and Twickenham Studio 3, London. Mastered by Chris Carter.

Deux Filles was not, in fact, two girls despite what the group name and its elaborate hoax of a backstory suggest. No, they were not Gemini Forque and Claudine Coule, French women who met as teenagers under tragic circumstances and became fast friends, recording two albums together before disappearing into the ether. In reality, Deux Filles was Simon Fisher Turner and Colin Lloyd Tucker, a UK duo who first worked together in an early incarnation of The The.

Straddling the line between experimental and pop, Turner was an actor and teen singing star who later composed soundtracks for the iconic queer filmmaker Derek Jarman while Tucker’s career began as an engineer for the famed UK library music studio, De Wolfe, before forming experimental wave group The Gadgets. In Deux Filles, the duo found an outlet for their least commercial tendencies, combining lo-fi proto-dream-pop instrumentals with samples, tape experiments, ambient textures, and drum machines. Even in the vibrant, seemingly endless well of UK DIY, Deux Filles stand out.

Double Happiness is the duo’s second album, originally released in 1983 on their own imprint, Papier Maché. Full of meandering guitar and with a more ominous tone than the debut, the album is recommended for fans of Durutti Column and Thomas Leer & Robert Rental’s The Bridge.

This November, American cult hero Dev/Null debuts on Trickfinger & Aura T-09's Evar Records with MICROJUNGLIZM, an 8-track album that explores the power and beauty of darkcore, jungle tekno and breakbeat rave. Chopped drums, hairpin turns and alluringly emotional pads open up a time portal between the past and the future, decorated with haunting samples and musical Easter eggs that show off Boston-based Dev/Null's deep history as a rave historian and scholar.

MICROJUNGLIZM's fantasy suite was written over the last year, arranged and sequenced entirely without a computer. Dev/Null fell in love with Teenage Engineering's PO-33 Pocket Operator – a portable, pocket-sized sequencer that he started using during his DJ sets to create special versions on the fly. The limitations of making entire tracks inside the PO-33 immediately suggested the sampling techniques and stylistic hallmarks of early jungle, already one of Pete's longtime obsessions.

"The PO-33 has some of the same low-fi sonic charm as retro gear used back in the day," Pete explains. "8-bit samples, 11khz mono sound, kind of like an Amiga computer. It's been really fun and exciting to have my own tracks to throw into sets – even if they're raw, unfinished 3-minute things which get played once and never again. A few of these tunes were done for my sets at parties thrown by Aura T-09 in L.A., so I'm happy they're coming out on her label."

George Riley is London music’s most uncategorizable new star. With a smoky, jazzinflected voice, she weaves her way through productions that borrow from jungle, R&B and ambient soundscapes.

On ‘Running in Waves’, a new eight-song collaboration with producer Vegyn, she’s defiantly herself, writing with searing emotional honesty about everything from relationship anxiety to fear of failure to her love for Camper shoes.

George has previously collaborated with ANZ, Joe Armon-Jones, Lex Amor and Olver Palfreyman. 12” in printed inner, housed in bespoke die cut printed outer sleeve. Includes digital download card.

Banoffee Pies Records, in its eighth year of operating, hit the 20th release milestone in their Original Series. Joining the roster, Cairo based producer Hassan Abou Alam steps up with a 4 track solo EP entitled "Fasla".

A decisive selection of attitude packed wormhole bass lines and dark basement jams.

The A side was produced in a special collaboration with local artist SHBL-LBSH who's vocal works feature across "Kesibt" + "Fasla". The B side delivers a series of sharp and cutting synth lines in "Mawkif" and breakneck low end rumbles in "Hanshoof".After a series of works on the likes of Naive, Not For Profit and Rhythm Section, Hassan fittingly joins the Berlin based, Bristol born label with more boundless sounds that slice through the fabric of styles that BPR have fostered since inception. Tailored club music fromone of Egypts new wave of producers.Hold your hats and check your Bassbins. BPR. X

Untitled 7' is a new track originally started in the 90's and never finished, now brought up to date. Featuring the huge Straight Outa London vocal, alongside some tasty amen edits, lush strings and a killer bassline. Made on an Akai Sampler for the original authentic sound, this track fits perfectly into the Golden era.

'Untitled 8' was made at the same time as the early Heavyweight releases, and like Volumes 1,2 and 3 was engineered by the Original Don 'Dillinja". You can really hear the heavy bass that is synonymous with everything that came our of that vibey Brixton studio!

