Beats News

New label on the block Raakvlak returns for its second release, this time brancing out into more local territories. Deze Hoofden Praten is a vast recollection of the idiosyncratic work of spoken-word guru Rik van Boeckel.

Next in line for Raakvlak is a recollection of the wicked work of poet, spoken-word expert and all-round expressionist Rik van Boeckel. Deze Hoofden Praten is the result of two mid- eighties tapes released on Kubus Cassettes, the same label that accommodated the work of subterranean ambient wizard Enno Velthuys. Although van Boeckel’s oeuvre contains some similar elements, the outcome here is much wilder; a musical hodgepodge of new wave pop, ambient and quirky dub. What’s more, emphasis is just as much on the Dada- bordering poetry at present as on the sonical equivalent. Think Ton Lebbink’s cousin if he would’ve been into new age instead of punk.

Van Boeckel initially made name as a famed spoken word artist, doing rounds in the Dutch pop venue circuit. One of the first ones to notice his Dada-bordering poetry was Rob Smit, musician and overseer of Kubus Cassettes, the label that already been home to the mind- stretching ambient of subterranean-chill pioneer Enno Velthuys. It did not take long for Smit to think up the musical backdrop to van Boeckel’s words, adding bright synths, tranquil guitars and the more off-side sounds that Kubus was known for.

The result? One odd hodgepodge of new wave pop, quirky ambient and new age sounds, spearheaded by van Boeckel’s surreal tales about Dame Nature, travelling and other everyday nonsense. Two cassettes came to fruition, both released on Kubus Cassettes, both in the mid-eighties, of which Raakvlak now has cherry-picked some of the finer moments.

Certainly one to turn heads and ears alike, this may serve as a (re-)introduction of a singular mind to the wider universe.

Long awaited re-issue of The Necks 2011 masterpiece. Always different, here the Necks resolutely layer polyrhythmic material to form seething blocks of sound - in two long pieces, one more stripped back to the live trio, the other featuring multiple strata of swirling Hammonds, noise-guitar and electronics. Their 16th release still resonates on its own.

Die 2CD besteht aus jeweils 10 Fabric- & FABRICLIVE-Exclusives, die beiden LPs erscheinen entsprechend separat. Fabric steht für den Londoner House- und Techno-Underground, ob melodisch von Nina Kraviz, electroid von Steffi oder experimentell von Margaret Dygas. Der neue Resident IMOGEN serviert Dark Techno, Marcel Dettmann seinen klassischen Late-Night-Sound. Call Super (Houndstooth) lässt es deep-melodisch angehen, Maya Jane Coles spielfreudig-housig und der britische Dance-Pionier Sasha bestreitet das Finale mit euphorischen Höhen aus Vocal- und Melodiestrukturen. FABRICLIVE repräsentiert das beste aus Dubstep, D&B, Jungle, Breaks und Experimental-Beats. Den Anfang machen Junglist Special Request (Houndstooth) und die D&B-Koryphäen Source Direct und J Majik. Shackleton und Pinch & Trim zeigen die neuesten Entwicklungen in der Bassmusik auf, Daniel Avery und B.Traits ihre Dancefloor-Flexibilität, Mantra die Zukunft des Londoner Undergroundsounds. Das Finale bestreiten zwei der frühesten Gefährten des Clubs, Groove Armada und Original-Resident James Lavelle als UNKLE.

Muscut celebrates its twentieth release in a row with a compilation which includes label’s residents, guests and beloved "similar artists" such as G.E.S. (aka Jan Jelinek, Faitiche), Andrew Pekler (Faitiche, Kranky), Hanno Leichtmann (Dekorder, Entr'acte), S A D (Udacha, 12th Isle), Nikolaienko (Muscut), Koyil (DIG), Mårble (Natural Selections, Not Not Fun), KWJAZ (Not Not Fun), uon duh (Muscut) and Ahnnu (Leaving Records)

We're back again with another gathering of old companions
and new faces, representing our bandwidth from intergalactic funk, mellow hip hop, bone dry warehouse stompers & all kinds of spaced out jams

From the mind of VernoN comes the first release of Eupasia, a label that tells the story of a mythic world built under the ground by some undead worms that have gained human characteristics. This first EP evokes gloomy and misty ambiences, followed by electro rhythms and rough basses, creating tension and resembling claustrophobia feelings.

Washington DC-based Lurid Music welcomes Belgian producer YNV for his debut album entitled "Golden Hour Ritual" that showcases his entrancing blend of avant exotica, Middle Eastern mysticism and cabaret electronica.

YNV was born in Brussels in 1979 and moved to California in 2013. He has so far released tracks on Invisible Inc and Emotional Response. Along with his upcoming debut album on Lurid Music, he has a single ready to be released on Neubau. He is a video artist and music curator for the Vague Terrain nights in San Francisco. In his music, as with his videos, he exploits the liminal space between our most disparate emotional states and the tenuous thread that binds our inner world to reality at its face value. Carrying the torch of his Euro roots, you hear the influence of his homeland with some California sunshine and a palm tree thrown in for good measure.

His LP for Lurid Music features nine original tracks of a brooding cinematic nature, transporting you to the sheltering courtyard shade of a desert riad where every movement seems as theatrically measured and eccentrically calculated as anything Tuxedomoon or The Residents ever produced. The LP closes with a slow acid trance remix from Anatolian Weapons.

