Beats News

In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is.

“Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell in these eleven pieces. And yes, sometimes you’ll think about ambient music. Most of the time you’ll wonder about what is really happening. And why it's only now you’re hearing about this twenty-something musician from Setúbal, Portugal.

A little bit more than one minute into “En Garde!”, the opening track, one feels challenged by the idea that everything that was listened up to that moment was a false start. The piece abruptly stops, flips some digital sound, and restarts in a whole new direction. As this happens it becomes obvious we are in for a treat. Those two, three seconds create a sensation that everything happens in a moment that introduces you to funcionário's craft: delicate complex sounds infatuated with the idea of movement and the never-ending notion that there’s no dividers in the fourth world. Music can go beyond that.

As it moves forward – “Verde”, “Sierra” or “Publicidade Arco e Flecha” -, the album (his fourth) morphs around variations or perceptions of ambient / electronic / experimental music. And as the language evolves, it hints on how funcionário keeps stretching the boundaries of digital music as he wishes to advance to a more analog setup. In a way, he confronts foundational ideas while having breakthroughs and realizing he is at a top level. Justifiably ambitious, bright and discreetly edgy.

A compilation of Hearn Gadbois' tracks, published here and there along the years (1983- 2020). Most of them are home recordings with very little or no diffusion, so this release tries to shed some light on these amazing compositions. A sound related to Hassell's 4th world, but developed in a very personal way (he even designs & makes some of his instruments) that feels different and goes far beyond. Using mostly acoustic instruments, Hearn combines a love of traditional trance/ecstatic rhythms with the sensibilities of an outsider artist, creating a music that is both archaic and post-modern. A really original and rare work, difficult to classify or explain... In Hearn's own words, included in the liner notes:
"The pieces compiled here tend to fall, with some overlap, into a few broad categories as near as I can tell: Mystery Psychedelic Crime Jazz (Tuba City, Flesh of the Spirit), Ayahuasca Hut Bachelor Pad Music (Night, Take the Waters, Wood), or Party Music that just fell from the sky or bubbled up through a crack in the earth (Flown Home, What the Goatherd Heard)"

As a percussionist, composer for dance and film, instrument designer/ builder, session musician and teacher, Gadbois worked with Meredith Monk, Sussan Deyhim, Gabrielle Roth, Yoko Ono, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, The Master Musicians of Jajouka, and Wim Wenders, to name but a few.

Jan Anderzén and his partners celebrate the transcendental power of ecstatic music. Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa is the first Kemialliset Ystävät album in four years. It is the result of chance enhancing online collaboration methods, desire to get lost in the sound archives and the high art of meticulous editing. The album title is from visions of rivers running down from Heart of Darkness to the City of Joyful Noise. If contemporary music is a high speed train passing by then KY's music would be an orgy of light under a railway bridge.

A band member Lars Mattila experiences the music of Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa in spatial terms:

"There are worlds accessed only through our auditory system. I hear a Wunderkammer of freestanding sound objects. Rhythms like sequences of seemingly random stuff laid out on the forest floor: a pair of thrones, a Henry Moore sculpture, a watermelon, two thrones, a Moore sculpture, a melon... I trust the path to go on even if I can't see behind the hill. There's motion, wether it be drunk driving or super human rapid eye movement. The sheer amount of detail makes it impossible to take everything in at once. One's perception and shifting focus reshape the experience on each listen. I remember my visit to Cappella Palatina in Palermo where Normann architecture, Arabic arches and Byzantine dome form a harmonious whole. Various cultural and spiritual influences are recognized as equals. The sense of space also brings to mind the end scene of The Lawnmower Man when the dude is trying to escape the virtual world."

Mr Projectile, one of our favorite IDM producers from back in the day, has given La Luna the chance to share some of his unreleased IDM tracks from the early 2000’s. The album is an eclectic blend of ambient, IDM and experimental electronics.

These sounds are a time machine to simpler, less chaotic times and have become essential listening these days. We envision this album spinning on a sunny Sunday afternoon, filling your room with the delicate and deep textures of electronic music and soothing your uncertainty. Enjoy a nice cup of coffee and explore your thoughts as you speed through time and space. Hopefully serving as a special reminder that we are all in this madness together.

Not only is the music stellar, but we are honoured to have Marcello Raeli, an Italian artist and car designer, accompany the music with his wonderfully mind bending artwork. Marcello is an artist who has designed some of the most insanely beautiful/fast cars on the planet. Here we get to take a deep look into his mind and marvel at the incredible interconnectedness created in this piece and appreciate the sense of depth and space created for this album.

Mr Projectile, one of our favorite IDM producers from back in the day, has given La Luna the chance to share some of his unreleased IDM tracks from the early 2000’s. The album is an eclectic blend of ambient, IDM and experimental electronics.

These sounds are a time machine to simpler, less chaotic times and have become essential listening these days. We envision this album spinning on a sunny Sunday afternoon, filling your room with the delicate and deep textures of electronic music and soothing your uncertainty. Enjoy a nice cup of coffee and explore your thoughts as you speed through time and space. Hopefully serving as a special reminder that we are all in this madness together.

Not only is the music stellar, but we are honoured to have Marcello Raeli, an Italian artist and car designer, accompany the music with his wonderfully mind bending artwork. Marcello is an artist who has designed some of the most insanely beautiful/fast cars on the planet. Here we get to take a deep look into his mind and marvel at the incredible interconnectedness created in this piece and appreciate the sense of depth and space created for this album.

