Beats News

A shimmering and tragic delirium - improvised piano of Richard Moult, recorded in single takes at St. Leonards Parish Church, St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex. Aside from the vocal by David Tibet on Five and the oboe of Mark Baigent on Four, the remaining sounds have been tweaked and teased out of the piano by The Bricoleur. Recorded by Michael Lawrence at St. Leonards Paris Church, 2008.

Limited edition - 500 copies.

Roly Porter returns to Subtext with 'Kistvaen'. The LP takes its name from a type of granite tomb found pre-dominantly in Dartmoor, an area in southwestern England. Scattered across the moorlands, the kistvaens were often found covered in a mound of earth and stone. They housed dead bodies, allowing them to lie facing the sun.

With 'Kistvaen', Porter speculates on the burial site as a mirror, or a gate in time. Excavating stories and images of ancient burial rituals, the record teases out similarities in emotional and social rituals between the Neolithic period and today. While a myriad of social, cultural and technological factors drastically differentiate our contemporary period and the end of the Stone Age, certain affinities may still be found in experiences of death across eras.

Venturing across histories, Porter soundtracks a moorland burial unanchored in time. Raw, unprocessed vocals are folded into field recordings made in the area, wordlessly relaying tableaus of burial rituals in Neolithic Dartmoor. 'Kistvaen' features three singular vocalists—Mary-Anne Roberts, from medieval Welsh music duo Bragod; Ellen Southern, of Bristol's Dead Space Chamber Music group; and Phil Owen, a singer and researcher in vocal traditions.

Stacked Up At Zero is the new full length instrumental LP from London based artist / musician Ross Downes and is a carefully crafted record fluctuating between calm solace, foreboding tension and ambient longing. Fundamentally an electronic record, synthesisers create a darkly ethereal setting, evoking entranced contemplation that regularly gives way to more shadowy territories. From comforting to concerning, it captivates through an inventive combining of genres.

Stacked Up At Zero is an intensely intimate and personal record. A place that Downes built to occupy, wander and give voice during a difficult year. It’s a record of psychological landscapes, between truths that need comfort and fictions that give escape. The influence and love of cinema permeates the record. Downes builds a world, creating an environment influenced by soundtracks, potential narratives and a propensity for the dramatic.

Evocative sound design and field recordings provide atmospheres that accompany, place and shroud the melodic and compositional preoccupations of the record. The influences, from a multitude of approaches and styles, contribute to a dynamic collection of shifting densities that reference minimal, ambient, industrial and contemporary classical music.

Drones shift and fluctuate whilst a myriad of synthesisers propel, distort and drift. Expansive groaning bass frequencies lay ominous foundations for progressive lines, vast sci-fi pads, digital ticks, sampled strings, disembodied voices and sparse percussion immersed in cavernous echoing reverb.

Recent musical activities from Downes have included compositions for large European art installation projects. During 2019 he contributed a piece to Mischa Kabul’s long running installation Res-o-nant at the Jewish Museum, Berlin. In 2018 he composed a lengthy work for his collaboration, with Cologne based, artist Sebastian Freytag on an ambitious light/audio installation titled Sygnal for The Museum Slaskie, Poland. He has recently completed work on soundtracking Turner Prize winner Laure Prouvost's Sydney Bienalle exhibition which opens this Spring.

The first commercial release from sound artist Samson Stilwell, Signals was produced combining synthesized sound and field recordings to take the listener through a rich, dynamic soundscape, melancholy yet uplifting, contemplative yet buoyant.

Interdisciplinary artist Sébastien Robert strikes an emotive and explorative tone on his debut album Emerging Threshold, interpreting and layering field recordings and adding swathes of synthesised sound to conjure up an experience that reads and sees the cosmos in the mundane. The album touches upon kosmische musik, but does so in modern and updated form. This is ambient music that digs beyond the ambient perspective as the intensity of all tracks is mostly subtly confrontational and leaves little room for distance.
Robert investigates disappearing indigenous rituals, exploring their sonic, visual and contextual characteristics and translating them into works of art. Emerging Threshold is the result of his sonic exploration of the western flank of the Sierra Neva volcano in Chilewhere he recorded its immersive geological activity and natural echo, all the while experimenting with the tonal variations that can be produced by the trutruka, a traditional wind instrument of the Mapuche people of south-central Chile. Capturing the landscape's complexity and focusing on the subtle modulation of different physical states, Robert plays with the ostensible randomness apparent in his recorded material, igniting an interpretative stance on field recordings that is subtle and openended. Emerging Threshold is both intensely intimate and cinemascope.

Mastered by Robin Koek / Distribution by Crevette
Photography by Sébastien Robert , Artwork by Anatole De Benedictis, Layout by Jonathan
Castro Alejos

STATIC (ORIGINAL SURF SOUNDTRACKS VOL. 1) released this Spring serves to stir up the wanderlust for those new frontiers.

Ethereal soundscapes, lo-fi guitar excursions and rising orchestral, neo-classical moments summon images of the wild, awe-inspiring surf destinations - Iceland, Ireland, Scotland, The Faroes and beyond. Aficianados of cold water cinematic adventures will already be familiar with CJ's work. The album is a selection of 8 tracks, each originally composed for one of a number of award winning surf films scored by CJ Mirra over the past four years. The light, the landscape, the size of the waves and colour of the water all had an influence on the sound,' says CJ on harnessing the essence of these cold water locales.