Yoshinori Hayashi's second album Pulse of Defiance is an outstanding statement from the Tokyo-based producer, expanding his ever-growing world of sound and showcasing his musical versatility in the process. Spanning ecstatic jungle breaks, club-ready techno, and free jazz's unpredictable gait, Pulse of Defiance is a sonic journey through Hayashi's marvelous mind that provides new surprises at every turn, and with every successive listen. Pulse of Defiance is the latest and most fascinating step in Hayashi's still-blooming career_a half-decade of fantastically quixotic output that's established him as one of electronic music's most fascinating aural conjurers. After a string of releases on esteemed labels like Lovers Rock, Going Good, and JINN, Hayashi made his Smalltown Supersound debut with 2019's Ambivalence, his first full-length album. An immersive and fascinating work, Ambivalence submerged Hayashi's sound in distant, underwater textures that added layers of allure to its loose, jazzy confines; it was followed up by last year's Y, a four-tracker that splayed drum-machine freakouts and wobbly low-frequency textures across techno's brittle framework. Earlier this year, space disco masterminds Prins Thomas and Bjorn Torske offered lush remixes of Ambivalence cuts that emphasized just how musically fluid Hayashi's style is_ and Pulse of Defiance is more concrete proof that he's working without limitations. Within the opening third of the album's enticing sprawl, the listener's treated to gorgeous jazzy hip-hop breaks, upward-scaling piano drama, and cavernous techno reminiscent of rave-era greats like Orbital and Underworld. From noise-bursted drum'n'bass to rapid-fire club music not unlike Paul Woolford's rave-revivalist project Special Request, there simply is nothing Hayashi can't do. Indeed, such virtuosic and diverse-sounding music collected in a single statement brings to mind myriad reference points; you can hear the eclecticism of post-rock greats Tortoise amidst the clattering drums of "Alone," while the expansive work of Thomas and Torske is recalled throughout as Hayashi plumbs his body-moving instincts more than ever before. But Pulse of Defiance is also a work that could only come from him at this point, the latest delightfully surprising release from a musician that continues to chart his own path.

Hong Kong based hypno-tropicalia duo Blood Wine or Honey are set to release their second album 'DTx2' on 30th June 2021. Made up of seasoned multi-instrumentalists James Banbury (synths, bass, percussion, cello) and Joseph von Hess (vocals, clarinet, sax, percussion), they create a heaving, heady brew of brazen sax themes, lo-fi/hi-tech electronics, densely layered cello inflections and motorik drums.

These explorations start with the dance-floor then go above and beyond, taking notes from post-punk and tropical polyrhythms, always anchored by the bass weight of the sound system. Their distinctive sound is created in the industrial warehouses and hidden rural settlements of Hong Kong, surrounded by the low-end throb of heavy machinery, the lingering scent of hand sanitiser and the humidity of the South China Sea.

Written and recorded during 2020-21, new album 'DTx2' looks ahead to an uncertain future, drawing deep on their experiences and influences and welcoming a host of co-conspirators.

Jean Daval, aka Preservation (credits include Yasiin Bey fka Mos Def, MF Doom, RZA, GZA, Raekwon, KRS-One, Aesop Rock), provided truffle-hunted beats, synths and basses, which, when put through the BWoH mangle, emerged as 'Messenger'.

Superstar and old friend of the band KT Tunstall came to work with BWoH after they contributed a DJ mix for her lockdown 'KTRave' on Instagram. 'Attraction' was the result. Wonky bass, found-bounce beats and Buddy Rich drums smashed out by Tim Weller (Marc Almond, Future Sound of London, Goldfrapp, The Chemical Brothers, David Axelrod) resulted in a bonkers production with passionate vocals and layers of harmony.

'I Shall Rush Out As I Am' is a collaboration with legendary pop provocateur Paul Morley and Janice Lau of Hong Kong band David Boring. The track is based on the words and the spirit of sci-fi writer, satirist, literary critic and radical feminist Joanna Russ and took shape quickly, with tinges of A Certain Ratio and memories of Suicide, provoking Janice to an authentic scream-of-consciousness delivery.

Multi-talented London singer, musician and composer Kamal (Neighbourhood Recordings) took time away from being the Next Big Thing to transform 'Testing Time' with funk-edged keys. A key figure in the extraordinary '90s Hong Kong music scene, Zoë Brewster contributed vocals.

Roughly divided, the album's first set of songs make relatively short statements, punchily self-contained with common threads. The final four tracks, Testing Time, Embers, Embrasure

and Echt Embrace disperse into flights of mantric fantasy, with quicksand time-signature shifts and key-changes emerging into a more introspective zone with a fervent pulse, a shift in energy: stamina over speed.

lushly layered and delicate songs from this new artist..tip!

Immersive audio experience for both the dj and the collector, ranging across tribal voodoo rhythms, Coilish esoterism and musique concrete atmospheres

Der britische Synth-Wizard James Holden tut sich zusammen mit dem polnischen Klarinetten-Guru Waclaw Zimpel für die "Long Weekend EP" mit 4 faszinierenden Kraut-Improvisationen, die im Sommer 2018 zusammen mit Zimpels Langzeit-Kollaborateur, dem Gitarristen Jakub Ziolek, aufgenommen wurden. Die EP ist eine exzellente Kooperation zweier wahrer Meister ihrer Instrumente, deren unterschiedliche Wege sich hier in der gemeinsamen Liebe für hypnotische und trancige Klänge kreuzen.

Currently in the process of recording their third album, after their acclaimed 2015 debut Hi-Fi Classics (having opted out of recording a second record to avoid the dreaded 'difficult second album' syndrome), 'Brother' is a continuation of the engrossing, yet unpredictable and hard-to-pin-down intelligence of the South London band's output.

Speaking on the single, Meatraffle say:

Brother is about the platonic love you have with your friends (sex is forbidden). It's about sharing and having things in common. The ups and downs, of course - about who buys more rounds of drinks than the others. It's a dry orgy, that's all it is.'

The origins of the band are lost in obscurity and legend, with some believing they are the result of a drunken afternoon shared by Mutado Pintado (Warmduscher, Paranoid London) and Zsa Zsa Sapien in a Wetherspoon pub, with their original concept being to actually host a Meat Raffle, evidence found in the fact that pigs' heads and raffle tickets are visible in early photos of the band.

Raffle or not, the band kept the moniker, and their musical offerings since that fateful meeting have spawned a loyal fan base following - birthed from their raucous early residencies at Brixton's The Windmill and The Queen's Head.

Shared bills with the likes of the Fat White Family (whose Lias Saoudi named them the 'best band in the country'), Shame and Sleaford Mods turned to busy headline tours, and a recent Speedy Wunderground (Kate Tempest, Natasha Khan) single 'Birdsong', recorded by the label's Dan Carey saw various radio airings and a legendary live session on Marc Riley's 6 Music show.

