Beats News

“Twee” is Tsepo’s debut mini-album. The beautiful 6-tracker strikes a balance between breaks, percussive house, and glitchy ambient. Tsepo has been around as a DJ for over 8 years. He played Trouw, Heidegluhen, Lowlands, Shelter, DGTL, Wildeburg, and more. On “Twee”, he combines emotive melodies with expertly produced beats. The diversity of the music is perhaps best expressed in how easily the glitchy ambient works "Dough" and "Max" go together with the resonating techno track "La Vaca Vega" and the uplifting title track "Twee". "Extebarri" (where a hard snare is the basis of a driving melody) and the downtempo "Tribeca" round off the release effortlessly. Tsepo knows what he's doing and his years of experience in the DJ booth echo on this wonderful, well-crafted debut.

Dutch High Fashion Music unleashes another crown-jewel. ‘Maestro’ Celso Valli (known from his productions with o.a. Matia Bazar, Andrea Bocelli, Jovanotti, Laura Pausini, Eros Ramazzotti) produced ‘Hava Nagilah’ back in 1979, as part of the classic Azoto “Musicmakers” album- and Norwegian Prins Thomas gave it an epic 10 minutes rework – second to none!

‘Mix and Fairbanks’ re-edited “Anytime Or Place” and the 1980 smash summerhit “San Salvador” into really up-to-date versions ready for the summer! Artwork by former Memory Records sleeve designer Emilio Tremolada, making this one a must have.

Continuing on the thematic thread of soundtracking an imaginary short movie, label founder DJ Tennis aka Manfredi Romano, asks some of the greatest contemporary club producers to take on the task of interpreting this idea in their own unique style. Romano explains that 'the score is a translation of our imagination, memories and emotions into music, with no protocols.' Opening the soundtrack, Vatican Shadow swaps his thunderous techno for a more cosmic and gentle approach, setting the tone for an equally serene soundscape from London based DJ and producer Midland. Japanese Future Terror head honcho, DJ Nobu, layers dense cerebral textures exuding the punk spirit of Life and Death. A similar rule defying energy can be heard by Ninos De Brazil who fuse carnival percussions with straight up old school techno. Both Scuba and Uchi bring the futuristic synths of a space age tomorrow we've all been waiting for. German producer Isolee interprets the task with his minimal productions and Italian producer Cosmo closes the compilation with Psychedelic Soundscapes turning into a distorted gabber missile. As the decade edges closer to it's decade anniversary, Romano proves yet again that Life and Death is a label which evolves through each reincarnation of itself, never failing to impress.

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Private Parts: The Park
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Private Parts: The Backyard
Lovely Music presents a reissue of Robert Ashley's Private Parts, originally issued in 1978. This newly mastered LP release is a must-have for aficionados as well as a perfect introductory work to Ashley's oeuvre. Among Lovely Music's first six releases, it came to be known as "the yellow record". No one had ever heard anything like it; Ashley presented an unvarnished exposition of the inner workings of a man's mind. And on the other side, those of a woman. These two episodes were the foundation for Ashley's seven-part opera, Perfect Lives (LCD 4917CD, 2017), which was performed by his ensemble throughout the 1980s and was completed for television broadcast by Britain's Channel Four. New arrangements of Perfect Lives, notably Varispeed's site-specific version, continue to intrigue and enchant.

Recorded at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, California, July 1977, produced by Ashley. Personnel: Robert Ashley - voice; "Blue" Gene Tyranny - keyboards; Kris - tablas. 180 gram vinyl, Stoughton Old Style sleeve, includes libretto.

The genre, electro (or electro-funk), is sometimes perceived to have a separate identity to hip-hop; however, this electronic cousin was integral to the early development of the hip-hop sound. Drawing on drum machines, such as the Roland TR-808, and influenced by funk, these two genres were intertwined and rode a parallel axis for a while, with rap, breakdance, and graffiti as pillars of the culture and community. The mechanical sound of electro would later go on to inspire a different set of producers and played its part in influencing contemporary electronic dance music. For this 7" release we are taking things back to 1984 and 1985 with a split single from The Egyptian Lover and Jamie Jupitor.

First up is a track from The Egyptian Lover, AKA Greg J. Broussard, the cult Los Angeles-based producer, vocalist and DJ, who is a true hip-hop / electro-fusion pioneer. 'Computer Love (Sweet Dreams)' is a seminal electro-fusion / machine-funk classic that saw a release on the iconic label Freak Beat Records (owned by Greg himself). The original 7" release is now very sought-after by collectors.

On the flip we have another electro jam from The Egyptian Lover disciple, Jamie Jupitor. 'Computer Power’ was additionally produced and arranged by The Egyptian Lover, and was released on Egyptian Empire Records (the label that evolved from Freak Beat Records). For this release we have opted for a special 7" unreleased radio edit, that has Greg kindly provided us with, which differs slightly in composition from the previously released versions. One for fans of Dãm Funk, electro and 80s funk.