A musician and composer, CJ Mirra's entry to the world of surf film came through acclaimed director Chris McClean after Chris heard an early track that was leaked online. This led to a unique partnership that has produced over 20 short films screened at festivals worldwide from SXSW to London, as well as the award-winning live A/V show 'Chasing Zero'. The critically acclaimed 'Edges Of Sanity', with poetry by Dan Crockett narrated by Charles Dance, features on the album alongside a series of evocative and ethereal tracks taking the listener on a journey across an epic surfscape.

CJ Mirra will be on tour in late April / May. The new live band features renowned surfer/ musician LeeAnn Curren and will be accompanied by visuals from Chris McClean.

Vox Populi Field Works Vol.II is the second part of a broader project entitled 'Field Works', in which the label travels to different locations in the world in order to collect sounds, eventually creating an archive of some of the finest and humblest musical traditions. Inspired by academic methods proper to ethnomusicology and ethnography, this project's aim is to showcase the diversity of our human cultural heritage, which is threatened by accelerated globalization and homogenization of the worldwide musical spectrum.

This record is the result of a twenty-day trip to Japan. Led by anthropologist and label founder Fred Scharf and his Vox Populi Records crew, this is the second instalment on the 'Field Works' series. This 12'' vinyl release is a collection of field recordings, jam sessions, studio recordings, street soundscapes, religious rituals, fighting championships and wedding ceremonies, all of which were remixed and reinterpreted by Japan Blues, Tim Karbon, Hiroaki Oba & Shizka (aka Inoue Shirabe), delivering tracks whose core represents a wide array of traditional Japanese sounds.

**Silver and black vinyl may or may not have audio distortion intermittently during playback, depending on your system. This was discovered after the press had been completed and packed, so we have included a red repress without audio issues. All purchases will ship with both silver and red copies.

* Under his guises Blessed Initiative and Ketev, as well as his own name, composer and sound artist Yair Elazar Glotman has explored extended techniques and processes to forge new sonic textures and musical forms. Compound picks up where the previous solo work under Glotman's own name - 2015's Études - left off. The acoustic sound palette has now expanded from solo contrabass into a trio including pianist Rieko Okuda and percussionist Marcello Silvio Busato.

* Glotman guides the trio into utilising sounds from the edges of their instruments' abilities - arguably mere byproducts of harmony - and through improvisation, repetition, and post-production, conjures new sonic bodies over two sidelong pieces. His guidelines for each improvisation gave the players autonomy to emphasise the microscopic details of certain sounds: the shudder of a piano key, the hum of a cymbal, the incidental click of a plucked contrabass string. The recordings were then layered and reformulated by Glotman into two separate structures to complete the composition process. Both 'Veil' and 'Revelate' utilize the full spectral potential of each instrument, revealing new rhythmic patterns and harmonic content in the process.

* Taking Glotman's microscopic focus on instrument noises he put began on Études as a starting point, the trio on Compound ultimately bring into question both density and contrast, rhythm itself losing its stricter structures and becoming a purely pattern-based driving force in the music. The resultant unit contradicts and opposes itself, all sorts of clashing rhythms and melodies coexisting within the body of the two compositions of evolving sonic architecture.

* Based in Berlin, Yair Elazar Glotman is a classically-trained musician and sound artist. Besides previous works on Subtext including Études, a collaborative score with James Ginzburg experimental film Nimbes, and the eponymous debut of his Blessed Initiative project, Glotman has released music via Opal Tapes and others under the nom de plume Ketev.

ØxØ (pronounced “null”) is a new collaboration between Brighton-based experimental duo David Berry and Barnaby Thorn, two artists developing concept-led “post-internet music for anti-millennials”. Their new limited edition cassette EP is out via pioneers of the hyper-specific, indie label Truant Recordings.

ØxØ is the marriage of intelligent, ambient cinematic arrangements and carefully considered theory put forward to convey thought-provoking ideas that that have long been on their minds.

Berry, a Digital Media Professor at Sussex University, is a writer, producer and electronica artist who began recording under the moniker Meme as well as one half of the electronica duo Ward. He co-founded the open source label LOCA Records in 1999 and has been supported by John Peel (who, memorably, once played his track at the wrong rpm).

Partner Barnaby Thorn has released music on Carton-Pâte Records and Love Love Records under various aliases. After 2 years teaching in Berlin at a renowned music college Barnaby has composed, experimented in ambisonics/psychoacoustics and collaborated with other artists for interactive installations. Barnaby is now based in Brighton and has been working and dabbling in sonic engineering with his brother in Felix’s Machines (Mute) and with Plaid (Warp Records) for the past 4 years.

Orange Vinyl

The Light Inside, The Dark Outside is Italian ambient duo ILUITEQ's third full-length album.
The Light Inside, The Dark Outside is out on May 6th on limited edition orange vinyl (plus download card with bonus track)
Influenced by the uncertainty and precariousness of the current times, the album was conceived as a means to nourish the light inside all of us, no matter how difficult and dark the reality can turn out to be.
Such "light" is reflected in the album's widescreen and hopefully ardent ambient. In contrast to their previous albums, The Light Inside, The Dark Outside is permeated by a strong sense of motion. The Light Inside, The Dark Outside is an evolution for the duo, themed by the inner need for brightness and hope.

New World Science's Osmos (Movements) is a sincere foray into forth-world fantasy, where disparate synthesizer styles are tied together by harmonized saxophone musings. Comprised of four recordings/jams between Francis Latreille (Priori-mastermind behind the project), Adam Feingold (Ex-Terrestrial), and Emmanuel Thibau, and featuring appearances by Phoebe Guillemot (Ramzi) and Richard Wenger (R Weng), these multi-stream compositions float in the uncertain spaces between electronic and acoustic, improvisation and production, old and new. Beautiful, subtle, and entrancing compositions suited to suborbital meditations.