Rarely do two types of music meet on a level where they threaten to cancel each other out - let alone create something even more meaningful in their mutual vanishing. But the music created within the seminal Murder Ballads (Drift) by Martyn Bates (Eyeless in Gaza, & parallel solo career) and Mick Harris (Napalm Death, Lull, Painkiller, Scorn) creates just such a world. Murder Ballads (Drift) evolves Martyn Bates vocalisations / storytelling song-voices, by turns expressed as labyrinthine layers, calls and responses, muted and distant echoes, sung whispers and counter-melodies, ultimately resulting in a mesmeric conversation of musical inferences and correspondences. Murder Ballads (Drift) created the post-isolationist frame of reference, innovating and extemporising into a truly original dazzlingly unique form.

Mick Harris traffics in the isolationist ambience of Lull, while Martyn Bates is the emotive voice of literate cult-pop duo Eyeless in Gaza. The unlikely pair - one given to terminally frigid drone, the other to impassioned, bittersweet voicings - finds common ground in folk music's most macabre tradition, the murder ballad. These ghoulish parables are awash in blood and tears, the strands of love, hate, birth, death, sin, and salvation entwined within like the roots of an ancient tree. Mothers callously kill their children; suitors slay their maidens without remorse; and fate exacts its cruel price from all.

The archaic murder ballads that leak from Bates' vocal cords are intensely sad and carnal. They tend to leap off cliffs of hollow effects or drone darkly, offering neither a robust delivery nor an element of irony to take the edge off. The archetypal characters that live and die in them give life's full tragedy back to Harris' electronically numbed "post-isolationist" dreaming.

Drift (originally released in 1994) plays out an unbreakable and timeless cycle of bloody folklore (people) and hypnotic soundscapes (the god who watches). The effect is chilling yet engrossing. Where most ambient music has barely enough courage to ring the doorbell and run, Murder Ballads slips through the cracks of the unconscious and does its work with remarkable ease.

All the more reason to listen thoughtfully.

In 2021 - re-emerging nearly twenty years after its initial inception, and first time on vinyl - somewhat surprisingly, Murder Ballads (Drift) still remains/exists in an area overlooked by other artists, an area that truly still remains the sole province of M.J. Harris / Martyn Bates.

Long awaited vinyl reissue of NWWs classic 3rd album. This blue vinyl version. Is exclusive to Cargo. Packaged in an outer sleeve that replicates the original United Dairies issue and has a brand-new Steven Stapleton designed full colour insert. Info: ollowing disagreements amongst the founding NWW trio over To the Quiet Men from a Tiny Girl, Steven Stapleton returned to the studio without Heman Pathak or John Fothergill to create something that more closely fulfilled his vision of what Nurse With Wound should be. The results are often cited as the first great NWW album, with Rolf Semprebon at Allmusic stating that it constitutes "the first fully realized NWW record....a far more mature effort than its predecessors, much more focused and sounding less like some stoned guys goofing off in the studio". There is a more extensive use of tape editing and audio collage on Merzbild Schwet than was found on the preceding releases, a strategy that would become Stapleton's signature sound on the albums that followed. There is also the overt use of humour; the sound of a repeated loud vinyl pop being included at the beginning of "Futurismo", initially creating the impression that the record is in some way damaged, accelerates to such a speed that it becomes obvious that it is part of the composition (the impact of this device losing relevance on subsequent cassette and CD editions).

Live improvisational electronics with stormy outbreaks of wobbly explorations in time and space..

Philipp Quehenberger, 41 years old but still 19 inside for the curiosity and
exploring drive is one of the premier members of the Austrian electronic
avant-garde music community, a long time partner with local legends Patrick Pulsinger and Didi Kern, as well as a mainstay of the worldwide respected Viennese label Editions Mego. His sonic explorations cover a remarkably vast palette of aesthetics, from Jazz to noise, Techno, Industrial, breakbeat, electro, Ambient, and the journey is still on.

Minimalsoul is therefore extremely pleased to welcome Philipp to its roster, an important step in our mission of blending the push of great music from around the world, with a focus on Austrian artists. Because, as any
human being musically rooted in the underground knows: Sky's the limit, but never forget to stay local as well!

The general atmosphere of this release is quite gloomy and mysterious.
It starts with a sort of 'post-modern' funeral march, 'Hind sight,' and indeed it could be any of us, parading along in the ensemble of mourning parents and friends, possibly for the first time: while the strong baseline dictates the pace, the chords reproduce our dizziness.

'Gut,' the most club-oriented track, with its psycho-gressive industrescalating synths, reminds a bit of Holden's 'The Sky was Pink' remix, albeit carving its own peculiarity, with value-adding baseline and menacing vocal samples: the funeral is over, and all the parentado is gone,
you're left alone with your dualistic emotions, halfway between sorrow and relief and - as the vocal says - you've 'never been here before.'

This dark and melancholic emotional uncertainty carries on with the last track of the 'triptych,' 'In,Out.' Fans of Brooklyn-based Galcher Lustwerk,
or of Coil will particularly like this one, with its overlapped chords and 'white-noised' kickdrum: in and out from the sadness, we hope for better days to come, knowing the loss will leave an everlasting mark in our hearts.