Radio play confirmed on Radio 6 Music, RTE Ireland, NTS

Support from:
Hot Chip/LCD Soundsystem’s Al Doyle - “This record but a big old smile on my face and kept it there.”
Cian Ó Cíobháin - “Onward Forward is like a bittersweet ‘
Fantastic Man. It’s such lovely LP’”

Automatic Tasty departs slightly from his pastoral acid sound and picks up the microphone for a collection of melancholic pop songs entitled 'A Farewell To Reason'.

From the side-eyed sarcasm of 'A Happy Town' to the reflective urgency of 'Wake Up Dead', the album traverses landscapes of sorrow and good humour - representing a stoic acceptance of the problems of modern life and a yearning for something different.

'Something special happened with these songs - I've never had a desire to sing or anything, but the words and melodies all kind of fell out of the cosmos fully formed'. While some pieces such as 'Ballad For A Modern Man' convey a certain urban sense of loneliness and isolation, others like 'Onward Forward' are more optimistic. 'These songs are my own attempt at navigating a certain melancholy which was hanging around me at the time I think. They're very dear to me'.

Repress

Peter Michael Hamel emerged from the 70s Krautrock scene dreaming of 'the blue flower growing between the milestones on the road to a future world-music'. A truly visionary artist who worked and studied with John Cage, Morton Feldman and Terry Riley, his 1980 Colours of Time LP - an epic, sprawling, 22-minute saga - was hailed by The Guardian's Rob Fitzpatrick as 'an absolute masterpiece of skull-bursting, synth-led ambient minimalism'. Thirty six years on, Astral Industries reinterpret Hamel's original vision with remixes from two contemporary heavyweights - Wolfgang Voigt and Rod Modell (aka Deepchord). Each expansive interpretation invites you to step outside of reality and into an alternative imagination of Hamel's future world, spiralling into the colours and slowly out of time itself. Original artwork by Theo Ellsworth and a massive thanks to Peter Michael Hamel & Eckart Rahn.

This latest work from Vanity Productions is a turbulence steadied to rest with care, and marks a critical high point in the project's evolution.As the nom de plume of Posh Isolation's co-founder Christian Stadsgaard, there is a deeply private yet fiercely empathic quality to 'Only the Grains of Love Remain.' Pirouetting between his collaborative work with Loke Rahbek as Damien Dubrovnik, as well as The Empire Line with Varg and Iron Sight, to name just Stadsgaard's most recent activity, the inwardness reserved for Vanity Productions is perhaps a necessary step. That the emotive experimentation should generate such a touching soliloquy is an arresting watermark, presenting 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' as the most eloquent work of the project to date.Following on from 'Mardini' last year, 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' takes a delicate and determined route through the terrain of Vanity Productions. Mapped with musique concrète's metrics, there is an uneasy sensation between guilty revulsion and cosmic longing captured in the moments of harmony. Dissolving these small bursts of clarity-through-agony is however not a matter of exploring intensity with volume, or other such devices and motifs. With an almost bitter precision, Stadsgaard continually spikes the grounding compositional elements with unnervingly distant patterns of crisp synthetic alloys. Where weighted, gothic passages are undone into peaceful plateaus, and there is a sense of coveted respite from the body's adrenal chemistry. Temporality is suspended, enough to solicit reflection.As the work coasts the mesh of decision/indecision, witness/actor, falling/flying, however it strikes, one gets the sense that the after-image of noise being articulated is in the end giving way to a greater cathartic broadcast that 'Only the Grains of Love Remain' documents: life, love, and thought.

With The Sound of Graz, the springfestival graz made it possible for local talents to fulfill the dream of their own vinyl record. Styrian artists could submit their club tracks in a competition. An expert jury consisting of the Elevate Festival, FAZEmag, Radio FM4, Radio Soundportal and GROOVE magazine, chaired by initiator Thomas Mussbacher, decided who would be featured on the album. Of a total of around 80 entries, twelve made it onto the album. In October the records were released in a limited edition of 1.000 copies. The proceeds go to the Styrian Children's Cancer Aid.

Jonny Drop's debut, Sub Plot, was the very first album release on the fledgling Albert's Favourites label at the beginning of 2016. The initial offering, a 7" of album favourites Mind Field and This Is The One had quickly been picked up on by the good people at BBC Radio 6 Music as well as some of Drop's personal heroes including Kenny Dope, Mr. Thing and Nightmares On Wax.

But when the infectious rhythms and warm production of the beat tape landed, its impact was greater than anyone at the label could have hoped.

Although Jonny never stopped producing beats in the following years, he was also kept busy as a drummer, playing live for Andrew Ashong, The Bongolian and Connie Constance, whose Boring Connie EP he also laid down beats for.