New World Science's Osmos (Movements) is a sincere foray into forth-world fantasy, where disparate synthesizer styles are tied together by harmonized saxophone musings. Comprised of four recordings/jams between Francis Latreille (Priori-mastermind behind the project), Adam Feingold (Ex-Terrestrial), and Emmanuel Thibau, and featuring appearances by Phoebe Guillemot (Ramzi) and Richard Wenger (R Weng), these multi-stream compositions float in the uncertain spaces between electronic and acoustic, improvisation and production, old and new. Beautiful, subtle, and entrancing compositions suited to suborbital meditations.

Limited hand stamped copies..

"Sound Space Variations" is a delicate and restrained sound bath. A mix of atmospheric, suspenseful drone sounds and meditative aspects. It is an album made for those moments when we just are.

zake has managed to capture the moments that lie between sounds; the unagitated murmurs and atmospheric hisses. The artist connects this in-between-world and our earthly one with calm and sonorous scores, making us think about everything and nothing.

The six pieces on the record do not seem heavy-headed or overloaded but much more airy, wide and open for interpretations. They stimulate the imagination - in a wonderfully unbiased way. In the last track. James Bernhard mixed and mastered the album, written and produced by drone artist zake, at Ambient Mountain House Studio. zake himself provided the artwork and photos himself."

If you check the credits of The Rolling Stones' Goats Head Soup LP from 1973 you'll find a certain "Pascal" listed on the percussion section. That is none other than Los Angeles based artist Nicolas Pascal Raicevik (1933-1994), aka 107-34-8933, aka Head, aka Nik Pascal, aka Nik Raicevic. Besides his hitting the bongoes on the Stones album, Nik was a great artist on his own, both as a painter and as a musician. As a musician, he was a pioneer in the use of synthesizers, preceeding the Berlin school by some years when his Head LP was released on on Buddah in 1970. Buddah probably saw in Head the opportunity to cash in some money from the remains of the psychedelic scene - the three tracks on the LP are named after drugs used in the late sixties. The sounds, however, are accomplished works that show Raicevic as one of the most interesting pioneers in the use of synths. The album probably didn't do too well, since Buddah didn't renew the contract with Raicevic, who instead took his own way releasing his works on his very own Narco Records and Tapes label. Between 1968 and 1975 Narco would issue 4 LPs credited either to Nik Raicevic (Beyond The End... Eternity) or Nik Pascal (The Sixth Ear, Magnetic Web and Zero Gravity) plus one credited to 107-34-8933 (Numbers, which is in fact the same LP as Buddah's Head, albeit with different cover art). Copies of these LPs came with an ironic sticker over the shrinkwrap that read "Do not listen to this LP if you are stoned".

Numbers was the first reference in the Narco catalogue (NR101), each of the three tracks it contains is named after a drug: Cannabis Sativa, Methedrine and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide. The album was credited to 107-34-8933, there is no date of release on the disc, some sources take it as back as 1968 - in any case, this is the same record that was issued on Buddah in 1970 credited to Head and eponymously-titled. The Wah Wah reissue features the original cover artwork from the Narco edition.

Besides his musical explorations, Nik was also an interesting painter. His paintings are auctioned from time to time, and are consciousness expanding works influenced by abstract cubism and surrealism, some kind of Salvador Dalí on drugs exploring the outter and inner space. All the artwork on the sleeves of his LPs is done by himself. Spacey landscapes and psychedelic colours that fit perfectly to the music they contain.

"Nik Raicevic's music is at the intersection of radical psycho-electronic weirdness and kraut kosmische music (in particular the scifi-hypno-minimal modules of Conrad Schnitzler in Grun, Rot and Blau). It presents mega epic & tripped out electronic improvisations.


"This is an absolute must for collectors and fans of visceral, neurotic soundscapes."

"As far as late-60s / early-70s American Bedroom' Electronic Music goes, these LPS have to be among the first transmissions from this sector, made all the more attractive when coupled with Raicevic's alien topographIes - the covers are high-color portrayals of Venusian lanes, knotted growths, & future-past architecture in a style you might equate with Vintage' sci-fi pulp-novel covers - & copious Downer' sentiment. This music is imbued with a sort of lonely, anti-social sensibility that's about as far as you can get from the Academic' Early Electronic vector. I will say that if the Steve Birchall, Cellutron & the Invisible, and/or Pythagoron™ seed your garden, this will likely do the same."

Never reissued before on vinyl format, the Wah Wah reissue features original sleeve artwork made of paintings and drawings by Nik himself and reproduction of the famous ironic "Do not listen if you are stoned".
Limited edition, 500 copies only.

If you check the credits of The Rolling Stones' Goats Head Soup LP from 1973 you'll find a certain "Pascal" listed on the percussion section. That is none other than Los Angeles based artist Nicolas Pascal Raicevik (1933-1994), aka 107-34-8933, aka Head, aka Nik Pascal, aka Nik Raicevic. Besides his hitting the bongoes on the Stones album, Nik was a great artist on his own, both as a painter and as a musician. As a musician, he was a pioneer in the use of synthesizers, preceeding the Berlin school by some years when his Head LP was released on on Buddah in 1970. Buddah probably saw in Head the opportunity to cash in some money from the remains of the psychedelic scene - the three tracks on the LP are named after drugs used in the late sixties. The sounds, however, are accomplished works that show Raicevic as one of the most interesting pioneers in the use of synths. The album probably didn't do too well, since Buddah didn't renew the contract with Raicevic, who instead took his own way releasing his works on his very own Narco Records and Tapes label. Between 1968 and 1975 Narco would issue 4 LPs credited either to Nik Raicevic (Beyond The End... Eternity) or Nik Pascal (The Sixth Ear, Magnetic Web and Zero Gravity) plus one credited to 107-34-8933 (Numbers, which is in fact the same LP as Buddah's Head, albeit with different cover art). Copies of these LPs came with an ironic sticker over the shrinkwrap that read "Do not listen to this LP if you are stoned".