There's a comforting mechanical heartbeat to 'Proem,' like a machine that has just become aware of itself, as it creaks and stutters along timidly interacting with its human caretakers. Peak moments of minimal dub-like ingredients impart flavor to a slow simmering broth of rich ear-coating ambience. (Lost Tribe Sound)

Pink Fluid is not an Italian EDM Duo by the same name but the new Band of Jon Tye & Pete Fowler who form the core of Seahawks! As Ransom Note once called it: A partnership born of 'A Psychedelic Guide To Monsterism Island' - the soundtrack to Pete`s illustrations, toys and figures - cemented by gigs playing records by Boston, Steely Dan and Fleetwood Mac at The Big Chill Bar, fuelled by a passion for vintage music-making machines, and given a name after a weekend spent in sailors outfits at Bestival. From tracks synthesised around AOR samples, Seahawks now record pretty much as a full band - which includes members of Hot Chip and The Horrors. So, What happened to Pink Fluid... Jon: The first Pink Fluid release 'Pipe Dreams' is coming up on Prins Thomas' Horizontal Mambo imprint, we don't know when but we know it will be beautiful when it does... And it does now! Pipe Dreams is an 8 Track, 32 minute mini album of sheer, almost translucent, beauty. Mambo HQ 26.7. 2017 Horisontal Mambo is a new sublabel by Full Pupp /Oslo

Beautifully drunken it hums, the piano in “PianoPiano”, the last tune of “How to Spread Lies”, the first EP by Roman Flügel for the Hamburg based label Dial in the year 2010. Or take “Strich”, a peculiar electrical slow-motion grinder, out on his “Mutter” EP for Klang Electronic in 2006. Since long, the renowned Berlin based DJ and producer is investigating in spheres beyond the dance, the groove, the ecstasy. Zones, where the molecules harmonize, senses relieve, and the soul quietens. All his last albums, “All The Right Noises” (Dial), “Themes I-XIII” (ESP Institue), “Eating Darkness” (Running Back) have moments of tension and relaxation in a deep harmonious connection.

Now “Balmy Evening”, a sundown record for sunup’s. Eleven notions in adventurous journey music, embracing the freedom of structure, blurring the musical pulse into harmonic meditation and mysteriously grooving zones, leaving all unnecessary accessories behind. A quality, that many of his collaborative and solo productions from past 30 years comprise. Still, most of them squint on the dance floor, where jack is king. Not so “Balmy Evening”, where real party bangers are absent. There are moving tunes like the slow Kraftwerk-melody-leaning funkateer “Duftschulter”, or the artificially jacking “Greenhouse”, where nervous Synth patterns ball along soft breaks and decreet kicks. Also, “Super Sonne”, an odd, seemingly improvised synth conversation might ask some souls out for a dance.

But all others, like “Atmosphere”, “Frei”, Dolphins, “Goth”, or “Ambienteuse”, rather seek for the tranquil in each one’s spirit. Listeners need be ready for surprises. Ready for impulsive ideas, linked to a harmonious flow, always ready to grow. An album full of silence, utterly loud, beautifully diverse humming, displaying a playful, exploratory side of a celebrated club music producer, to whom atoms dance in manifold ways.

On June 3rd Gondwana Records present 'Next Time Could Be Your Last Time' – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as "not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica", instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty.

This genesis began with the sharing of music, burgeoning friendships, and the mutually-inspirational benefit of the collective power of a group dynamic, with each spurring the next on to heighten their already expansive skills.

Intertwining the acoustic, electric and digital, utilising instruments and tools from across the decades, their synthesized Shangri La is a place where craftsmanship meets musicianship, even including sections notated on sheet music. The mood whilst recording, however, was one of loose freedom and enjoyment, with parts displaying a light-hearted playfulness. A world where shiny electronics meet flute and sax motifs, subverting them into something new.

Jack Wyllie is best known for his work with Portico Quartet, Paradise Cinema and Szun Waves as well as collaborations with artists such as Luke Abbott, Adrian Corker and Charles Hayward. Whilst JQ has released on Boxed and Lo Recordings, with his music also remixed by Loraine James, Sun Araw and Foodman. Richard Pike has had multiple records on Warp as a member of PVT, collaborated with Modeselektor and Ital Tek, recorded under his alter-ego Deep Learning, and founded the tape label Salmon Universe, all whilst composing scores for TV drama.

Wide-ranging influences on the LP include 70s era ECM and Miles Davis, Spencer Clark/Star Searchers, Ansel Adams, Steve Reich, H Takahashi, Don Slepian, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk's 'Spirit Of Eden', Michael Gordon's 'Rushes for 8 Bassoons', Sir Simon Rattle's documentary 'Leaving Home', Horoshi Yoshimura, Ulla Strauss and Disasterpeace, plus new developments in vaporwave and software experimental.

Hitting the centre at the Venn diagram of these interests, the record converges the trio's individual sound worlds into something singular. Primarily purveying a sense of endorphin-flushed tranquillity, they build synthetic, bucolic, lysergic landscapes, which although imbued with processed plasticity also contain multi-stranded depths of textural field.

• Jack Wyllie: Flute, soprano saxophone, Juno 60, loops

• Richard Pike: Vermona drum machine, Fender P-Bass, Roland Chorus Echo, NI Massive, Roland SH-101, Juno 6, mixing, mastering.