Two powerful compositions by Alex Buess and Daniel Buess, rearranged by Cortex.
RIND is a work using three large self-built cow skin frame drums, 1 horse skin container drum, metal plates and electronics. NOL is a composition by Alex Buess for a percussion trio from 1995. The two pieces were recorded live in 2010 and 2003 respectively, also featuring the musicians Daniel Stalder, Peter Conradin Zumthor and Matthias Würsch. They were electronically treated by Cortex in the studion in 2015. This release continues the collaboration with Alex Buess that goes back to the pre-Praxis days of the Vision label since 1987 and includes Praxis 31 by 16-17 and Praxis 48 by Cortex, both of which also included Daniel Buess.
Cover art by Darkam and layout by Lynx.
ALEX BUESS – is a musician, saxophonist, composer, producer who lives in Basel, Switzerland. He has collaborated with Stephan Wittwer, Paul Schütze, Kevin Martin, Peter Brötzmann, William Parker, Raoul Björkenheim, Toshinori Kondo, Bill Laswell, Kevin Shields, Tim Hodgkinson, Michael Wertmüller and many other musicians in the wide field of improvisation, electronics, electroacoustic music and composition. He plays/played in the groups ICE, GOD, Phantom City, The Bug, Sprawl, Cortex and his own group 16-17, as well as Melx and The Electric Noise Twist. The latter were part of a close collaboration with Christoph Fringeli’s Vision label from 1987-
1991, before Christoph moved to London and started the Praxis label, a collaboration that continued over the decades with releases by 16-17 and Cortex on Praxis.
Alex has written compositions for various contemporary music ensembles and also works as a producer and sound engineer. He has
appeared at numerous new music festivals and his compositions are performed in Europe and throughout the world. His studies include electronics, acoustics, musicology, phonetics,semantics and composition and his work reflects his experiences with electronic
technology, written contemporary music, film music, new mixing and production techniques and computer music.
DANIEL BUESS - studied at the Musikhochschule Basel with Siegfried Schmid and with Isao Nakamura in Karlsruhe. Studies in traditional South Indian percussion music, specially the Mridangam from 1995 till 1998 and in Arabic percussion music in Cairo, Egypt from Nov. 2007 till Jan. 2008.
Daniel was involved in various groups and ensembles in the realm of experimental and improvised music, like “Ensemble Phœnix Basel” of which he was a core-member and solo-percussionist since its foundation in 1998, Cortex, 16-17 (both with Alex Buess),
HOW2 (with the percussionist Daniel Stalder), “Katarakt”, “B&B” (with the flautist Christoph Bösch), MIR (with Papiro and Michael Zaugg), Buggatronic (with James Hullick). Other collaborations include artists like Hany Bedair, Knut Remond, Zbigniew Karkowski, Kasper T.Toeplitz, John Duncan, Michael Wertmüller, Phill Niblock, Julio Estrada, Stephan Wittwer, Volker Heyn, Thomas Lauck, Tim
Hodgkinson, Iancu Dumitrescu and many others.
At his regular tours through Europe, Asia and Australia, he performed at the most highly recognised festivals for experimental music as well as at several underground-places, open spaces and independent venues. Sadly Daniel passed away in February 2016, making “Skin Craft” unexpectedly a posthumous release.

Spanish ambient composer Suso Saiz deepens his relationship with Music From Memory with the release of a new album, Nothing Is Objective. This joins 2017's Rainworks as his second full-length album for the label, following archival collections of solo music and of his group Orquesta De Las Nubes.

Nothing Is Objective was recorded in Madrid in 2018 during a period of transcendental change and creative awakening for Suso. It captures the composer as he develops a renewed relationship with his instruments and craft, channeling a dialogue between the meticulous use of technology and the outer reaches of human expression. Suso's universe is one that remains in constant mutation and emphasizes time above all else. His radiant drones are a nest of hidden feelings; they glisten with complex emotions and textures, teasing out moods of vulnerability and hope. Nothing Is Objective is a delicate and intimate record that harnesses smalls drops of sentiment for listeners to withdraw into. Released in a gatefold 2xLP it features collaborations with Austrian guitarist Christian Fennesz, liner notes by John Gómez, and music dedicated to Suso's friend, the late Mexican musician Jorge Reyes. Nothing Is Objective cements Suso's place as one of the label's central and most loved artists.

Factory Food is the first album from the Wirebug aka Dan Hekate for over a decade. Now a feature film director Dan has brought all his expertise in sound design to bear on this full-length album of industrial beats, soundscapes and noise. Intertwining broken rhythms with melancholic melodies, harsh analogue percussion with acoustic instruments, this is a series of tracks that asks the listener to engage or retreat.
Including collaborations with Praxis founder Christoph Fringeli, instrumentalists Enrico Gontero on the accordion and Steph Voodoos on acoustic guitar this is a listening experience in of itself. It includes tracks that you would drop to packed breakore dancefloor as well as those that would feel more at home in a noise concert but all the
same it is cohesive and true to it’s own nature – a cold, minimal, mechanical beast rumbling across the landscape of our digital age.
Within the album package is also included a 23 minute AV set mixed by the Wirebug and remixes of two of the tracks by Black Mass Plastics and Killabomb, as well as an alternative version by The Wirebug himself.
A digital remix EP featuring re-interpretations of the title track ‘Factory Food’ by Monrhea, Psychic Defence, Killabomb and an extended mix by The Wirebug himself is in preparation for release in Summer 2021.
As a piece the album can be taken as a fable, a story of what happens when we sacrifice all to the machines in the hope that they will grant us wealth, fame and everlasting youth.
Nothing essential happens in the absence of noise.
Factory Food appears as a 6 track vinyl edition with a full colour cover based on a painting by Luke Hekate, which includes a download code for all 11 tracks of the album as well as a login for the 23 minute AV set.

For his debut album, Tochigi Canopy has been building the melancholic, spleen-full life's perfect soundtrack. At first listen, we already feel his obsession for details and his love for deep atmospheres, he fills our mind with images, moments, slices of nostalgia where summers last only for seconds. An absolut must-have.

ALTER- : A REACTION TO THE ALTERMODERNISM IN SOUND ART
For the Automatisme - Alter- album. I am inspired by how the art historian Nicolas Bourriaud defines the Altermodernism. Bourriaud understands the term "Alter" as a way to mean "other". The altermodernism would be another modernity that is different from the avant-garde modernism and post-modernism. More precisely, this is a new paradigm from the XXIe century with alternative ways to motivate artists to be more radical in art by traveling in the physical and digital world, by cutting the frontiers and by creating other time lines. I apply the "alter" subject to time and to landscape and those, to the rhythmic and the ambient glitch music.