Then in early 2018 his band The Expansions delivered their celebrated Murmuration LP. All the while, with the support of his label family, Drop had been evolving his solo sound too.

'The Only Sound sees a huge progression in my writing direction, as I collaborated with multiple vocalists and musicians, instead of the usual 'one-man band' approach.

The development of these processes make this LP a steady departure from the beat-tape influence of my past releases, and hopefully, showcase the more original sound I've been working to achieve over the past few years.'

The new album is more atmospheric, emotional and expressive. It is filled with beautiful vocal performances, musical contributions from label partners and close friends Deoke and James O'Keefe, and inspirational London jazz composer, flautist and master saxophonist Tamar Osborn (Collocutor/On The Corner).

Voices here include Shea Soul, Grace Walker, former Myron and E soul man Eric Boss with his Lucid Paradise and Pendletons partner Ishtar, plus First Word Records producer/Golden Rules collaborator Sarah Williams White.

While there are thoughtful, down-tempo moments of electronica in abundance here, Drop brings his favourite elements of disco and soul into the picture too.

And there's no shortage of low end throughout. The Only Sound is a welcome next step from Jonny Drop, the sound of a beat maker not just finding his feet as a composer, but thriving in new territory.

Huey Morgan (BBC Radio 6 Music),

Music Is My Sanctuary premiere for All This Trouble, Bonafide Magazine premiere for Looking Glass
'A really talented musician, absolutely loving that" Lauren Laverne on This Is The One, BBC Radio 6 Music

Damon " D_m-Funk" Riddick is the epitome of funk. Ever since
debuting on Stones Throw in 2008, D_m-Funk has become one of the genre's most passionate proselytisers. In 2013, he released a celebrated album in partnership with hip-hop's Snoop Dogg, 7 Days of Funk. Fresh for '15, D_m returns with a solo project nearly six years in the making: Invite the Light. D_m's partnership with Stones Throw includes everything from his 2009 LP Toeachizown and Adolescent Funk, a 2010 anthology of early productions, to 2013's 7 Days of Funk. As always, D_m flexes his multi-instrumentalist talents by handling all the production but still makes time for guests including rapper Q-Tip, the father-son duo of Leon Sylvers III & IV, and funk giant Junie Morrison of the Ohio Players, who opens and closes the album with dire warnings of what could happen in a world without funk. Rest assured, D_m is here to make sure that never comes to pass. As he puts it, "funk is the underdog, the black sheep of black music," and if that's true, D_m-Funk is its shepherd.

Ginno Russo follows up summery sizzler She Is On Fire with his full debut vinyl 12' for MOM. The Valencia based DJ and producer presents a stylish four track EP. It is entitled Travelling Around Zambia and features rhythms and beats inspired by Africa. Russo has been an active DJ since he was 17, with DJ residencies in Valencia and the surrounding region, as well as frequent trips to the Balearic Islands. Due to this experience, Russo knows what works on the dancefloor. Therefore it is no surprise that all four tracks on this EP are built for club play. However, the fun rhythms and ear catching grooves also make them suited to other occasions. Lio is a powerful and uplifting opener. It features steady textured beats, a stylish keyed groove and rising strings. Dubby is a relentless follow-up. Exploding chords and a live bass take centre stage over not stopping beats. Rosas is a funky number for the dancefloor. Textured percussion and powerful synths work the groove here alongside looped vocal fragments. Poble finishes off the EP with a vocal winner. Call and response sung vocals are laid over a powerful bassline and strong beats. This is a fine debut EP from Russo.

One of the most influential bands in the last five decades, Kraftwerk virtually established the blueprint, the source code even for electronic music. Founded by classically trained musicians Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider-Esleban in Dusseldorf in 1970, the band has informed and inspired a diverse range of genres and artists including David Bowie, Björk, Afrika Bambaataa, and Joy Division. This early live performance, in Soest, Germany in Winter 1970, broadcast on WDR-TV displays the band in superb form. Arguably, the future of electronic music, trance, techno, ambient - started right here.

First release on the freshly launched label Anomalies comes from one of its co-founders Ramon Babot aka La Màquina Corrupta. Lead track “Dilluns Blau” – which stands for Blue Monday in Catalan – is a techno track not specifically built for the dancefloor but that can also work on it. A rather moody pad appearing at mid-length of the track reminds us that our serotonin will not last forever and that Monday might come soon. Second track “Gent de Poble”, which means “Village People”, features a relentless bassline that can be as intense as some of those people who live in a small town. On the B side, “Concepte Innecessari” provides the perfect soundtrack for self-introspection in the form of a not so conventional groove. The last track on this EP is “Consells de Mare”, a beautiful electronic lullaby that your mother would sing for you if she were a synthesizer.

Worldwide Award winners First Word Records are pleased to welcome back Souleance; a duo that have been releasing music with us for a decade now, and triumphantly returning to the fold with some brand new music for 2020.