The liminal space between storytelling and dreaming is full of noise. Like whispers, flickering lines of static travel to the rhythm of tension, moving through moments of stillness and chaos. The sharp details of the hyper-personal become shared memories.

Dreams can be stories, their fabric transient and their logic malleable - like folk songs carrying ancient knowledge or clairvoyant wisdom.

White Dove Dream tells a story that only sound can. One that defies language and closed narrative; a story that is both a personal rumination and collective conversation.

There are layers of healing synthesis and dream logic improvisation; captured recordings coalesce somewhere beneath the scramble like deja vu. Like a diary entry, or a manifesto - noise is folk music and Icebear is noisy.

Icebear is Eilis Mahon, a sound artist from Kildare, Ireland.

White Dove Dream is her debut release on Weeding - an independent label and collective of friends based primarily in Dublin, Ireland, who love to make and share noise.

Recent play of “Funny Games / Garfield” on Pure Soil - NTS.

“Final Departure” is the debut album by J-Shadow, a widescreen vision expanding out on an event horizon before us. Built using influences from London’s rich electronic, pirate radio and black music lineages (jungle, grime, hip-hop, electronica etc), the album twists and turns, lifting listeners up towards a more ethereal plane. “I see beauty in the complexity of life from the cosmic scale to the quantum,” he explains. “From all that we can observe, this world stands as a uniquely multifarious sphere in which we just happen to exist.” “I love to take ideas and attempt to conceptualise them into an audible expedition,” he explains. “I find that music serves as an extraordinary medium to project my perception of the universe.” “Sometimes I will reach for certain influences and deconstruct them into an amalgamation of conscious experiences that reflect my vision of how I see the world.”

ONLY ONE MUSIC presents another outstanding release from the past. This time it's Jaime read - Never The Future EP, originally released in 2010 on Elektrosouls Recordings. A must have item which will be availalable only on vinyl - highly recommended!

Unfamiliar landscapes, dampened by snow and fog, frozen waterways, ghostly forests: in equal parts unsettling and rich with possibility - such is the world of ‘Thawlines’, the third solo album by John Lemke. Carved out at a glacial pace over six years, it distills the memories of a deeply impactful journey to Finland in 2011 into John’s most personal album to date.

During a time of inner turmoil, John’s first encounter with the harsh Finnish winter while visiting an old friend in Helsinki, served as the backdrop and catalyst for pivotal change. Inspired to write an album based on the experience some years later, a second trip with a residency near the Arctic Circle followed. Gathering field recordings and reflecting the original voyage, John experimented with first sketches in the solitude of the icy woodlands, before beginning to flesh out tracks in his Glasgow studio.

The practice of turning memories of places, situations and atmospheres into music, slowly evolved into a complex mosaic of textures and tones, sparking near endless permutations of each piece. About the process John says, ‘I always liked the idea of time as my main collaborator. Or put differently, collaborating with slightly different versions of myself over time. Most of the pieces on ‘Thawlines’ were crafted over a number of years, with long gaps in between recording, letting the ideas ferment somewhat in the meantime, or at least my notion of where they could go. The process let me look at each track from a multitude of angles and come at it with contrasting frames of mind, before understanding what the pieces truly needed to be. It was just a very natural way to work and let ideas grow. In many ways the album turned out as a celebration of the art of getting lost.’

The increasingly slow progression, partly due to John’s many soundtrack commitments, meant that more and more current experiences started seeping into the work as well. As John explains, ‘A lot of life has been digested in this record. From losses of loved ones to becoming a parent and everything in between.’

From a production point of view, John kept feeling drawn to sounds that evoked a certain childhood nostalgia in him such as the mellotron, unruly synths, reverb drenched vocals and era specific recordings of cello, drums and guitars.

Abandoning the rather electronic feel of People Do (2013) and Nomad Frequencies (2015) for a more band oriented sound, John enlisted the help of some of his favourite musicians in the form of Pete Harvey (Modern Studies) on cello, Clive Deamer (Portishead, Radiohead, Robert Plant) on drums and harpist Urška Preis (rogue-ah) to realise his vision. As John says, ‘The music somehow needed to run through the hands of others, which gave a sense of catharsis after such a drawn out, solitary process. It was exactly what was needed to bring the journey full circle’.

As a long odyssey comes to its conclusion, the yield can finally begin a life of its own.