1- THE ALBUM HAS A RHYTHMIC SIDE AND A LANDSCAPE SIDE.
1- a : The rhythmic tracks are named Alter-Rate. That means that I offer other types of rhythms by calculating beats with time rate experimentations. The form of the rhytmic tracks, expresses a course, a wandering, which, in the altermodern life, is not just in a standard 4/4 , or just grid based or non-grid based, but it's in a complex hybrid of all of those.

1- b : The ambient tracks are named Alter-Scape. That means that I offer another type of landScapes by a paused temporality and not by a random time or by the time of the nature. Alter-Scape tracks mimic the saturated globalized soundscapes of the XXIe century.

2- THE GLOBALISED AND SATURATED TIME
For Bourriaud, the artists respond to a new globalised perception. They traverse a cultural landscape saturated with signs and create new pathways between multiple formats of expressions and communications1. The Alter- album tracks have saturated rhythms Rates and static ambient soundScapes. The specific context within which we live is the age of globalisation2. In this album, it means that globalised or always evolving rhythm Rates are in constant movements and are also different every time an Alter-Rate track is exported or performed. On the other hand, a globalised landScape is an ambient track with a motionless temporality. In the era of the altermodern, displacement has become a method of depiction3. The movement of the sound in the Alter- album is two sound spaces. The first is the rhythms that make time movement become apparent and the second is an ambient paused or static time that makes possible to feel and to analyze the movement effect of our surroundings.

3- THE CONSTANT TENSION STATE OF ART
For Gilles Deleuze, art is in a constant state of tension, in as much as it oscillates between the poles of chaos and order4. The Alter- album is a tension between chaos and order in rhythmic beat tracks and ambient soundscapes tracks. It is a deterritorialization of the rhythms and the ambiences of today's natural and digital landscapes and it brings them into the computer glitch music format.

By pushing new softwares to their limits, I push at the extreme the software capacity to calculate and to generate sounds. The Alter-Rate tracks are experimentations with time rates and rhythms with the use of probability and artificial intelligence based sequencers. The partition signal starts from a master sequencer that gets into all instruments on a track. Each instrument receives this signal and modulates it with other sequencers that are each programmed differently for every instrument. Finally, all the instruments signals return to a master output that contains a stutter effect. This master channel is sequencing all other channels into one single rhythm. In short, a single rate merges and expands into a vast archipelago of rates and the transformed signal becomes a new single rate. The Alter-Scape tracks are experimentations with midi triggers that give the sensation of a timelessness. Multiple reverb effects are also routed into each other to create soundscapes of continuity. About the type of sounds created in this album, I do experimentations with deep frequency modulation synthesises (FM) on all Alter-Rate and Alter-Scape tracks.

I put a few layers in the tracks to be able to focus on the time space and perception. The tracks are generative and every parameter uses probabilities to be programmed. This is something that was not possible some years ago. The computers are enough powerful to generate that now. I export many times the tracks and i push the computers to their limits by making hard for them to calculate and to generate the tracks with a deep, a pointillist and an extreme software programming. These techniques do different versions every time that I export or perform a track and in my opinion, that opens a fresh and innovative way to do new experimental club music and ambient music. The computer has its own limits too.


Reviews in The Wire, Gonzo, A Closer Listen, Datacide, African Paper, Silent and Sound, and more

MP 4 Teruyuki Kurihara Frozen Dust

»Frozen Dust« is an album unified by the theme of »destruction« and »creation.« Inspired by the power of nature; we’ve expressed how we humans overcome the magnificent phenomena and impacts nature has on us - while it brings us joy, it can sometimes take away our lives and pleasures, We’ve incorporated this rather difficult theme by telling stories of fictional characters in the album; an adventurer in the Arctic region who confronts the threat of nature and survives between life and death, or a widow who never eases the pain of losing her sailor husband by a great storm in the Age of Discovery. »Frozen Dust« is our manifestation of »destruction« and »creation and each sound brings you the essence of it.


Reviews in The Wire, A Closer Listen, MixMag Japan, ResidentAdvisor Japan, African Paper and more

Interview in Data Wave

You could think of the collection of tracks here as a library record of sorts, and each track inhabits its own universe. Tropical fits various moods and situations, and it could soundtrack any number of activities at home or on a dancefloor - whether real, imaginary, or hallucinated. Strangely enough, it sounds like it could have been constructed from obscure Italian library breaks, when instead every instrument has been played and panned, several times over, across magnetic tape.

The genesis of many of these tracks began when CV Vision moved to Berlin in 2014. His flat had a small chamber where he could fit a drum set, so he treated the walls with foam, and in true DIY style, dived headfirst into recording these tracks. It was the natural next step on an audio adventure that first began when CV Vision picked up the guitar in his teens, and a couple years later started recording with friends in his home town of Bayreuth. Fast forward ten years and here is his debut - a culmination of practising chops and learning instruments, mastering recording techniques and fine-tuning the CV Vision sound.

It’s a sound that condenses elements of acid rock, psych soul, library funk and new wave oddities into a movie soundtrack for your mind. It’s a journey from ‘60s west coast LSD-drenched excursions to ‘80s synth and post-punk mutations. Tropical is a plunge into another time, another music you can simply swim around in and explore.

Side A opens up with Tropical Tune In, which rides in on a clave and a warm wind, blowing a distinctly herbal aroma and recalling exotica dons like Les Baxter and Martin Denny. Following on with the aural equivalent of a sea breeze through your mind, Spaziergang am Meer blows away the cobwebs and conjures some nice library moments like Stringtronics or F eelings . Next, Ba_c_k(Lava) bounces out of a cold wave post-punk melting pot and crashes through the speakers like a blazed Zebedee, with some sweet eastern synths for added flavour, before the rolling bass licks of Der Böse Schamane take us into another dimension, landing somewhere between a psych rock freak out and a Black Ark dub session. Mr Maze channels the arpeggiators of synth outsiders like Mort Garson and Bruce Haack, creating a glorious interlock of robotic electronics and freakbeat vocals. The side comes to a close with the guitars of Der Strand (außer Rand und Band) letting loose like syrupy springs, and setting a languid mood like the bedroom scene in Bedazzled (1967 version). Side B kicks off with Parallel Universum, which comes through like a woozy krautrock workout, all ducking synths with big chord shifts to create an epic deranged beehive of a soundtrack. Im Land der Ameisen evokes the spirit if not the sound of White Rabbit, when logic and proportion have fallen sloppy dead, before waking up and wandering through the side alleys of Marrakech with the West Coast Pop Art Ensemble and the Electric Prunes, as Ritual (No. 4) blares out the speakers of passing tuk tuks. Ein Wasserfall plumbs the deep synth depths, like Raymond Scott in scuba gear, modular rack strapped to his back delivering oxygen as he swims between connector cables and seaweed forests through a watery underworld. Banana King sounds like a lost soundtrack to Donkey Kong or Mario Cart, if the cart radio was tuned into a synth