"Raicevic is clearly still in the early learning-curve stages," which it a key LP to understand Nik's evolution and setting the path for more evolved works to follow.

Besides his musical explorations, Nik was also an interesting painter. His paintings are auctioned from time to time, and are consciousness expanding works influenced by abstract cubism and surrealism, some kind of Salvador Dalí on drugs exploring the outter and inner space. All the artwork on the sleeves of his LPs is done by himself. Spacey landscapes and psychedelic colours that fit perfectly to the music they contain.

"Nik Raicevic's music is at the intersection of radical psycho-electronic weirdness and kraut kosmische music (in particular the scifi-hypno-minimal modules of Conrad Schnitzler in Grun, Rot and Blau). It presents mega epic & tripped out electronic improvisations.

"This is an absolute must for collectors and fans of visceral, neurotic soundscapes."

"As far as late-60s / early-70s American Bedroom' Electronic Music goes, these LPS have to be among the first transmissions from this sector, made all the more attractive when coupled with Raicevic's alien topographIes - the covers are high-color portrayals of Venusian lanes, knotted growths, & future-past architecture in a style you might equate with Vintage' sci-fi pulp-novel covers - & copious Downer' sentiment. This music is imbued with a sort of lonely, anti-social sensibility that's about as far as you can get from the Academic' Early Electronic vector. I will say that if the Steve Birchall, Cellutron & the Invisible, and/or Pythagoron™ seed your garden, this will likely do the same."


Never reissued before on vinyl format, the Wah Wah reissue features original sleeve artwork made of paintings and drawings by Nik himself and reproduction of the famous ironic "Do not listen if you are stoned" sticker. Limited edition, 500 copies only.

The Balek Band and Abstrack Records’s first album, Médecines, is the product of a magma of influences, the emanation of large decade of music infused lives. The emotional tessitura is wide: the dark meadows of “The Balek Bad” reach us through like a mantra from the end of a dark tunnel, while just three track earlier it was a caribbean Zouk euphoria which ruled the world. Inbetween, it’s a wide spectrum of hybrid epiphanies : Hagen & Again is a progressive Dub jewel, even Krauty to an extent, where the instruments play the lead role. Cosmic Barry is across the Channel : thick and broken club music, sweating with subs, yet always disputing it to the Funk accent of the the keys and the slap bass. This list of Geographical and stylistic hybridations simplys goes on, and it’s the 54 minutes of the album that put an end to it. But beyond the never-ending list, this first album is alive : its gets us breathing the therapeutical air which fills the world of its creators.

Precious Metals are excited to announce "Chaos Butterfly", the debut album from the Vietnamese-Canadian electronic music producer, vocalist and filmmaker, x/o. “Chaos Butterfly” is an epic tale of catharsis and self-actualization explored through metamorphosis. It is a free-falling kaleidoscopic journey into a beautiful nightmare, both cataclysmic and tender. Expanding on the themes present in their first EP “Cocoon Egg”, the album builds a parallel world from a different perspective. “Chaos Butterfly” tells a loose narrative about an anti-hero navigating trauma through whirlwinds of grief and anger; a vengeful spirit who finds true strength in inner healing and forgiveness. An allegory for transcending societal concepts of gender, “Chaos Butterfly” is a journey of self-acceptance and reflection of x/o’s own path towards their non-binary identity. Throughout the voyage, x/o pulls apart and collides masculine and feminine tropes both theoretically and musically by utilising contrasts between soft and hard, internal and external, calmness and anger, loud and quiet. This system of symbolism and influences reveal a pattern that is the overarching theme of duality. Colliding disparate but interconnected influences, x/o references Playstation 2’s Final Fantasy X world-building, Fight Club, the half-yoma warriors in the anime Claymore, as well as the real legends of the Vietnamese Trưng Sisters. Musically, “Chaos Butterfly” resists easy categorisation, playfully fusing moments of reversed breakbeat, with elements of solemn ambience, distorted metal, and trip-hop catharsis, with inspiration from artists such as Yoko Kanno, to Bone Thugs-n-Harmony as well as Deftones, Massive Attack, Orbital, and Aaliyah. The album journey begins with opener “Chrysalis Wrath”, a prologue to the story, and emblematic of the metamorphosis of the album. A soft and unassuming exterior to the hard shell and bone that lies beneath. Delicately cascading melodies and disembodied vocals are torn asunder by a brooding, ominous synth, punctuated by blasts of percussion, like dark clouds forming on the horizon, the egg cracks; a foretelling of what is to come and a reference to what has been. This is followed by “Red Alert,” the first single from the release, which blends airy melancholic vocals with a flurry of drum breaks and synths plucks, an ambitious and cinematic exploration of intuition against recurring trauma. Melodies drifting and out of focus under the swirling vocal, like the blur of neon street lights reflecting in a rain-soaked cityscape. It’s a liminal poem about listening to your inner voice to protect you from harm. Duality is never more apparent than on “Promise : Armour” delicate piano melodies drift and settle like snowfall before crushing blows of hardstyle kicks blast through the ether, as their soulful, but anguished vocal harmony is overcome by a demonic refrain “Cross your heart, don’t cross me”. x/o is a founding member of s.M.i.L.e, a trail-blazing collective of like-minded artists in Vancouver pushing the boundaries of club experimentation, showcasing artists such as Actress, Hitmakerchinx, Mechatok, Nídia, and Shygirl. This is an album that reaches dizzying heights, and in 2022 we expect x/o to do the exact same.