This vinyl / digital EP, 'Les Mouches', is their first release for First Word since the acclaimed beat-tape 'French Cassette' from early last year.

Expanding on the original Normand-Parisian super-duo of Fulgeance and Soulist, the Souleance crew now includes Vincent Choquet on synths and Guillaume Rossel on drums as part of their live outfit. Whilst sonically their style remains unchanged, the formation into a full band sees the Souleance sound become bigger, more realised and more formidable than ever.

The title track 'Les Mouches' sets off the EP in a playful disco manner - a chugging bassline, assorted synthesisers, disco claps and a four-to-the-floor drum track, inspired by the likes of Larry Levan and Candido. Meaning "flies", Les Mouches was a legendary Manhattan club that existed around the era of Studio 54, and was infamously a hangout spot for Imelda Marcos. The club itself was named after a play by Jean-Paul Sartre.

Next up is the single 'Aquarelle' (meaning watercolours), which contains more layers than a Bob Ross painting. With its various elements splayed across its aural canvas, sprinkled with some subtle scratches, it's four minutes of funk presented in Souleance's inimitable way.

'The Bounce' follows and enters a more soulful side of the dance, dropping the tempo a touch and inviting in a huge bassline, squelchy keys and intermittent vocal hooks.

'Mont Maudit' takes more of a latin jazz direction with big drums and cymbals rocking throughout, whilst an infectious piano hook cruises throughout, and an ethereal gospel choir switches up the proceedings mid-way.

Things get deeper still with the epic broken beat-esque 'Maneuevers'. Crunchy rhodes dominate this slightly tweaked-out rhythm, a delectable piece of heads-down nujazz fused with Souleance's unmistakable funk once again.

'L'Opuleance' closes out this EP with some more traditional Souleance fare - the tempo a little more head-nod, this one is comprised of some deliciously wobbly bass, chopped samples and hefty breaks.

This EP is essentially a set of grooves marinated in nostalgia whilst managing to sound entirely current. Analogue synths, live bass, sleek cuts and intoxicating drums. This is another round of sure-shot dancefloor fire from our favourite French family.

Previous support has come from OkayPlayer, Bill Brewster, BBC 6 Music's Gilles Peterson, Tom Ravenscroft & Huey Morgan, and various DJs on Worldwide FM, NTS & Le Mellotron,

A Colourful Storm presents a piece of the contemporary Australian underground. Suburban Cracked Collective is the project of Shaun Leacy, a figure with ties to Hour House, Castings and Altered States Tapes but otherwise shrouded in mystery. His private-pressed album, Private Failings was a cult hit of 2019, nabbing the attention of The Trilogy Tapes, Free Form Freakout and the WFMU freaks. Swimming Amongst The Dregs is the follow up and is an unbelievable mesh of concrète, electronics and un-pop overtones. Future classic for those into Dean Blunt, Kallista Kult and the subdued projects of James Ferraro. Edition of 250 with full-colour artwork.

''Ruyzdael presents Writers on Wax Volume 1: The Sound of Graffiti, a compilation album with 8 exclusive, primarily electronic tracks by producers from four different countries who are more (in)famous as graffiti writers than as musicians.''Letters on a wall, letters on a train. When you take it back to that essence, it?s really not so strange that graffiti writers call themselves and each other writers. With just a few letters ? a word, a name ? they write their mythology for a general audience. No huge vocabulary needed, just imagination and a need for expression. It can come as no surprise that those qualities extend to other disciplines as well. Graffiti has long been associated with musical styles (hip-hop, punk) that contain an abundance of imagination and expression. Less well known is the fact that graffiti writers have embraced the DIY approach of electronic music. Writers on Wax Volume 1 is a group exposition of beats and basslines, imagination and expression. Sometimes using a lot of words, usually none or very few. The dance floor has its own myths.

Demdike Stare and guitarist Jon Collin drift high plains ambient scapes in a dub-strung cooperation castsomewhere between Bruce Langhorne’s Hired Hand soundtrack and a screwed Prince Jazzbo - proper stoner vistas, trust!

Technically Demdike Stare’s first official musical collaboration, ‘Sketches Of Everything’ was recorded between Stockholm and Manchester during Winter 2019 and Spring 2020 and finds the duo’s Miles Whittaker & Sean Canty inspired by guitarist Jon Collin to create some of the most evocative scapes of their career’ Demdike match Collin’s strung-out train of thought with a mix of layered and smudged backdrops that turn the trip toward unexpected midnight hallucinations, stoner sludge and ravines of feedback. Across two long, elliptical sides the results draw spectral parallels between the Pennine moors and ruined industry of Demdike’s native Lancashire, and the kind of moody Western Americana best described in Bruce
Langhorne’s soundtrack for Peter Fonda’s ‘The Hired Hand’. Collin acts as lead protagonist with a lyrical form of guitar that sometimes takes the lead, and at others fades into mystic swirl, rendering naked strums into vapours redolent of Loren Mazzacane Connors or the loner Norwegian blues vistas of Terje Rypdal. While playing into Demdike Stare’s core cinematic inspirations, ‘Sketches of Everything’ is still bound to surprise the group’s legion fiends and duly expand expectations of their sound, lending an absorbing new aspect to both their catalogue and Jon Collin’s singular, cranky blues aesthetic:

Midnight Sun drew his imagination from trips to Iceland and elsewhere, from experiences. Everything has grown, some dates in New York for the CMJ Festival, Berlin, Barcelona or Warsaw, the Pitchfork Festival, Radio Nova, vinyl, meetings.

"Early Morning" extends this first EP and dreams of traveling at the end of the world.

The group is apart, it wanders while preserving its identity - the spirit of Cracki hovers over the project.
First discovery of the label in 2012, the duo barely existed, it is a quator today who just returned from a world tour (more than 100 dates).

The dream sticks to their skin, in fact. Just as when trying to catch one, it flies away, their music is elusive. The first disc spoke of a sun at midnight, the second is dawn.

The chosen horizon is not defined, the four artists are still searching for each other and continue their path with candor.

Kamixlo has experienced a lot of loss in the last two-and-a-half years. His long-awaited debut LP, Cicatriz, is named after the Spanish word for “scar”, taking its intense and energetic tone from the tough times in the Brixton-based producer’s life. An extremely personal album that follows 11 songs with titles like “Sick”, “Poison” and “Destruction”, it pitches soft and hard sonics against each other to create an urgent and exciting ten-sion as the track listing hurtles through its own emotional rollercoaster. It runs from the lurching drone and monstrously distorted vocal samples of opener “The Coldest Hello (Live From The Russian Spiral)” to the bright and melodic kosmiche-reggaeton closer of “Azucar” (‘sugar’), produced with Swedish cloud rap producer Woesum.

Only just past his mid-20s, Kamixlo has been making a name for himself with his dembow and bass-influenced dance deconstructions, releasing three EPs since 2015, as well as running the recently defunct Bala Club party and label, named after Japanese pro wrestling group Bullet Club. The night was an inclusive operation that established its own unique style of cross-genre post club music for the margins, while allowing Ka-mixlo the space to develop his sound—one that was imbued with its own pop immediacy, as well as smatterings of emo, electro and hardcore. British-Chilean Kamixlo’s Cicatriz is rife with surprising references. These include the thumping industrial of “The Burning Hammer Bop”—taking its title from one of the most dangerous professional wrestling moves ever invented—and the growling sub bass of “DKD Lethal”—named after DJ Lethal of famous nu metal band Limp Bizkit. Meanwhile, long-time collaborator, producer and Endless party founder Felix Lee appears on the scrambled rhythm and cut-up sampling of “Demonic Y”. As the saying goes, there’s no pleasure without pain, no resurrection without destruction, and Cicatriz is all these things at once.

The album is mastered by Beau Thomas, featuring artwork by Daniel Swan.

The project began as an experiment. Haley switched digital audio workstations, rebuilt his palette of sounds, and tasked himself with simply trying it out. The exercise freed him of expectations and permitted a process that echoed the tones of more immediate external environments. A gravity had seeped in; resulting material shifts between bleakness and sublime suspense, awe at the expanse of existing, in looking back and letting go. “It’s a sort of sad smile and a wave goodbye but at the same time hello, a 'welcome to your life’ moment,” Haley says. Take the storm pattern sequence from “Gaussian” to “Ultrafiche of You”: a queasy, contemplative vignette rests on a single soft-synth cloud before the latter’s percussion ripples across the sky. With trademark stutters and swells, the composition conjures the sensation of searching in the afterglow. “It’s a love song, and I don’t write many of those.”

This EP features 3 unreleased early takes from Martin Rev's Les Nymphes -album from 2008. Tracks are early 2006 stripped down versions.

With her new release, 'Zandoli', Belgian-Caribbean artist
Charlotte Adigéry proves herself to be a consummate
storyteller. Sometimes patently silly, sometimes deeply
introspective, Adigéry's ever-wandering mind spins tales
that are absurd and poignant and ridiculously fun. Having
been taught the ropes by her Martinique-born mother -
namely rhythm's relationship to musicality and the
importance of a sense of humour - Adigéry is a persuasive
young artist who can sing about lizards one moment and
latex the next.
A descendent of a Nigerian Yoruba tribe that worked their
way out of slavery on the faraway island of Martinique,
Adigéry likes to draw inspiration from her Caribbean
ancestors' musical traditions. Opening track 'Paténipat'
features a chanted chorus of 'zandoli pa té ni pat' - a
Creole mnemonic that means 'the gecko didn't have any
legs' - which perfectly enunciates the rhythms of the GWO
KA dances that would have swayed the islanders of
Martinique a century ago. A zandoli, by the way, is a lizard
normally found climbing the walls of Caribbean homes.
While never addressing love directly, 'Zandoli' is a product
of pure love and friendship. In the studio Adigéry is joined
by collaborator Bolis Pupul, a descendant of the first and
only wave of Chinese immigration to Martinique. After
matching on Tinder, the pair began to explore their shared
histories, resulting in heart-to-heart confessions that seep
through the songs of Zandoli. 'Since working on our first
EP, Bolis and I have become best friends,' Adigéry says.
'And this record is the product of our love.'