West coast composer, artist, and producer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith has chartered a pioneering career with multiple critically-acclaimed albums since 2015. Following the release of The Kid in 2017, Smith focused her energy in several directions. She founded Touchtheplants, a multidisciplinary creative environment for projects including the first volumes in her instrumental Electronic Series and pocket-sized poetry books on the practice of listening within. She’s continued to explore the endless possibilities of electronic instruments as well as the shapes, movements, and expressions found in the physical body’s relationship to sound and color. It is this life-guiding interest that forms the foundational frequencies of her most recent full-length, The Mosaic of Transformation, a bright, sensorial glide through unbound wave phenomena and the radiant power discovered within oneself.



“I guess in one sentence, this album is my expression of love and appreciation for electricity,” says Smith. While writing and recording, she embraced adaily practice of physical movement, passing electricity through her body and into motion, in ways reflecting her audio practice, which sends currents through modular synthesizers and into the air through speakers. Not a dancer by any traditional definition, she taught herself improvisatory movement realizing flexibility, strength, and unexpectedly, a “visual language” stemming from the human body and comprised of vibrational shapes. Understood as cymatics, as Smith says, “as a reference for how frequencies can be visualized,” much like a mosaic.



Smith describes her first encounters with this mosaic; “the inspiration came to me in a sudden bubble of joy. It was accompanied by a multitude of shapes that weremoving seamlessly from one into the other...My movement practice has been aconstant transformation piece by piece. I made this album in the same way. Every day I would transform what I did yesterday...into something else. This album has gone through about 12 different versions of itself.” As it has arrived, in a completed state, The Mosaic of Transformation is a holistic manifestation of embodied motions. Smith’s signature textural curiosity that fans have grown to adore pivots naturally into a proprioceptive study of melody and timbre. Airy organ and voice interweave with burbling Buchla-spawned harmonic bubbles.

The multi-media project Kraftwerk was started in Düsseldorf, Germany 1970 by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider. They set up their electronic Kling Klang Studio where they conceived and produced all Kraftwerk albums.

Kraftwerk created the soundtrack for the digital age of the 21st century. AUTOBAHN 1974, RADIO-ACTIVITY 1975, TRANS EUROPE EXPRESS 1977, THE MAN-MACHINE 1978, COMPUTER WORLD 1981, TECHNO POP 1986, THE MIX 1991, TOUR DE FRANCE 2003. Their compositions, using innovative techniques, electronic sounds and synthetic voices combined with computerised rhythms, had a major musical influence on Electro, Hip Hop, Techno and Synth-Pop. 

Extraordinaire multi instrumentalists Matt Lord and Kaidi Tatham team up for a proper Dance album for Neroli.
They remixed, engineered/co-produced and played on hundreds of records for other artists as well as being part of Bugz In The Attic and active members in several projects for 2000black, but this is the very first time they release a collaborative project under their own names.
Here they channel all their musicianship and talent in a collection of songs aimed at the dancefloor, showing another straighter and playful side of what we all learned to love from them!

Songs like ‘Sensitive Souls’, ‘Pickin’ and Choosin’ and the Dego/Mr Mensah collaboration ‘Cape Verdean Blues’ are fierce dj material, while the anthemic title track ‘Find Another Way’ and ‘Strollin’ add extra spice and sophistication to the plot. Plus there’s even more to discover on this accomplished album that hopefully will be finally played on a dancefloor near you….

The first album of Maga is a sonic journey through different resonances. Fully recorded in Guadalajara, Resona is the combination of jazz and electronic influences.

Over the past two years, Mickael Agarla aka Maga visited Guadalajara several times to record different types of sounds and vibration. From the mystical trombon, to the edgy trumpet, and the low frequency Tuba as well as vocals and drums, Maga mixed these different sounds with an electronic edge.

“24” is Minuit Machine’s 4th LP. Electronic masterpiece, subtle mix of dark wave, techno and electropop, “24” is both surprising and seductive. Authentic, emotional and powerful, “24” is a real immersion into Minuit machine’s dark, dystopian and futuristic world. Through this LP, Hélène and Amandine are facing all obstacles and disappointments life brings on their way. Each track is a self-affirmation, a rallying cry and an urge to live. The instrumental part is clearly marked and contributes to create the band’s unique sound. The strong beats are a call to dance while the synths, stabbing and emotional, will definitely move you. Finally, the deep basses give the tracks an “EBM” touch. Vocal lines are more pop, with less reverb. They are meant to obsess and stay in your head all day long. They were thought of as a 90's dance music chorus, but with feelings. As usual, the lyrics are very personal and describe several states of mind. Since their creation, Hélène and Amandine kept on reinventing themselves in order to translate their inner questioning and emotions into music. From this point of view, “24” could be Minuit Machine’s most accomplished work since each track sounds like a confession.