documentary hosted by James Pants, while Das Kloster am Berg takes the baton from Brenda Ray and her Naffi cohorts, all dubbed-out niceness and post punk swagger. The LP closes out with Tropical Drop Out, a dreamscape rather than a wake up call, coaxing you deeper into the trek across the desert of your mind.

And that’s Tropical in its essence: capsules from another time, snapshots of another sound, messages from another mind - all in the service of inducing the visions in your head.

written by Max Cole

Limited Edition LP.


High in the tower, where I sit above the loud complaining of the human sea, I know many souls that toss and whirl and pass, but none there are that intrigue me more than the Souls of White Folk.

Of them I am singularly clairvoyant. I see in and through them. I view them from unusual points of vantage. Not as a foreigner do I come, for I am native, not foreign, bone of their thought and flesh of their language. Mine is not the knowledge of the traveler or the colonial composite of dear memories, words and wonder. Nor yet is my knowledge that which servants have of masters, or mass of class, or capitalist of artisan. Rather I see these souls undressed and from the back and side. I see the working of their entrails. I know their thoughts and they know that I know. This knowledge makes them now embarrassed, now furious. They deny my right to live and be and call me misbirth! My word is to them mere bitterness and my soul, pessimism. And yet as they preach and strut and shout and threaten, crouching as they clutch at rags of facts and fancies to hide their nakedness, they go twisting, flying by my tired eyes and I see them ever stripped,—ugly, human.

The discovery of personal whiteness among the world's peoples is a very modern thing,—a nineteenth and twentieth century matter, indeed. The ancient world would have laughed at such a distinction. The Middle Age regarded skin color with mild curiosity; and even up into the eighteenth century we were hammering our national manikins into one, great, Universal Man, with fine frenzy which ignored color and race even more than birth. Today we have changed all that, and the world in a sudden, emotional conversion has discovered that it is white and by that token, wonderful!

This assumption that of all the hues of God whiteness alone is inherently and obviously better than brownness or tan leads to curious acts; even the sweeter souls of the dominant world as they discourse with me on weather, weal, and woe are continually playing above their actual words an obligato of tune and tone, saying:

"My poor, un-white thing! Weep not nor rage. I know, too well, that the curse of God lies heavy on you. Why? That is not for me to say, but be brave! Do your work in your lowly sphere, praying the good Lord that into heaven above, where all is love, you may, one day, be born—white!"

I do not laugh. I am quite straight-faced as I ask soberly:

"But what on earth is whiteness that one should so desire it?" Then always, somehow, some way, silently but clearly, I am given to understand that whiteness is the ownership of the earth forever and ever, Amen!

— W.E.B. Du Bois, Darkwater: Voices from within the Veil (1920)

limited edition 12” Azure Blue vinyl (which includes an art print)

- Only 75 copies available outside of Japan

- Contemporary cutting-edge Ambient music by two of the most promising representatives of today's Japanese sound designers: Okada Takuro and duenn

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This urban sound is made to be "air" to you.

"As ignorable as it is interesting" is how Brian Eno describes Ambient music. Then how should this sound be part of our life in 2020?

After works by Oh Shu & BIOMAN, Jim O'Rourke, Ana Da Silva & Phew, Tokyo based Newhere Music is now proud to present this concept album by Okada Takuro + duenn: "Urban Planning" .

duenn has been working with labels from all over the world including Entr'acte (Belgium) and Past Inside The Present (US). His experimental unit 3RENSA with Merzbow and Nyantora has performed with legendary sound designer Matsuo Ohno (Astro Boy) and artist Shohei Tsuda. In recent years, duenn's work can be heard at galleries and exhibitions, including a recent collaboration with Shiho Yoshida.

After Moriwaikiteiru disbanded, Okada Takuro started his solo projects with his debut album "Nostalgia". Apart from songwriting, Okada is also active as a producer and in film score.

The Urban Planning album project started from a sparkle in a discussion between Okada and duenn, with "sound of the city" as a keyword. What should be ambient music in our life, in the present time?

Respect of Ambient musicians and contemporary artists since the 80s, such as Yukio Fujimoto and Hiroshi Yoshimura to name a few, can be recognized in this album. However, the two artists are not trying to recreate the past masterpieces and instead, they are taking the cities of the 2020s as their raw material of inspiration. The tracks are concise and comprehensive, and the album has a precise concept with primitive melodies by duenn. duenn and Okada have clearly divided roles during the making, with duenn for the first time on melodies, and Okada on editing and producing. It is also interesting that duenn chose to use GarageBand, a tool accessible to all, for his first melody-making. For the listeners, the touch of simplicity may well remind them of the lullabies in their childhood.

The artists have spent two years on this creation. Imagine the commuter trains, the cars, your room, your local park for a walk. This is the sound of the city, blent into every moment in urban life.

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credits:

duenn : Electronics + iPhone

Okada Takuro : Electronics + iMac

PADOK : Mastering

50 years since their first LP “Brian Jones presents the Pipes of Pan at Joujouka” was released, The Master Musicians of Joujouka are releasing a stunning double LP recorded live at Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris in 2016.