Time for something a little different from Cosmic Pint Glass' secret weapon Dom IV. Nothing Happens is a strangley poignant DIY/pop song, with two versions of the title track. Its the first in a series of 7 from CPG. Ltd to 200 with painted sleeves by Liam Buckley.

Cardinal Fuzz and Eiderdown Records are pleased to bring forth Prana Crafter and 'MindStreamBlessing' An electric mantra from the deep heart of the Pacific Northwest woods, "MindStreamBlessing" beckons you to relax and crack open your mind for a little while. Prana Crafter is Will Sol, practitioner of fine guitar spell-casting and audio fortune telling. A heady brew of guitar, drums, and organ that traces its majestic lineage from both the wayward strains of a cosmic Americana blues and the rustling sunshine daydreams of a future primitive past. The tunes contained herein drift and sway through the windmills of your mind, leaving the sweet aftertaste of pine and ocean mist. Accept this MindStreamBlessing as a balm for these troubled times.

New Age music seems to have a resurrectional momentum right now. On the one hand, there’s the plague age and its shady esotericism - crystals, bowls, faith over facts; the healing force of music, soothing inner demons as well as external bacteria. Like a matching piece of puzzle, on the other hand we have this neoliberal tradition-turned-malpractice of selfcare, mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming. And, third, a direct line to draw from the new age to the ongoing talk about social media dieting and hyping a wooky woodwork romanticism. A hand-made escapism full of reverb-laden wind chimes in the dystopia of our actual reality. Dystopia...there always was a branch of ambient music that didn’t grew into that realm of mystic realism, the one which relied more on the substances and narrative means of science fiction to exaggerate and focus in on real time life.

Swiss duo LEVELS work more in that last vein. Their chilly sound aesthetic is stylized enough to work as the soundtrack for a lower-level alternative reality. Fitting musics to drive down an emptied, endless Autobahn. Futurist small towns: clean, friendly, undistinguished hospitality. A creepy discretion. An interieur with much too much zen. And then, there’s this delicate disruption, as in „Central Activation“. It sucks you in. Tracks like that one or „Auto-Generated“ are numbing extractions of an all-encompassing entity. Heavily processed scraps of voice add up to this feeling of a totally surreal surround.

In come the drums: facets of small patterns which approach and depart from another, forming vivid, wobbling sculptures - listen to „Searching For Alesta“ or „Detectors“ to get a first grasp of that. Level’s evocative sound design lives off a rich use of the lower and medium sonic spectrum while making use of a relatively small pallette of sounds. In contrast to their first, self-titled release on Umor Rex, they cut the rougher edges in favor of a smoother production, which is a total win in terms of developing their own, autonomous sound world. Cineastic at times, the music always stays sober and focused, but unfolds a stunning complexity on closer listen. A complexity able to tell you a story with just enough gaps for your own, uncanny reality of 2020 to fall in.

Dauw presents the new full-length studio album "Companion" by Jogging House. In 2019 "When" was released and figured as Jogging House’s first release through Dauw. It was composed with a very limited setup and expressed the typical Jogging House sound in which warm soundscapes are mingled with soft and playful melodies. For Companion, Potschubay explored new paths by subtracting almost every rhythmic structure to a bare minimum resulting in a more minimalistic and abstract sound design reflecting his moods after a year filled with loss and pain. It's a thank you to the beings that helped him through - an album for the ones who stand by us.

“My main goal is always to express my emotions as honest as I can. But when I start a new track, I often don’t have a particular plan to achieve that goal. So I try to find sounds that capture what I’m feeling at this very moment and then follow them. I add what feels right and throw out what feels wrong until I have a skeleton that I am confident could become a whole track.”

Boris Potschubay is a German musician based in Frankfurt am Main. Besides his own music, Potschubay curates his own label, Seil Records which forms a home for Hainbach, KMRU among others. Jogging House debuted in 2011 and brought us more than a dozen releases in the meantime. Listening to all the records chronologically one after the other, demonstrates us how Potschubay is experimenting a wide range of sound sources and creates a variety of atmospheres but stays true to its own individuality.