Welcome to Nicolini’s wonderful world of surprise - Penni’s Palace. Here you will find zebra-chairs and matchbox countachs, colourful tv-screens and Penni the cat presiding over proceedings. You will also find Nicolini, hunched over his MPC or Casio keyboards, sweeping the EQs to make the sounds move, jamming out his songs in heavy microdoses. They are the sounds of machines and the city - Amsterdam centre to be precise - brought to life with volts of electricity.

These songs started out as a live show on the terrace of Garage Noord nightclub, and over the following months Nicolini tweaked and re-recorded them into the collection of tracks you have before you. Bristling with energy, these live jams have a loose, almost mystical feeling - you never know quite what’s around the corner. Sounds jump out of the speakers at you, from car engines to reverb crashes. Opposites face off against each other - the mechanical meets the organic, and the cold emptiness of the city contrasts with the warm timbres of tropical climes.

Nicolini is quite used to combining disparate elements, particularly as a member of the re-configured Zamrock band WITCH. As pioneers of some of the heaviest space fuzz back in the ‘70s, WITCH combined garage-psych guitars with Zambian dialects and culture to create a wildly unique sound. Nicolini joined the band during their resurgence over the last few years, as they toured far-flung corners of the world. It’s an experience that undoubtedly helped Nicolini hone one skill set in particular - combining unexpected sounds together in unusual ways - and it’s on full display across these nine tracks.

Pink Vinyl

A deeply confounding trip into the sublime from master of contextual dream-weaving Nozomu Matsumoto on perhaps his most heart-piercingly beautiful work to date, including a 13 minute choral section that might just be the most stunning piece of pseudo-classical/liturgical alchemy we’ve heard all year. RIYL Kara-Lis Coverdale, Ryan Trecartin or Mica Levi’s ‘Zola’ score.

Leading on from his ’Remain Calm’ album to accompany visual components by regular collaborator Nile Koetting, ‘Immunotherapy’ offers therapeutic solace through a personalised form of Japanese environmental music. A conceptual continuation of themes explored on 2018’s ‘Climatotherapy’ and 2020’s ‘Sustainable Hours’; Nozomu’s 3rd solo vinyl release reprises his uncanny ability to evoke a reflective headspace with a blend of classical ambient tropes, text-to-speech synthesis, and a contemporary cinematic vernacular that’s both nuanced and moving.

In 2022, against the backdrop of global warfare, a pandemic, and ecological collapse, Nozomu’s work grasps the nettle with a sober lucidity to make time and space for his, and your, wellbeing. ‘Immunotherapy’ carefully evokes its own temporality and atmospheric conditions via a grandiose but intimate palette of strings, keys, blissed chorales, and electronic webbing which provide the bed for narration by Amazon’s vocaloid, Polly. The results create an unusual duality - a human/inhuman intimacy rooted in some uncertain semi-robotic near-future that references the original ‘80s era of classic Japanese ambient music, which itself emerged as a soothing response to the headlong rush of a technologically enhanced/enchanted society.

Across six parts in 22 minutes, ‘Immunotherapy’ resolves from the initial inset of a panic attack in public, via passages reflecting on “diseases of affluence” thru to spine freezing synth pads and an extraordinary denouement of emotive Koto and shearing synthesis on ‘Vertigo’ before entering a final state of blissed stasis on that closing 13 minute ‘Filippo Pacini’ section - a haunting ode to the c.19th Italian anatomist that uncannily reminds us of Kara-Lis Coverdale’s collaboration with Yasuaki Shimizu - a sound that feels all-too-human despite it’s synthetic contours.

Perseus Traxx makes his debut on Hissman's Hardmoon London imprint with a unique set of acid-free sonic experiments.

Squama regulars Enji and Popp join forces on ‘Nant’, the debut LP by their newly minted duo ‘Poeji’, exploring the confines of Post-Dub and Downtempo.
2022’s 3-track EP ‘031921 5.24 5.53’, released as a limited run of dubplates, was the first testament to their open approach to writing, which takes only very basic ideas and relies on non-verbal communication to define form and pace.
Enji’s vocals are less centre-stage than on her solo endeavors, piercing through reverb plates and guitar pedals while Simon inked his signature set of wooden and metal percussions with chains of tape echoes and analog delay.
Listening to ‘Nant’ as a snapshot of Poeji’s artistry at a certain time and place can instill a sense of gratitude within the listener that something so fleeting can be captured.