• JQ: Logic, NI Massive, various softsynths.

ssabæ is a nebula of friends gathering in studios, meadows and tiny apartments all over France : the tracks of azurescens were recorded during those sessions. We’d like to send love to all the friends involved in this project, it’s a special one (and it’s been in our head and in production for a f… long time)

Guitar : Étienne Chaigne

Voice : Margaux Delatour

Synths : Michael Ruellan

Percussions : Oedipa Maas

Saxophone : Gwen Jamois

Effects : Erwan Birib

Mixing : Paul Stamets

Production : Antoine Fountain

Photo : Béatrice de Ventadour

Design : Arthur Nolaw

REPRESS

Paris-based DJ and producer Anetha’s enigmatic label Mama Told Ya is a collaborative venture. Pushing artists out of their comfort zone to new heights of experimentation and creativity, yielding progressive results that challenge and intrigue.

The next instalment comes in the form of a kaleidoscopic debut release as a two vinyl pack from French producer and A/V artist UFO95, titled “Popularity is overrated”. This will be the first double EP on the label, with previous records released as split EP four-tracker collaborations with artists and Anetha herself, including Niki Istrefi, Hadone, ABSL and Sugar.

UFO95 is a French electronic music producer, who finds his roots in 90’s techno, UK jungle and also through IDM, creating a unique tribal sound. His lives ( live ; live A/V ) are like his music, dynamic and really hypnotizing. He releases his debut LP “Popularity is overrated” on Anetha’s label, Mama Told Ya.


As well, Anetha collaborates with a different visual artist on each project; Recsoverto takes center stage on the cover for this release, who combines ethereal visuals parodying Japanese video games and hyper-real typography.

The record is beautifully eclectic and has the effortless feel of a live set from a promising new producer. Opener ‘Sun S4lutation’ is a silky melodic affair, diving into a runaway breakbeat with a hypnotic edge crafting an effortlessly colorful trip. ‘2am’ is a tense nosedive into techno’s heady mutations, harnessing a prevailing kick and wormhole synths.

Up next is the masterful collaborative track with Anetha ‘On/Offline’. The track starts with an infectious energy, before vocal inflections and a dreamy hyper-real synth melody blend to hypnotic heights, transporting the listener to a open-air rave. ‘Should I Go’ is heady and bold in its brutal drum work and twisting synths, ‘Enchanted Forest’ is playful and addictive, ‘Rrkja’ starts wild until heavenly synths glow around the edges, and ‘OE’ carries the sentiment of amalgamation with a fierce kick drum and a symphonic chorus. Ending on a rough edged high, closer ‘Volcano’ takes an IDM approach with glitchy drums, weaving synths and groovy vocal inflections.

UK producer Dennis Huddleston goes by the artist name of 36. He is a much-loved producer with a fine back catalogue which is investigated here with The Box, a new collection of his earliest and perhaps most admired works. They were all written between 2005 and 2012 and are drawn from albums such as 2009's Hypersona, 2010's Hollow and 2012's Lithea. The bumper six vinyl collection also features a bonus album, Orphans, of all new and previously unreleased tracks. There is a real depth of range and emotion to these tracks so it is no wonder the artist says they are some of the most personally cherished works he has written.

Anyone who's cast even the most casual eye over their ever expanding catalogue will have realised that one thing Past Inside The Present do best is bring artists together for unexpected and inspired collaborations. Departing in Descent is the first collaboration between James Bernard and Bvdub but their creative conversation effectively started as far back as 1994 when the latter bought Bernard's Atmospherics album in 1994 when it was "mistakenly stocked" in his local house music store. He says it was and remains his favourite ambient album, so when the pair found themselves crossing paths for one night in LA years later, a collaboration was the only logical conclusion. The results are more organic and friendly on the ear than some ambient offerings, with real instrumentation meshed with walls of woozy synths and delays, but no less fantastical and ambitious for it.

40th anniversary year of this (15 million + selling) classic release. Sony Music will be repromoting both formats. A 12 track double gatefold LP with 16 page booklet containing full script, lyrics, original paintings and credits. A double 17 song CD format. There is a 15 date UK arena tour in November/December, featuring Jason Donovan, Newton Faulkner, Adam Garcia and the 3D hologram of Liam Neeson. There is also a major 3 part adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel will on BBC 1 in late November/early December starring Eleanor Tomlinson, Robert Carlyle, Rafe Spall and Rupert Graves. National TV ad campaign across all networks to Xmas. Radio features, spot plays and ad campaign. Press ads and features. Online/social media activity. Poster campaign and database mailout.

South-east Turkey born DJ, sound artist and producer Banu uses music as a political tool. For her, the strong message carried through sound is a vehicle to express emotions as well as a means of fighting against oppression. Using participation, social design, ecology, feminist and queer theory to create multimedia installations with sound as a main element, Banu‘s practice is closer to contemporary art and activist spaces than the club realm.

Banu‘s debut album TransSoundScapes is an exercise in female solidarity between her as a migrant woman and her sisters from the trans community, where an artist from one marginalised group is showing support towards her trans sisters, using her platform to help them amplify their voices and building a bridge towards a mutual understanding of femininity.

Conceptually, TransSoundScapes comes in continuation of Banu‘s previous research-based work, using music as a positive tool for change while working with various marginalised communities. The album originated from the very real experience of being confronted with verbal harassment in Berlin on a daily basis, particularly aimed at her transfeminine friends and companions. As a queer woman of Turkish and Kurdish origin, Banu did not only observe the verbal aggression directed at her friends, but also understood most of the insults shouted in languages such as Arabic. Seeing how she got signifi cantly more verbal violence directed at them when in company of trans people made a lasting impression on her, so she wanted to try and use her relative privilege to amplify transfeminine voices through her music.