The Frankfurt-based Jogging House is a relatively new name in the scene of minimal electronic music. However, within a short period of only 2 years he was able to attrack substantial attention from the (modular) synth community with numerous video’s in which he portrayed his music with a central focus on the instruments being used. The culmination of these endeavours were presented in the form of several well-received releases on his own Seil Records imprint.

His new album 'When' is an album about time and how not to be bothered by it. Characteristic for Jogging House is his interest in music that seems to have fallen out of time. That feels both old and new. That evokes memories while remaining uncharted. This ambivalence is exactly what the artist wanted to capture on When.

“The only way I know how, is to not overthink things, but trying to be as free as possible and doing what feels right. Thus, the eight tracks that make up When were recorded in single takes (straight to cassette), opening room for improvisation and detours.”

The result is - compared to his previous releases - in many ways more raw and stubborn, full of unsynced fragments of fading melodies and rhythms that are ignoring time signatures. (Hopefully) creating an experience that is both confident and fragile, relaxed and untamed.

Linus Hillborg’s solo debut Magelungsverket lures listeners through despaired soundscapes of justly tuned electroacoustic orchestral arrangements seeped in rich harmonic synthesis.

Magelungsverket is a rendering of materials from Hillborg’s own computer game hacking project, Orphan Works, where an obsolete game engine was modified to create an interactive installation in which participants drive through the purple midnight streets of a decrepit and abandoned Stockholm. The game's generative soundtrack interacts with the player’s haphazard navigation of a ceaseless digital void of factories, housing projects, run down bars, ditches and lakes. Displaced, uncanny narratives and depictions of both real and semi-fictional locations in Stockholm that could have existed - but do not - procures distinct sequences of sound constructed with the Buchla 200 system, programmed synthesis, bowed cymbals, metal clarinet and tape machines.

The rendered pieces on Magelungsverket have been adapted from Orphan Works’ interactive and generative material into separate, fixed compositions, bound by duration, each one named after a location in this fictional, virtual Stockholm. For instance, Vårbergsobservatoriet (The Vårberg Observatory), draws its name from an artificial mountain that exists in the outskirts of Stockholm, amidst the sprawl of residential areas far beyond the sparkling city center. It was built from garbage scraps left behind after the underground metro system was constructed in the 1970s. In this fictional version, a public observatory was wishfully imagined to have been built on top of it. However fictitious Hillborg has imagined these locations, it is a bittersweet reflection and fragmented mental image of a Stockholm that never existed. Magelungsverket will be released on the 4th of December in a limited run of 200 black vinyls and across digital platforms.

Linus Hillborg (b. 1989, Stockholm) is a composer, musician and sound artist based in Stockholm, operating in numerous fields, ranging from experimental musics and audio-visual installations to post-punk and noise formations.

arbitrary presents the 2020 remaster & vinyl reissue of PM016 by Danish musician Mads Emil Nielsen, re-mastered and cut by Kassian Troyer, with cover artwork by visual artist Dane Patterson.

Originally released as limited edition C30 tape on Plant Migration Records in 2014, the four pieces on Nielsen’s first solo release are based on short orchestral and percussive samples manipulated by various synthesizer modules and effects processors. Variations are created by emphasizing different frequencies, harmonics, sections of short loops and the various surprises that result from the idiosyncrasies of each machine.

This vinyl reissue is part of the Black Box series of releases with music & audio originally made for theatre pieces, performances, installations, radio soundtracks, compilations and remix collaborations. The series showcases a more melodic side of Mads Emil Nielsen’s work, who, during recent years, has been focused on more abstract electronic/acoustic material – such as his collaboration with Andrea Neumann and Framework series (graphic scores & recordings).

Written & produced by Mads Emil Nielsen, Copenhagen, 2013. Originally released as limited edition C30 tape on Plant Migration Records (US), 2014.

For his first EP ever, Master Flashhh carved 5 beautiful tracks of analogue funkiness, drawing inspiration from drifting in Georgia, solitary walks alongside the ocean in Finist?re Brittany or recording his neighbors banging behind the wall.

One of dance music’s most enigmatic figures returns home to Anjunabeats. GRAMMY-nominated producer Mat Zo is back with a brand new artist album set for release in October: ‘Illusion Of Depth’. At the age of 30, this is the London-born, L.A.-based producer’s third artist LP. He broke onto the scene in 2008 and has been causing an uproar ever since. In the early naughties, he penned Anjunabeats classics like ‘The Lost’ and ‘Synapse Dynamics’ which were far ahead of their time. They were followed by the likes of ‘Superman’, ‘The Sky’ and ‘Rebound’ (with Arty). He pushed the Anjunabeats sound to the mainstage, racking up spins from Pete Tong, Axwell and Armin van Buuren. It was his GRAMMY-nominated debut album ‘Damage Control’ that fully showcased Mat’s avant-garde approach in 2013. Featuring break-out hit ‘Easy’ with close friend Porter Robinson, the track took Mat mainstream: a Radio 1 A-List addition, Sirius XM BPM listing, a #1 Billboard Heatseeking record, an Essential Mix of the year nomination and, ultimately, a GRAMMY nod for best dance and electronic recording. Since then, Mat has grown his own stable. Self-releasing his second LP in 2016, ‘Self Assemble’, via Mad Zoo, Mat’s imprint nurtured a new generation of eclectic, genre-agnostic creators.