The recordings are a full immersion into the Joujouka sound with disc one featuring hypnotic flutes and drum and a side of songs with mountain violin played by virtuoso Ahmed Talha with lead vocals by the late Abdeslam Boukhzar. Disc two features the truly hypnotic rhiat suite of Boujeloud, recorded in its entirety for the very first time

Historically informed violin player, prize-winning street musician, new age experimentalist, chamber ensemble performer and conservatoire deviant. The career of Valentina Goncharova (b. Kyiv 1953) shares parallels with those associated with the broader new music movement of the 20th century and the dissemination of home recording technologies.

Valentina’s was a youth spent immersed in the world of classical music study under soviet rule, first in Kyiv- later in Leningrad & now St. Petersburg, from the age of 16. With the supervision of professors M. Vayman and B. Gutnikov she learned concert violin and developed alternate playing styles alongside skilled pianists. A student of the Leningrad conservatoire during the years 1969 - 1983, her repertoire included music for violin and later expanded to contemporary music composition.

The improvisatory nature of free jazz and then-budding experimental rock circles also intrigued Valentina during this period in Leningrad. Departing from the rules of the conservatoire, she briefly performed in underground rock clubs alongside future members of the industrial group Pop- Mechanika (Popular Mechanics). This perpetual state of flux is central to the variety found within ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, though as opposed to any degree of uncertainty Valentina’s practice is one
in flux by way of earnest curiosity.

Pushing further into an exploration of solo electro-acoustic sounds, she took to home taping on a modified Olimp reel to reel recorder. Intrigued by the manipulability of dubbing and the fresh sounds of DIY effects chains, Goncharova developed pickups alongside her husband Igor Zubkov. Her infatuation with the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ganelin Trio and Pierre Boulez channels through considerations of space and erratic sound design, the 3 movements of ‘Metamorphoses’ embodying this textural approach to musique concrete.

The compositional skills developed in Leningrad unfold in the romantic gestures of ‘Higher Frequencies’, whilst manipulated cello combines with synthesise keys across ‘Passageway To Eternity’.
The slow, pulsating drone soundscapes recall the likes of Robert Rutman’s US Steel Cello Ensemble or even deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros.

The juxtaposition of written notation and improvisatory flare is central to Goncharova’s sound world. This period of home recording documents a confluence of minimalism, free form and flirtations
with new age tropes (inc. bell chimes and cavernous vocal mantras).

Experimenting with unusual performance techniques, such as shouting into amplified cello strings, Valentina’s home studio functioned as a place to foster full artistic and creative freedom
away from any academic strictures.

Relocating to Estonia in 1984, and in parallel to the deeply personal music of ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, Valentina performed at jazz festivals and gave classical concerts across Eastern Europe. In a sense, the recordings on these discs offer only a glimpse into her lifelong body of work. Over the past few decades she has taught at Tallinn Music College, expanded and updated post- Soviet popular music repertoire, collaborated with the Russian Philharmonic Society of Estonia and given concerts and charity events alongside the Catholic Church.

Hers is a life dedicated to the exploration of sound, a career forged through careful study and ceaseless intrigue. In a time where technological interconnectedness has allowed for music of the pas
to be continually mined and evaluated through new lenses, Shukai present an artist whose tendency for private home-taping had allowed recordings to go unheard for thirty years.

VEYL is pleased to welcome Harlem to the label for a new seven track album titled ‘Bait’. The Stockholm-based duo of Martin Thomasson and Johan Skugge bring a vast history of production behind them, operating since the early aughts and known for their work in dub and minimal techno. ‚Bait’ ventures into new territory for the project, delivering infectious strains of body music, new beat, industrial and beyond coupled with soul-stirring vocals which quickly dig beneath the skin. The release is about everyday manipulation, soft power and persuasion. We exist in a world in which corporate management techniques are deployed in our everyday lives, nudging each other for short-term gain, slowly hallowing out any lasting trust while ultimately all being crushed by a hyper-capitalist system. From the opening synths of the title track to the ominous ending notes of ‘Night Vision’, we also uncover funky grooves and diabolical floor shakers which remind us of something from the past but exist perfectly in this corrupted new world. As is customary, the striking cover art was photographed by Tomaso Lisca, and it’s a fitting piece for the record, depicting a tantalizing well-oiled machine, all while something menacing lurks under the hood.

Not a lockdown record here: With 'Comité Hypnotisé' Tim Vanhamel (Millionaire, Evil Superstars...) tumbles into a subsonic wormhole were smoked out dub glues with boogie funk and off-kilter early hip hop vibes. Transcending frequencies from an unknown galaxy channeled through a broken 70's echo deck.
Shortly after Evil Superstars played a one-off concert for 'An Evening With Laika' in the Ancienne Belgique in 2013 Tim started to create the music which was the entering point of 'Dubs Pour Oh La La' and Comité Hypnotisé.
Calibrated over the years and ready to be released now.
A dancing delirium of mind and soul. A fata morgana of a brain-melting future.
Hearing is believing.

Jazzanova released their 3rd album “The Pool” on Sonar Kollektiv in 2018. It evolved from various loose jam sessions, mixing up synthesised sounds, samples and real instrumentation. Many singers where involved incl. Edward Vanzet from Australia, who was also asked to provide lyrics. Which he did creating the song “I’m Still Here” giving the tune a Yacht-rock west coast feeling. I always felt the song was one of the strongest of the whole album so I asked some peeps to do remixes for my label Best’s Friends. German A-List remixer Larse gives the whole thing a pop feeling with an Italo-disco touch in his both versions. While Winnie & Somow from Berlin go for a more organic approach looking for that sun-rise House tune on a beach-rave or wherever. I think this remix package has something for every one in it -

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first-ever vinyl reissue of Remko Scha’s Guitar Mural 1 featuring The Machines, originally published as a rare cassette edition by Taal Beeld Geluid in 1982. A computational linguist by profession, Scha played an important role in the development of sound, installation, and digital art in the Netherlands from the late 1970s onward, co-founding the performance and exhibition space Het Appolohuis in Eindhoven in 1980. Alongside Paul Panhuysen and Jan Van Riet, Scha was a founding member of the radical improvisation group The Maciunas Ensemble, though he is best known for his work with mechanised electric guitars, documented on the legendary 1982 LP Machine Guitars.