Coming from a very conservative family, making music has been her lifelong dream. It was the moment she had the opportunity to work with the iconic Arp 2600 synthesiser (a younger sibling to Eliane Radigue‘s infamous 2500 machine) that all her disparate interests came into place to create an empowering soundscape with the aid of analogue drum machines. TransSoundScapes has a very full, porous sound, where every element that comes into play sounds soft yet clear. Across the 7 tracks, Banu conjures pounding subterraneous bassy techno („Surgery“), slithering tentacular EBM („First Time“) and pulsating cavernous soundscapes („Harem“), where oversized dancefl oor elements are woven with poetic spoken word passages, resulting in sensusous yet political anthems. Banu artfully merges loosely related genres such as techno, electro, dub and sound poems into a sound that is at once deeply personal and extremely compelling.

All of the tracks are collaborative efforts, Banu seeing the process as an exchange of care and shared experiences, while integrating research into her writing process. The lyrics in „Transition (part 1+2)‘‘ are an adaptation of Sara Ahmed’s “Living a Feminist Life”, while „Surgery“ was born out of series of interviews with trans people, channeling the metallic sounds of a surgery room to refer to society‘s perception of transness as a medical condition. Tracks like „First Time feat. Patricia“, „Harem feat. Prince Emrah“ or „We feat. Aérea Negrot“ document her encounters with various trans women, centering their life experiences while also developing a deep dialogue through the process of making music together.

The darkest and perhaps the most emblematic track is ‚‘Bianka (In Memory Of)‘‘, dedicated to the late Bianka Shigurova, a 22-year old Georgian actress found dead in her apartment. It was her Tbilisi photographer friend George Nebriedze who told her Bianka‘s tragic story, whose death is suspected to be an assasination due to transphobia. Banu chose one of Nebriedze‘s analogue photos of Bianka as the album‘s cover art.

Simas Okas is trying to create a new species - a combination of natural and synthetic, capable of adapting and thriving in the harshest conditions. Chasing down a magical, mystical, non-defined apparition, like a ghost or a shadow, not necessarily evil, but certainly other-worldly. Much beauty in the swamp, if only you look...

Like a rediscovered Viking burial ship, Electro Nova compiles near-mythical drone recordings produced in 1998 and described by Helge Sten aka Deathprod as some of the most important music to ever come out of Norway. It's the work of Kåre Dehlie Thorstad and compiles two of the earliest releases on Smalltown Supersound, back when it was basically no more than a bedroom operation. It’s taken over two decades, but finally the label have given the material a first ever proper release on vinyl, complete with mixing and mastering by Deathprod. If you’re into the ice cold swells of anyone from Thomas Köner to Harley Gaber, Biosphere, Kali Malone or, of course, Deathprod - this one's as essential as they come.

Kaare Dehlie Thorstad's Elektro Nova produced just two releases during the late ‘90s that have since slipped into drone lore - Trans-Inter-Ference and Elektro Nova/Electro Nova. Admired not only by Deathprod and Joakim Haugland of Smalltown, but also by his contemporaries Lasse Marhaug and Biosphere, his work has evaded pretty much any attention outside of Norway these last two decades. Following a chance meeting with Thorstad at Oslo airport a few years back, Smalltown were prompted to give the recordings a second wind, presenting what is essentially a captivating new release, and crucial addition to the Norsk drone canon.

As the story goes, Thorstad was studying photography in the late 90’s in Scotland, but instead of delivering a photo for his final exam he made a record - a double album (2CDs) and a 10” to be precise. That should provide some idea of the textural synaesthetic and landscaping qualities evoked by his music, which he ended up sending to a then-young Smalltown label, who were mostly issuing tapes at the time. With no proper distribution the records largely bypassed wider attention, and become a personal favourite of Smalltown’s Joakim Haugland, as well as avowed fan Helge Sten (Deathprod), who helped render its diaphanous scale in mix down, and Lasse Marhaug who describes them as "two perfect records that deserved much bigger attention”.

Between its jaw-dropping opener; the post-apocalyptic vision of its untitled part; and the cinematic white-out of the 10” tracks; Thorstad comes as close as we’ve ever heard to evoking the inhospitable nature and stark beauty of the wild far north. We can hear those landscapes palpably internalised and alchemically transmuted into its coarse grained textural swells and a reverberating multi-dimensionality, variously sustained to extents that evoke an abandonment of the senses, or likewise squashed and isolated to imply the relative anxiety relief of atmospheric flux, where a few degrees temperature rise or a drop in the wind speed can make the difference between life and death.

Impressively, Thorstad realised after the release of Elektro Nova and just two live shows that he couldn’t really follow up the work and instead pursued a career as professional cyclist, eventually combining his visual skills to become a pro cycling photographer. In that sense, he’s a bit like composer-turned-tennis coach Harley Gaber, whose almighty ‘The Winds Rise In The North’ (1976) is in some ways richly prescient of this work. Like Gaber, Thorstad can remain safe in the knowledge that his contribution to the drone sphere will endure for the ages, especially with this important, impressive new edition.

Wicked weird stuff from an independant french label. Get a listen guys !