Originally released in 2017 under his pseudonym No Quantize, Bird Syndrome, the first album of the french artist NxQuantize, is now being reissued with an additional remixed version. As a symbol of a new beginning, the talented musician and producer based in Marseille changes his alias and joins the Omakase Recordings music label to give a rebirth to his trip-hop opus tainted with jazz and electronic music.


For this occasion, several artists who come from a broader musical spectrum have reinterpreted the Bird Syndrome’s nine tracks through a series of hip-hop, ambient, electronica and dance music remixes. The richness of this expanded release reflects the production process of NxQuantize next album, currently in progress...

Hand stamped sleeves. Limited one off vinyl pressing. A 50+ minute collage of exclusive material from all over the place. A VERY BIG TIP on this!!!

Features: Roger Doyle, Mr & Ms KWalker, Sli Town Crier, Olmo, Davy Kehoe, Morgan Buckley + some other surprise guests. It was compiled and stitched together over 3 years by Morgan Buckley and was stepped on by Riess Spätburgunder.

Restock soon !

"Each song is on the verge of communicating some deep truth but not quite being able to articulate it," explains mari maurice of electronic project more eaze, "like accidentally mumbling a secret while sleep-talking." She's talking about her new album oneiric. It's a lush endeavor spanning six pieces that brings together orchestral, electronic, vocal, and textural elements to melodically-rich, tonally-precise results, meditating on the perhaps not so wide gap between everyday life and fantasy. She notes "During the time of creation, I began to develop deep, unrequited feelings for someone close to me, and my dreams began to consist of doing quotidian things with this person, but in environments that were geographically or architecturally impossible. The Texas Hill Country would open up to a neon-lit New York City that we'd walk arm and arm through. We'd go shopping at malls containing caverns and rivers next to Hot Topics and Macys."

In some ways, oneiric is one long love song. The album begins with "a romance" and household sounds - a running sink, whooshing air in the background, some kind of snipping - before piano, strings, and electronics float in. The composition swells until it's a patient, synth-driven waltz, soaring to dizzying heights with maurice's autotuned vocals cresting atop a noise section. Within that static, it's easy to hear her vocals buzzing with new love and dream.

Throughout the album, maurice uses field recordings, panning, and ASMR tactics to brandish her personal universe - one that rides a line of possibility familiar to plunderers of the dream world. Field recordings of stoned walks through her neighborhood make way for teeming, digital instrumentation and vice versa. Others come along for the voyage such as emo ambient cohort Claire Rousay on the album's most subdued composition "heartbreaker" and the devastating Philadelphia-based musician Lucy Liyou providing rich, evocative vocals on "uninvited."

oneiric is fantasy without the irony - it's a portrait of an artist excavating her own desires while navigating the ontologically real. It's an exhibition of the liminal space between the diurnal and the fanciful, one that manages to summon that feeling universally even though it's the result of a personal inspection. Across these six songs, maurice makes a claim on basking in the farfetched, even if it's a Sisyphean myth - but if you're gonna roll a rock up and down a hill for eternity, let it be a pretty one.

Lucas Buchta and Gary Pilz have been profound producers for a good chunk of the last decade. Throughout the years, their individual forces intertwined into a germafrican vision. Combining Luc's love for a detailed arrangement and Gary's exceptional sound design, their project "LADS" was born. The German & South African duo has seen their first releases dropped in 2017, including a debut remix on Nie Wieder Schlafen that climbed up various Spotify playlists and marked the start of continuous collaboration between the label and artists. Three years later, the team returns for an ambitious original release, pressed on black gold.

The 5-tracker EP "Bamboo" explores a broad array of sounds, from the orientalic "Cedar", including Gary's own beautiful vocals to the textured "Tin Pan Alley", including a special piano recording from Luc. Ambient atmospheres and funky house vibes with "EDL" and main title track "Bamboo" deliver the front and backend of the release, offering a diverse vinyl with various energy levels. The EP underlines the duo's incredible talent and showcases the potential of their capabilities. A next step for their project, worthy of an analogue pressing.


"Bamboo" also marks our second Vinyl pressing and we are incredibly excited to be able to deliver another physical release. An enthusiastic release, that further strengthens the bond between the artists and the label. We couldn't be happier to finally deliver you guys the results, the team has worked on."

In the past few years, Clarice Jensen has forged her own path. Recently, her focus has shifted to film scoring, successfully recording work for three feature films between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Clarice continues to serve as artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, while continually collaborating with an impressive array of musicians, such as Max Richter, Björk and Stars of the Lid, to name a few.

That being said, it was her 2019 tape release on Geographic North, »Drone Studies«, that initially caught the attention of a wider audience, with the work showcasing a compelling assembly of deeply immersive drones, and elegantly orchestrated compositions, in which neoclassical elements collide with electric density.

Three years later, the work has lost none of its innovative character and appeal. It also documents a turning point in Clarice's career, one where her classically trained background started to converged and overlap with her interests in improvisational electronics and drone music. As a result, the aptly titled »Drone Studies« shows Clarice at her most exploratory, introspective, and daring, channeling her areas of interest into a collage of richly textured timbers and cello movements of sublime tension.