A living room somewhere in southern Germany. Embroidery graces the walls, a veneer side table with little chrome feet stands in front of a beige velour sofa, a minibar awaits. Pride of place goes to the electric organ which majestically occupies the centre of the room, flanked by two oversized loudspeakers. Welcome to the world of OTTO. The two-man band are set to release their long-awaited debut album in 2019 on Bureau B. The eight tracks contain familiar OTTO ingredients, from organ sounds and rhythm presets to disco strings and the monophonic waves of a 1970s synthesizer. Arpeggio andHohner notes add extra sharpness to the proceedings. Classics from their live repertoire sit alongside brand new numbers, invariably strange synthesizer compositions.

Scuffed Recordings line up their second vinyl sampler, featuring four heavy-hitting club tracks spanning the last year of the label’s output. The release sees tracks from Dubrunner, Heritage, Stones Taro, and Joe Craven pressed to vinyl for the first time, in a limited run of white labels.

Kicking off the release is Dubrunner’s ‘Zoya’s Trip’, originally released in December 2019 on the Scuffed Presents 003 release. Zoya’s Trip has become one of the most popular tracks in the Scuffed catalogue, spending six months in Beatport’s Leftfield House & Techno top 10, and seeing DJ support from the likes of Anja Schneider, Moxie, and Oneman.

Up next is ‘The Revelation’ from Brighton-based duo Heritage, taken from their EP of the same name. With its bass-heavy, breaks-driven beat, The Revelation picked up plays on BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra, Boiler Room, and saw coverage in Mixmag and DJ Mag.

On the B-side Scuffed veteran Stones Taro steps up with the weighty ‘To Rave’. As one of the most long-standing members of the label’s roster, Kyoto-based Stones Taro has become a firm fan favourite with his idiosyncratic take on UK rave music.

Closing out the release is Joe Craven’s ‘Staring At Your Feet Or Mine’, a percussive UK techno stepper originally taken from the Bristol-based producer’s debut release.

* Debut vinyl record from Chino Amobi
* Soundtrack to Ligia Lewis' perfomance 'minor matter'
* Part of the VF X CTM Festival vinyl series
* Artwork by Martha Glenn
NON Worldwide co-founder Chino Amobi makes his vinyl debut with the soundtrack to choreographer Ligia Lewis' minor matter, a performance piece that deftly articulates an argument for minoritarian politics.
Most of the material is newly commissioned but one of the tracks, 'Locus of Control', is lifted from Amobi's provocative Airport Music For Queer Black and Brown Folk album, in which he follows Brian Eno in inducing the atmosphere of an airport terminal. But through the eyes of a black man and with 2016 realism, it's a different story; where Eno invites lullaby, Chino unshackles nightmare.
Founded by Chino Amobi, Nkisi, and Angel-Ho, the NON collective, whose multifaceted, holistic campaign of critique has quickly achieved widespread recognition over its two years of existence, groups together artists and producers from Africa and the international African diaspora into an independent digital nation state.
It de- and re-territorialises club music as vessels through which to confront head-on colonial heritages and the ensuing "visible and invisible structures that create binaries in society and... distribute power.'. In addition to the music it distributes, NON spreads its directed political mission via a battalion of art forms - graphic design, video, visuals, fashion - that facilitate an immediate, unambiguous process of identification and help to create a alternative public space that is as specific as it is large-scale.
As a group of people sharing a common struggle with the daily aftermath of colonialism and the pervasive reach of marginalisation, the project of NON is a call to arms, and as such, its propaganda is urgent, aggressive, even militaristic in concept. Yet for its members, this attitude is only a part of what is ultimately a process of restoration and reinvigoration.

New full length album by France’s most singular contemporary composer. Reflecting on ancient culture’s use and reverance for emblematic monuments which most often represent myths and stories, the album’s narrative has been infused with such symbolic and depicts an envisioned mythology, unfolding through it’s 10 aural pieces. Franck Vigroux‘s music is unique and comprised of tectonic tension, pulsating rhythms and abrasive analog textures like few can produce. Applying his own calculated personal signature in his sonic explorations his distinctiveness comes not only by his unique approach to sound but also by his incorporation of new media practices and performing arts into his A/V work.
Mastering by Denis Blackham.

Double Vinyl Edition of 500 copies in matt laminated Gatefold Sleeve.
10 Tracks. Running Time 55:10.