Finding beauty, where one wouldn’t suspect it in the first place. Discovering music, where there used to be only sound a moment before. Forming an orchestra out of everyday surrondings, the main thing out of the incidental, the fulfilling momentary situation out of the profane togetherness. All of this is part of the goal, meaning and sense of Oh No Noh, the project of Leipzig based guitarist, robot programmer, magnetic tape crumpler and composer Markus Rom.
All of this floats and shines through "Kanzi".

Tape

Finding beauty, where one wouldn’t suspect it in the first place. Discovering music, where there used to be only sound a moment before. Forming an orchestra out of everyday surrondings, the main thing out of the incidental, the fulfilling momentary situation out of the profane togetherness. All of this is part of the goal, meaning and sense of Oh No Noh, the project of Leipzig based guitarist, robot programmer, magnetic tape crumpler and composer Markus Rom.
All of this floats and shines through "Kanzi".

The Locked Room imagines a protagonist who experiences the outside world as an endless escape room, a place where, in the early hours, every passing tail-light, train in the distance, hunched bike rider or crying bird might be a possible riddle, leading to a passage or the discovery of a key.

Once opened, however, a room locked from the other side could just be the same room as the one you're in - only slightly different. And maybe the person wanting to break free is not you at all, but the sum or remnant of all of your online actions and conversations, a locked-in avatar whose consciousness wants to experience the real world, and real emotion with it.

"This album is about a struggle with the experience of reality, and about the places and zones where you cross over into a different territory. I tried to address these fixations on steel mandolin and gut-string violone."

Clues and conclusions, finding your way like a kid in the dark, virtual illusions and contemporary gaming culture all have their place on The Locked Room, an album of minimal, kosmische mandolin and violone music that documents the elegant collapse of our 21st-Century grip on reality.

All music written and performed by Ameel Brecht on steel mandolin, violone and electric piano.

Mit FOREVERANDEVERNOMORE veröffentlicht Brian Eno, bekannt als Pionier der räumlichen Musik, Experimente und Audioinstallationen, sein erstes Studioalbum seit sechs Jahren. Das Album selbst enthält Studioaufnahmen von There Are Bells & Garden Of Stars, Kompositionen, die Eno geschrieben hatte, um sie im August 2021 im Rahmen seines ersten Live-Auftritts seit 11 Jahren auf der Akropolis aufzuführen.

Zusammen mit Vertrauten, wie Cecily Eno, Clodagh Simonds, Darla Eno, Jon Hopkins, Roger Eno, Leo Abrahams und Peter Chilvers feiert er nun sein Comeback und interpretiert Raum, Klangraum und Klang
gänzlich neu.

Estonian composers Timo Steiner and Sander Molder team up to create music for a modern ballet inspired by Yukio Mishimas famous novel ''The Temple of The Golden Pavillion'' The album follows the emotional narrative and delves into the charm of both - beauty and repulsiveness of the ugly. The 16 tracks oscillate between serene meditative cello melodies, lush harmonies and oversaturated noise. The ballet choreographed by Teet Kask premiered in 2020 in Tallinn, Estonia. Cello by the Solo Cellist of Estonian National Symphony Orchestra Theodor Sink. Cover art by Mart Anderson

Rober Nikolajev (Estonia) — a man with many hats: runs lo-fi house projects as Nikolajev (Incienso, Collect-Call, Sad Fun) and DIMA DISK (with Ragnar Rahuoja); runs noise events KONSUM; a co-owner of Tallinn’s IDA Radio. For Muscut, Robert prepared a 7 track (almost dark) ambient album imbued with the melancholy of Estonian autumn with spoilers of the forthcoming eternal winter.

Unfurled Works is a collection of back-catalogue zake tracks that have been lengthened for this new cassette, which is a slow-moving cascade of ambiance that washes over you in a delightful fashion. It's an album of frayed edges and lo-fi production, of dream-like haziness and heart-warming subtlety. The five carefully layered tracks on it slowly and stylish shift from one to another with meditative pads and organic drones that are gently peppered with sombre keys. Some pieces are light and airy, others are more moody and heavy, and all of them are perfect for daydreaming and re-setting your mood. Silence takes on all new potency and the beauty of the barely-there grows ever more striking.

Stephan Mathieu's FrequencyLib was originally released in 2001 on Mille Plateaux's Ritornell sublabel. A quintessential document of the late 1990s/early 2000s Pismo PowerBook era of digitally manipulated audio, FrequencyLib is an adept meditation on the entropic possibilities inherent in popular music. Included with this reissue is the complementary Sad Mac Studies EP - first issued in a run of 100 on Robert Meijer's boutique En/Of label. Exploring similar themes/processes as FrequencyLib, Sad Mac Studies reimagines and deconstructs the sonic world of Sesame Street.

The last, outstanding release of the London based experimental duo (Tom Relleen and Valentina Magaletti), accomplished just before Tom’s passing in August 2020, is the distillate of two years of new creative enhancement.

Mostly recorded at Tom’s “Bunker” – as he called his house in London – during the days off from live performances and challenging collaborations throughout the world, Intimate Immensity collects ten intense tracks that outline a breath-taking epiphanic journey revisiting the multifaceted worlds explored by the band in seven years of non-stop and mostly live activity.

The wonderful blue artwork especially created by the acclaimed artists Icinori is a perfect match with the gist of Tomaga’s aesthetics of intimacy that is well expressed by a few lines in the gatefold:

“I just found an interesting book by Gaston Bachelard called The Poetics of Space, with chapters on ‘house as universe’, nests, shells, ‘intimate immensity’, ‘the phenomenology of roundness’... I think it ties in with our feelings about bunkers and the urge to partition the universe to create our own spaces, vs cleansing or colonising the everyday to make it empty of anyone else's taste. I think Tomaga tracks with their individual micro worlds are a bit like that…" – in this way Relleen introduces us into Tomaga’s pulsing universe where space and meaning, articulated by sound, acquire breath and character as an expressive place where you can feel at home.