Now for the first time, the original album can be experienced through an expanded vinyl reissue, mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and carefully adjusted for vinyl by Ian Hawgood. The new reissue also features an additional track by Clarice called »Platonic Solids 2«, which was originally conceived around the same time as »Drone Studies«, and which has now been made available exclusively for the vinyl edition.

We hope that this new reissue will aid in introducing Clarice's groundbreaking »Drone Studies« to a new crowd of listeners through this expanded edition.

In the past few years, Clarice Jensen has forged her own path. Recently, her focus has shifted to film scoring, successfully recording work for three feature films between 2020 and 2021. At the same time, Clarice continues to serve as artistic director of the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, while continually collaborating with an impressive array of musicians, such as Max Richter, Björk and Stars of the Lid, to name a few.

That being said, it was her 2019 tape release on Geographic North, »Drone Studies«, that initially caught the attention of a wider audience, with the work showcasing a compelling assembly of deeply immersive drones, and elegantly orchestrated compositions, in which neoclassical elements collide with electric density.

Three years later, the work has lost none of its innovative character and appeal. It also documents a turning point in Clarice's career, one where her classically trained background started to converged and overlap with her interests in improvisational electronics and drone music. As a result, the aptly titled »Drone Studies« shows Clarice at her most exploratory, introspective, and daring, channeling her areas of interest into a collage of richly textured timbers and cello movements of sublime tension.

Now for the first time, the original album can be experienced through an expanded vinyl reissue, mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri, and carefully adjusted for vinyl by Ian Hawgood. The new reissue also features an additional track by Clarice called »Platonic Solids 2«, which was originally conceived around the same time as »Drone Studies«, and which has now been made available exclusively for the vinyl edition.

We hope that this new reissue will aid in introducing Clarice's groundbreaking »Drone Studies« to a new crowd of listeners through this expanded edition.

New York-based duo Bottler, Pat Butler and Phil Shore, are the vanguard of their own distinctly eclectic sound. Raw, emotive, bold and highly creative, the duo has successfully carved out their own path with a series of EPs that represent the broad scope of their production prowess. Over the last five years Bottler have been working on their debut album, ‘Journey Work’, a milestone achievement that marks a pivotal moment in their music career. The LP is a distillation of the duo’s multifaceted upbringing, blending a variety of styles together bound together by an overarching attitude and approach that embraces creative freedom and self-acceptance.



Pat and Phil are childhood friends whose bond is akin to that of blood relatives. Their parents are best friends and they grew up side by side, developing their deep love for music together; sharing discoveries and inspirations, learning to play and perform, and nurturing their creativity together. Now formally ordained as Bottler, they channel their eclectic tastes into a sound that encapsulates the love and trust that forms the foundation of the friendship. The duo blends a myriad of styles to create songs that emanate warmth, joy, sorrow, pain and the full spectrum of human emotion.



The album title, like their music, is open to interpretation. The duo reveals themes related to chronicling life’s many ups and downs, the deep preparation that must be taken ahead of a spiritual ceremony or psychedelic experience, and, simply, the journey taken during the conception and creation of an album. A quote from Walt Whitman also partly inspired the title; “every leaf of grass is no less than the journey work of the stars”. However, the intention behind the title is to allow for ambiguity, giving the listener an opportunity to write their own narrative.



Across 11 cuts Bottler illustrate their distinct take on electronic music, weaving in elements of indie, pop, rock, house and techno with confidence and panache. ‘Journey Work’ starts at ‘Home’, a song that is fizzing with positive energy, Pat’s vocals welcoming the listener to the start of this meandering audio adventure.

‘Chrysalis’ opens with delicate piano keys that guide us into a bombastic bassline and energising drum beats. As it progresses, scintillating layers of synth and strings are added, creating a highly affecting, uplifting atmosphere.



‘Melatonin’ follows up next, merging heartfelt vocal delivery with a sombre instrumental, and a stirring guitar riff. A glorious demonstration of Bottler’s songwriting capabilities, which are also evident on ‘Vinyl’, an uptempo dance number with an unbelievably catchy chorus. Here we see the duo channel their experience of playing in multi-member bands, as the breaks and arrangement feel perfectly suited to a festival-sized crowd.



On ‘Tacoma’, Pat and Phil channel their appreciation of house and techno into a haunting cut that utilises reverse strings and extended vocal refrains to chilling effect. A heady club track for the twilight hours. ‘Meds’ incorporates muted singing, mystical pad work and a mesmerising riff to produce a captivating slice of uncomplicated dance music.



This is followed by ‘Hot Water’, which feels like a trip to a Californian beach, circa 1965. The vocals drift over a bouncing bassline with a complementary guitar riff. ‘Mako’ features Samurai Velvet singing about fireflies and afterlife in a wonderfully heartrending manner, Bottler’s instrumental keeping things simple, yet highly effective.



We head back underground with ‘Weed’, a dense, gloomy cut with inspired use of chopped up vocal clips, stuttered throughout, alongside a mean bassline. ‘You’re Old’ is the soundtrack to an explosion of festival euphoria, dancing shoulder to shoulder with your best friends, forgetting all your troubles and living in the moment. An anthemic song that transposes Bottler’s idiosyncratic style onto the pop blueprint. Finally, ‘Cicada Rhythm’ closes the LP with a pensive, yet joyful feeling. A chunky bassline is juxtaposed with Pat’s angelic vocals cascading over the top. A hint of tribalism comes through, as we approach the end of the Journey Work…



Five years in the making, fuelled by the desire to express their deep love for music of all varieties, Journey Work is symbolic of the long road it takes to accept oneself and be comfortable expressing one’s truth. Diverse, dynamic and daring with a rawness and honesty that is rare to find, the album marks a triumphant debut for Bottler and one that crystalises their unique identity.

The inaugural 9128.live label release came from the UK's Jo Johnson and Hilary Robinson, featuring subtle, harmonic drones and manipulated piano, originally aired as part of the duo's set for the CALMA (Madrid) takeover on 9128.live, April 2020. Released digitally in 2020, the set is now available on 12" vinyl, split into two long-form compositions

"Re-Calibrate", the companion piece to Donoso's 2018 acclaimed album "Calibrate" continues to obfuscate any clear definition of genre or style and continues to push his music into stranger, more complex and extreme territories. Equal parts tender and twisted, cynical and honest, beautiful and obnoxious, ‘Re_Calibrate’ shines through as a major point in the composer’s discography – and provides a glimpse into the new directions being taken. ‘Re_Calibrate’ is a challenging listen; void of any trendy tropes or appeal for consumers of watered down, homogenized and dogmatic electronic music.

“Quicksilver frequencies, gravelly formants and shimmering, mirage-like washes of tone. Sometimes his sounds feel like signals picked up by a radio telescope, or pure electricity poured through a sieve” Pitchfork

Recordings of The pale faced family on the hill took place over a week in January 2020 in a small church hall on the outskirts of London. A small number of electronic music producers decided to form a collective and make heavy ambient music for raw pleasure in the agreement that their identity be withheld. They invited Oliver Coates as a session musician to contribute live cello drone which they would then add to, process, subtract from and mix with weather recordings and esoteric ways of generating sounds, including old sample packs and whatever else they had to hand. The results were mixed down to tape

live without further editing or arrangement. Wishing to work under a cloak of anonymity, the process freed the producers from their other lives and released output, allowing them to enter a new group alias, to induce heady states of sound and to become a group without hierarchies.

All music written and recorded by The pale faced family on the hill & Oliver Coates
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio (NYC) Design by IDEEN

2022 Line Explorations

XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette tape early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.

"The works Ir Himinn, Grooenn by Kristoffer Svensson, Disquiet (Heart) by Marta Forsberg and Lamé by Isak Edberg were first released on the compilation XKatedral Volume II in 2016. Svenssons piece from 2014 combines justly tuned gamelan percussion and prepared piano intricately interwoven in a way that obscures the boundaries between the two instrument groups. Forsberg and Edbergs pieces both use a monolithic form to explore the timbral and harmonic spaces provided by the Düben Baroque organ situated in Tyska Kyrkan in the oldest part of Stockholm. While similar in terms of instrumentation the two works differ formally - Edbergs Lamé composed in 2010 uses the registers of the organ to articulate a seamless spectral transformation while Forsbergs Disquiet (Heart) from 2014 deals in blocks of sound with a varying degree of opacity, saturation and intensity.

Glory for two electric guitars by Caterina Barbieri and Kali Malone was composed and recorded in Tempo Reale in Florence, Italy, and was originally released on the cassette compilation XKatedral Volume III in 2016. This music takes the form of an ever-evolving hypnotic pattern shared by the two instruments articulated through an additive and subtractive canon. Dissolving Ceremony, composed in 2012 by Edberg/Erlandsson/Lisinski, was first presented publicly on the self-released record Stratum. The music contained in that release was formed from a collection of gamelan percussion instruments augmented by two sets of live-electronic instruments tuned to the harmonic framework formed by the partials of the metal percussion. Originally positioned in the center of the record running order between two long monolithic process-based pieces, Dissolving Ceremony now stands on its own as a memory of a time and methodology from the not so distant past.

The newest piece in this set is Shipwrecks by Daniel M Karlsson. While this work is a recent one Karlsson should be considered one of the forerunners of the musical expression contained within this record set. Active within new music for two decades his strongly articulated musical ideas and constantly evolving craftsmanship has resulted in an enormous body of work, and has served as an inspiration for many of his fellow composers. This piece is a celebration of transposition and its immense capacity for timbral transformation using a vast array of instruments performed, recorded and electronically treated by the composer to form a liquid uncanny topography where a deeply personal harmonic language constantly shifts, slides and shivers."

Stars of the Lids, Tim Hecker, Brian Eno, Manuel. Duo Consists of Jonas Munk (aka Manual) and Jason Kolb (guitarist from Auburn Lull). 4th album, 2nd for Felte and first one since 2012. Initially on blue vinyl. Past press by Pitchfork, XLR8R, Impose. Past project Releases on Morr Music, Darla, and more. Billow Observatory is the project of trans-Atlantic duo Jonas Munk (Denmark) and Jason Kolb (Michigan). Initially planned as a small sideproject from their main work in Manual and Auburn Lull respectively, the two quickly realized their collaborative experiments merited more time and attention. Using heavily treated cavernous guitars, subtle synths, and crackling radio transmissions, their self-titled debut was released in 2012 as a double LP and established Billow Observatory as purveyors of unhurried, highly detailed ambient immersion. The release pair of II: Plains/Patterns in 2017, and III: Chroma/Contour in 2019, on Munk's own Azure Vista Records, introduced a subtle underpinning of rhythm, pulse, and stutter among the washes, expanding their sound with a hint of understated electronica. Marking 10 years since debuting on Felte, 2022 sees the release of Stareside, their most forcefully elegant undertaking to date. A record of swaying quarantine temperament, Stareside's 9 tracks thread the needle between hope and hopelessness - daydreaming whilst watching the world go mad in the blink of an eye. Not shy of overt rhythm, soaring motifs, and daunting undercurrents, Stateside veers wildly in new directions, yet keeps one hand near the record bin of comforting nostalgia (think early Warp Records, Jon Hassel, and Conny Plank to name a few).