It is a quite similar aesthetics that could be perceived through Derek Jarman’s quotation from Blue (1993) used in the video of Intimate Immensity realised by Noriko Okaku together with some of Tom’s favourite stones collected from different places throughout his life.

Blue protects white from innocence Blue drags black with it Blue is darkness made visible Blue protects white from innocence Blue drags black with it Blue is darkness made visible.

The dialogical richness of musical influences, that has always been a peculiarity of all Tomaga’s performances, finds its peak here. The sonic spectrum is really wide, ranging from modern composers such as Laurie Spiegel and Pauline Anna Strom who has recently passed away, to the British refined dance aesthetics of Muslimgauze and Ossia.

The somewhat deceitful approachability of the ten tracks, their crystal clear and elegant surface, is in fact the outcome of the deep process of transformation that has personally and musically involved the duo during the last two years.

Jonathan Fitoussi & Julie Freyri are Model Alpha. 8 years on after their first album Dimensions, Perceptions is the duo's second album and was entirely composed on analog synthesizers.
Model Alpha is inspired by electronic artists such as Kraftwerk, Laurie Spiegel, Manuel Göttsching or early Detroit techno productions. An elegant blend of synthesizers and drum machines including remix by Chloé (Thévenin).

Rico Friebe returns with a second part to JENNI, his initial full length album from early 2022.

The furthermore ongoing personal story of empathy, tragedy and hope continues with a cycle of orchestral compositions, leading Friebe's work into unforeseen directions.

A soundtrack of the soul with the uniquely natural and timeless touch of orchestra music..

When the frontier between night and day begins to thin, as dancers' eyes fill with a strange emotional haze and lovers' lips grow numb, white flowers bloom away from the city's consuming gaze, flooding across peaceful fields and hills as so many beacons to cling to when entering the mist of dreams. First incursion of longstanding Aus Music and Hypercolour affiliate Tom Demac on Kompakt, 'White Flowers' sees the British producer joining forces with London's Real Lies for a special round of otherworldly after-party soundtracking, melding the elegant, wistful minimalism of Demac's signature productions with Real Lies' lush mix of techno, pop and spoken word.

The three cuts on 'White Flowers' ooze a fine alloy of quick-consumed ecstasy, fresh heartbreak and shivery consolation, sitting on the very cusp of euphoria and vulnerability. The lead-track essays forth into deep, string-laden minimal techno terrains as the languid voice of Kev Kharas adds another dimension to the instrumental picture, making it a classic Kompakt affair in its own right. Pushing into a breaks-heavy, more openly club-ready direction, Demac's 'Felix' further emphasises the groove with a rousing blend of 303 bass and synth-y glitter, before the ambient version of 'White Flowers' tops it all off on a plain melancholic note. An evocative tale of loss and longing, tearful and cheering in equal measure, 'White Flowers' is a track that seeks the very apex of dancefloor emotionality.

Emerging from a live recording at St.Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in 2021, Alliyah Enyo’s ‘Echo’s Disintegration’ is a transformational project; a coded reflection on loss, metamorphosis and rebirth.

It’s a work of two parts, each incarnation informed by the parameters of the recording environment. In the initial live performance, Alliyah harnesses the organic echo and reverb formed by the vast open space of the cathedral. Her luminous vocals break through a dense sea of layered noise, a reverberating wailing drenched in heartache.

Her words are fractured and frayed, broken into segments, and enshrouded in mysticism. Yet through the ambiguity, there’s an innate spirituality to the work; iridescent melodies are heightened by the imposing presence of the surroundings.

The five studio tracks, made in retrospect, carry the live performance within the DNA of their reinterpreted sounds and loops. Recorded in Glasgow’s renowned Green Door Studio, constructed reel-to-reel tape loops further fragment and transform compositions, evoking the intoxicating tape feedback of Eliane Raidgue and the harrowing loops of William Basinski.

There’s a radiant clarity to the recordings, Alliyah’s voice implemented as the guiding instrument, the heady sensuality of her vocals layered and echoed in enchanting formation. Through the agony and longing, we reach reincarnation in the culminating euphoria of ‘the healer’. We’re left amongst the blissful reverberations of an awakened soul.

Echo’s Disintegration is the debut album by Alliyah Enyo. The work has received early support from Jack Rollo (NTS), Lucinda Chua (NTS), Pako Vega (Fade Radio, Athens), Elina Tapio (Radio Radio, Amsterdam), Conna Harrawy (INDEX:records) and Martyna Basta (Unsound festival).


Alliyah Enyo - Bio
Alliyah Enyo is an Edinburgh-based artist. She comes from a visual-arts background which is evident in her theatrical live performances that encompass elaborate stage design and choreographed dance. She recently performed her 9-month collaborative project ‘Selkie Reflections’ for Hidden Door festival, working with dancers and classical musicians to explore Siren and Selkie myth. She has performed at multiple venues across Scotland and previously supported Erika De Casier.


Somewhere Between Tapes - Bio
Somewhere Between Tapes is a Glasgow-based record label, formed in 2022 via connections made at local community radio station Clyde Built Radio and at Green Door Studio’s sound workshop.