Cocteau Twins, Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Julia Holter, DIIV, Washed Out, Broadcast, Insides, Beach House, Drug Store Romeos. Introducing Beneather, a BAFTA-nominated composer from North London obsessively crafting sad, lo-fi, cinematic, ambient scandi-dreampop submerged in gently fuzzy tape loops. Much like the paintings of Gerhard Richter or a heavy mist rolling through a familiar landscape, the debut long player from Beneather obscures and blurs ten beautiful tracks beneath washes of cinematic, ambient scandi-dreampop – details emerge and fade, voices ooze and flow, tunes soothe and unnerve, metronomic beats click and swing. It would not be out of place on a David Lynch or Jim Jarmusch soundtrack. Inspired by the likes of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, Hammock, Grouper, Low, GAS, Huerco S., Emeralds, Jenny Holzer, William Basinski & ABBA!! Beneather is the solo project of Lewis Young - composer and collaborator in The Leaf Library, drone pop from north London. As a composer, Lewis recently scored the British short ‘Lucky Break’ which found its way into the BAFTAs short list only to narrowly miss out on the gong. Lewis is a multi-instrumentalist, producer, designer and filmmaker currently living in Walthamstow, London. He started as a guitarist in noughties math-rockers Tea with the Queen, shifting to bass for multi-harmonied Naomi Hates Humans before returning to thumping roots as drummer for The Leaf Library. Objects Forever - the imprint label created by The Leaf Library - has provided Lewis with the vehicle to jump back into experimental song craft, inspiring the genesis of Beneather. “I just needed to make a project which spoke to all the aspects of music I’ve loved creating as a multi-instrumentalist. Plugging things into things to make satisfying little electronic loops, then layering extremely minimal bass and guitar lines with a lo-fi aesthetic. Melinda and I spent a few days in the studio - picking out objects, patterns… items that could inspire a thread of instinctive wordless melody. I took that expressionism and sliced it to pieces, rearranging it into ambient vocal hooks.” Beneather is an exercise in hypnotic simplicity. Experimental, dream-like music built on layers of scratchy electronic tape loops, chiming spacious guitars and abstract pulsing vocals. These cinematic songs combine Grouper's wistful deviations with the warm fuzz of Jefre Cantu-Ledesma, the nocturnal hum of Emeralds, the crackling collapse of William Basinski and Low's glacial pop melancholy. Outside of compositions for film, TV and Podcasts - Lewis plays with the indie drone-pop band The Leaf Library, featuring Matt Ashton from John Peel faves Saloon (“World-weary yet innocent, blissful dream-pop” - UNCUT - 8/10). Lewis has supported the likes of Lali Puna, Joanna Newsom, Lætitia Sadier & Alexis Taylor.

Jon Porras draws a staggering array of atmospheres out of even the simplest instrumentation. Across his work as one-half of psych-drone duo Barn Owl and his solo releases, Porras welds monoliths and ether into propulsive music that is deeply felt. Arroyo, named for the Spanish word for "stream" in a nod to Porras' heritage as a first generation Colombian?Japanese American, drifts gently from one tributary to the next in unhurried contemplation and euphoria. The portentous weight and abrasive textures of Porras' previous work give way to the trickle of richly detailed acoustic instruments slipping in and out of the fold. On Arroyo, Jon Porras evokes a distinct sense of resplendent anticipation and calm with a fathomless flow and softly gorgeous colors. For Porras, Arroyo became a rumination on simplicity and simple truths, a work of complete immersion and continuous motion where separate elements coalesce into an ever-changing whole. Porras spent the year leading up to 2020 living nomadically across Europe where he was able to soak in a deep appreciation for the effortless beauty of overgrown gardens, the basic principles of classical architecture and a more transient sensibility. The album was written and recorded in a time of even more change for Porras: after the birth of his daughter. Like a stream's steady glide across bedrock that waxes and wanes with each gradual turn, the music of Arroyo exhibits a transportive stillness. The compositions take on a light, gaseous buoyancy as discreet drones swell with measured fluctuations and ripples of piano rest atop the surface. Arroyo borrows harmonic concepts from modal jazz to create a unique sense of ease and endlessness. Each of the four pieces on the album centers around a single suspended chord, a chord most commonly associated with devotional music which embodies a space between harmonic tension and resolution. Porras embellishes that liminality with arrangements that feel less like distinguishable layers of instruments and more like one undulating nebula of sound. In the past decade of Porras' solo work, his music has grown increasingly engaged with elaborate synth textures and detailed processing. With Arroyo, Porras consciously takes a step back from those more intricate compositions and focuses on more organic, unadorned textures and places each sound with the same precision. Stark piano and guitar patiently hover over modest currents of Hammond organ and Yamaha DX7 with the sustain of each chord and phrase acting as a natural guide to the album's subtle rhythm. The four pieces that comprise Arroyo each encompass their own idyllic channel, slowly weaving their way in and out of the album's elegant stir. Porras' reflections on simplified elements take shape in gorgeous arrangements that impart clarity amidst a tranquil mist. Arroyo is an album that unearths splendor in a unified feeling of space, serenity in perpetual renewal