The label is primarily drawn to working with artists who use experimental processes, often as part of an interdisciplinary practice, where live performance and visual accompaniments are intrinsic to the work. Our focus is on diaristic, sensitive approaches to sound, from ethereal ambient to avant-folk and psychedelic-infused electronics.

The label is run by Lizzie Urquhart and Tim Dalzell. Both are residents at Clyde Built and have contributed to Mutant Radio, Refuge Worldwide, Lyl Radio and Rinse FM. Collaboratively and independently their shows are characterized by their reflective nature, designed for deep listening. This is supplemented by their online mix series ‘Somewhere’, and involvement in co:clear; a new collaborative listening series formed with Conna Haraway of INDEX:Records that commenced with a performance by Berlin-based artist Perila.

Drawing the night in around his private, unnerving vigil, Ellis Swan returns to Quindi Records with an album of cracked beauty and haunted balladry. The Chicago-based singer-songwriter debuted on the label last year with a collaborative project called Dead Bandit, a vividly produced instrumental set in thrall to the badlands and a laconic, languid Americana.

Under his own name, Swan records intimate, poetic songs in a stark fashion, so fragile they might disintegrate in between your fingers were you to pick them up. He draws the microphone close to pick up every whisper and drags the music through layer upon layer of tape fuzz, leaving room for atmospheric impressions which loom out of the walls like the ghosts of past misdeeds. These pieces play on the natural distortion and delirium which occurs at the farthest end of the night - the hour before dawn might hope to break the veil of darkness.

Swan's is a hauntological sound, but like the late Israeli rockabilly icon Charlie Megira his process strikes a spooked tone past revivalism and out of time or place. The only anchor which places Swan anywhere is the subtle presence of Katherine Swan providing lyrics to '3am' and lyrics and backing vocals to 'It Could Be Worse'.

The impression cast is of one man and his guitar, but there are other textures tucked into the music - the muffled murmur of a drum machine or a low frequency organ hum, some desolate piano, other treated percussive impulses which might well have been the work of incidental sprites while the four-track was rolling.

There are fuller cuts like 'Evening Sun' and the title track '3am' which play with structural dynamics and creep out of the shadows a touch, while passages of plaintive, instrumental unease such as the hypnotic, mantra-like 'Chinatown' protract the space between songs. 'Swing' lolls between moments of bottomless silence and a discernible, rickety funk, and 'Puppeteers Tears' teases out a buried drama. But primarily, it's the light touch of 'Horses Bones' and tin can tenderness of 'She's My Sweet Summer Storm' which spell out the spellbinding character of 3am; a singular creation fusing the best qualities of folk, blues and Americana with a fearlessly experimental sound palette.

“A rather gorgeous and engrossing collection, that borrows stealthily from a rich history of sound effect and soundtrack to build a tender poem to the night time.” - CLASH
“The plan was to make twenty 90-second tracks designed as TV themes,” says Arab Strap’s Aidan Moffat, of the initial thought behind his new instrumental album as Nyx Nótt “But it wasn't a satisfying listen, it was too gimmicky and silly.”
So instead, Moffat decided to stretch the idea out, plunge deeper, and expand the music into full tracks, “making some of them quite long and dramatic, with the odd swift turn here and there.” In fleshing these tracks out into more fully realised songs he began sourcing samples from professional TV and film music libraries. “The focus then turned to making a proper album out of these modern library sounds,” he says. “I decided to stick with the Themes From title and named the tracks after the sorts of shows they made me think of when I listened back.”
The result is a record that explores genre themes such as: ‘Thriller, ‘Porno’, ‘Caper’ and Swashbuckler’, and acts as an audio equivalent of channel hopping through a unique TV station programmed by Moffat. “I still wasn't sure about all this until I did the album cover, which brought it all together,” he says, of the artwork that places an old smashed TV unit front and centre with a woman perched on top. “It has echoes of old TV compilations but is pretty cheeky and slightly sexy in that old 70s compilation style. I wanted this one to look a bit more fun than the last one, as well as hopefully sound a bit more fun too.”
Aside from being a fun experience, it is also a stirring and immersive listen, one that allows the listener to imagine their own accompanying visual scenarios to each musical theme. The opening ‘Docudrama’ marries a gently creeping beat with strings that glide from tense to sweeping, while ‘Porno’ is all seedy smoky jazz that feels plucked right out of Travis Bickle’s late night trips to porn cinemas in Taxi Driver.
Touches of jazz pop up in other places too, on ‘Hardboiled’ this merges with subtle pulses and gargles of electronics that build to a rousing crescendo of horns and bleeps, and on ‘Caper’ there’s a vivacious full jazz band skip to the lively swinging rhythms. “There's a few more jazzy elements here,” Moffat says. “Although I'm not quite sure where that came from. Although, like everyone else, I've had plenty of time to be introspective recently, so I decided the next Nyx Nótt album should be more upbeat and encourage some occasional foot-tapping.”
However, what becomes apparent, the longer you spend in the world of Themes From, is how singular and unique the tone of each composition is. “Each track has its own individual feel,” says Moffat. “The idea was to sound like a different composer and band throughout.” It’s a stylistic leap that continues Nyx Nótt’s trajectory as one that shares no direct link to Moffat’s other projects. “I approach them in completely different ways and with a different purpose in mind,” says Moffat. “I don't think Nyx has ever heard of Arab Strap, and certainly doesn't own any of their albums.” It’s also a notable shift from the debut album under this moniker, and suitably given the theme, Moffat has created a visual comparison between these two sonic worlds. “If the first Nyx Nótt album was like looking out on dark prairies before dawn, this is more like a walk through a neon Soho after a few cocktails.”

Pascal Terstappen a.k.a. Applescal has released his new artist album, ‘Diamond Skies’ on Atomnation. The nine-tracker is a collection of expertly-produced, instrumental melodic house with lush, ambient soundscapes and a nod to the analog sounds of the 90’s. The album has received heavy support from key names in underground electronic music community and is Applescal’s sixth studio album to date.

Terstappen has been running Atomnation full-time since his early twenties and has shaped it into one of The Netherlands’ leading independent labels and a home for an eclectic mix of electronic music including signed artists such as Gidge, Polynation, Tunnelvisions and Sam Goku. ‘Diamond Skies’ exemplifies the vibrant sound of Atomnation, a lush, colourful album which journeys through melody, ambience and emotion while offering an occasional surprise to the senses. The album was written and produced through 2019 and completed in the early days of March 2020 when dark skies were looming.

‘Diamond Skies’ represents a creative optimism and brings a sense of something to look forward to. Applescal has created a musical dreamworld for a listener to step into as an antidote to troubled times. ‘Diamond Skies’ is an album which feels uplifting and effortless, a confluence of melodic house, occasional breakbeat and ambient energy; the sound of a producer at the height of his powers.

Nils Frahm returns with an expansive new album, Music For Animals, his first fresh studio material since 2018’s ‘All Melody’ and 2019’s associated ‘All Encores’. Containing ten tracks and clocking in at over three hours long, it’s an ambitious and compelling set different to anything Frahm’s released to date – in fact, it finds the Piano Day founder declining to use a piano – but at the same time retains many of the qualities that have set the influential musician’s work apart over much of the last two decades.

Unfolding at an unhurried, meditative pace in a celebration of tone, timbre and texture – and thus of sound itself – Music For Animals offers an unusually immersive experience. “My constant inspiration,” Frahm explains, “was something as mesmerising as watching a great waterfall or the leaves on a tree in a storm. It’s good we have symphonies and music where there’s a development, but a waterfall doesn’t need an Act 1, 2, 3, then an outcome, and nor do the leaves on a tree in a storm. Some people like watching the leaves rustle and the branches move. This record is for them”.

Music For Animals is a substantial collection that encourages listeners to bask in its tranquility at their chosen depth, demanding only as much attention as they wish to contribute. As Frahm himself happily points out, “It all comes back to that waterfall. If you want to watch it, watch it. If you don’t, then you don’t have to. It will always be the same, yet never quite the same.” Indeed, that’s Music For Animals’ greatest strength. Instantly recognisable, it’s still like nothing else.

The 3CD set is cased in a cardboard wallet and single cardboard inner sleeves. This 4LP vinyl edition comes housed in a single-pocket cardboard jacket, and protected by premium quality three-ply, anti-static inner sleeves (Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab’s Original Master Sleeves).

First vinyl issue of the sole The Dead Texan album originally released in 2004. Gatefold Sleeve.

“Stars Of The Lid’s Adam Wiltzie presents a collection of drone compositions that he considered too aggressive for his parent band—which means they range somewhere between a whisper and a shout. The sense of cathedral-like reverence is balanced with extreme intimacy.” — 8.2 Pitchfork

“This is quite possibly the best music available for slowly drifting into dreamland. Equal parts intrigue and sedative, The Dead Texan is an elegantly hypnotic album that manages to freeze time in addition to passing it.” —Tinymixtapes

“The Dead Texan remains a remarkably subtle and tranquil work. Disarmingly lovely...” —Textura

Another sweeping album from STARS OF THE LID/A WINGED VICTORY FOR THE SULLEN and AIX EM KLEMM member ADAM WILTZIE, this time under his DEAD TEXAN moniker.

Eleven mini-symphonies of nocturnal psychedelia and reverie-inducing soundcraft, propelled with piano, strings, and Wiltzie's surreal smear of guitars.

The four tracks that comprise Giving Water to the Dead were composed using sound materials originally recorded for the sound installation Histories of the Present, a public artwork commissioned by the City of Berkeley in 2019. But where the installation was about a melding of practices and sounds into a single gesture, Crouch and Novak wanted to take the opportunity of a split release to exploring divergent paths starting from common ground. For Giving Water to the Dead, each artist started with the same source material and plotted their own direction without direct influence from the other. As artists in a relationship and sharing a studio this was no easy feat. Despite the planned divergence the resulting tracks compliment each other, as the artists do.

Yann Novak and Robert Takahashi Crouch are a creative and romantic couple living and working in Los Angeles. Their collaborative practice incorporates field recordings, photography, and video as tools to investigate the relationship between site and subject. Their performances and installations have been presented at the AxS Festival, Pasadena; California Museum of Photography, Riverside; Desert Daze Festival, Southern California; Downtown Berkeley BART Plaza, Berkeley; Gays Hate Techno, Northern California; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; LACMA, Los Angeles; PØST, Los Angeles; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and others. Their compositions have been published by The Tapeworm, Murmur Records, Estuary Ltd., IO Sound, and Untitled & After.

Finnish imprint VIENO, continues the journey through emotional and experimental ambient sounds. Third release on the label is artist Otto Taimela´s album, Bluebird.

The eight track piece gathers together Otto´s heavenly melancholic ambient, breakbeat and his signature piano compositions.