Guitar Mural 1 documents an installation of Scha’s mechanical guitar ensemble The Machines held at a Groningen gallery space in 1982. Five electric guitars hang from the wall, their strings sounded by rotating rubber strings and a sabre saw controlled by a mechanical apparatus, as well as four ropes criss-crossing the five instruments on the wall. Once the mechanism was set up, Scha’s only intervention was to vary the speed at which it operated. Where Machine Guitars presents short excerpts clearly distinguished by rhythmic and timbral variation, here we are confronted with four enormous side-long slabs of percussive string attack and the resulting clouds of harmonics. Variation is minimal across the duration of each side, making for a sculptural listening experience, as if we are patiently examining each facet of a static object. But significant variety exists between the four sides, each of which shows off a different facet of what The Machines were capable of. The first two excerpts feature open strings sounded at rapid tempos, dissolving the percussive attack into a continuous stream of sound reminiscent of Charlemagne Palestine’s ‘strumming’ technique. On the third side, the strings are partly muted and the tempo slightly lowered, resulting in layers of relentlessly chugging rhythm somewhere between an ensemble of hand drums and an early Velvet Underground bootleg. On the fourth side, havoc breaks loose in percussive waves of asynchronous repetition that bring Scha’s sound world close to that of another pioneer experiment in musical mechanisation, the Solar Music of Joe Jones.

Presented as a limited edition 2LP set in a deluxe gatefold sleeve accompanied by stunning visual documentation of the original installation, remastered audio and new liner notes from Alan Licht and Van Lagestein, Guitar Mural 1 is an exhilarating document occupying a unique space between kinetic sculpture, hardcore minimalism and rock & roll.

6 melodious pieces applauded by audiences across the country! This music embodies the nonsense of life during crucial times humanity is undergoing. We believe that digestion plays an highly important role in the well being of earthlings and balance; the immortality of sound within the cosmos of abnormal ideas and thoughts. This album says more than can be mentioned, we have no doubt that this record will do its duty in fulfilling its purpose in your mind While recording these songs, we light-hearted artists were able to combine our digested voices with the exact sentiments depicted in humankind’s pivotal moments of loneliness. We hereby create a soothing inner feeling in our listeners. This album says more than can be mentioned, we have no doubt that this record will do its duty in fulfilling its purpose in your mind. Vital Sales Points: 350 copies only- Follow up to the labels previous exotic waves of Scribble & Sjunne Ferger,

>WO captures the esteemed duo’s 2018 performance at Sydney Opera House. The concert saw the pair performing new improvised work and key collaborative compositions from their joint catalogue, which has now reached five albums, one major film score and an EP.

Last year the duo undertook a series of live events entitled ‘TWO’ at Berlin’s Funkhaus, Barcelona’s Theatre Grec (closing Sonar Festival’s 25th Anniversary), London’s Barbican Centre and Melbourne’s Hammer Hall, before culminating at Sydney Opera House, where their two hour set was recorded and edited down, forming this album.

“’TWO’’s pulsing, immersive live performance melded electronic and analogue instrumentation with striking visuals to create one of the most precise, beautiful and challengingly magnetic pieces we have ever had the privilege of staging. That Sakamoto and Noto are pleased enough with the recorded result to share its continuously unfolding, sinuous, questioning music with others is as singular an honour as it was for Sydney Opera House to host them." Ben Marshall - Head of Contemporary Music, Sydney Opera House.

Sharing a deep simpatico synergy, Alva Noto’s abstract electronic formalism contrasts and compliments Sakamoto’s exquisitely elegant piano finesse, which incorporates an individualistic take on classical, contemporary, minimalism and even a touch of jazz.
At points melodic, atmospheric, gently rhythmic, textural and spatial, audio headspaces range from intimate and serene womb-like flotation, infinite fathoms of dark metaphysical expanse and moments of devastatingly poignant beauty.

The sparing, subtle use of parts populating the mix belies a deceptively effective whole, which indicates two masters’ skill and confidence in being able to say something profound with an intentionally restricted sonic vocabulary.
At all times the album maintains a calm poise, and despite its improvised nature withholds an innate harmony and graceful order. Like two aural architects free-drawing, this is sound design for better living.

Navigation, the debut LP from Blackwater, and latest release from Ethbo, the mother label to Japan Blues. Cooked up across continents, finished in London, mixed and mastered for vinyl by Pole in Berlin.

Navigation follows the duo’s sold-out self released debut EP Istanbul/Woodstock - now preserved on the Lo Recordings compilation “Spaciousness” - this time weaving loose instrumental threads into cohesive songs. Available on limited edition LP, housed in a dashing silk-screened sleeve.

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Displacement of sounds from city to country and back again. Jetlagged dub rolling beneath, tempered breath hovering above. Songs stitched back and forth across the meridians. Electronic, organic, unrefined.

A tangle of sights, sounds and smells, anchored by space in an undefined time. Tracks cleaved from a pre-digital world, analogue reverb rubbing over sunken melodies. Chimes colliding, stories half-told, drawing you deeper into the murky depths of Blackwater.

Subterranean pagan dub, sailing the murk, recalling aspects of Hannett and Wire, maybe even Massive Attack without the pomp. Whispering not from secrecy, but baring a glimpse of their soul, exposed to the vagaries of the outside world.

The degraded rusty hulk of a ghost ship, a creaking mass, a family tree of weltschmerz tailing back to early blues, an emotional sound lifting the spirit from the pain of mere existence. Emerging from our caves as we are, a strange dawn rises on an unknown future. But that’s life, isn’t it?

Having already made a big splash on labels like Rush Hour, Ghostly, Spectral Sound and Werkdiscs, the London based producer Moirétees up his third full length player for Hypercolour. ‘Good Times’ goes someway to pulling back a positive energy to recent global events and finds Moirécollaborating with fellow artist Demigosh on a good chunk of the album cuts. Hazy agit house and drowsy beats anchor an album filled with smooth ambience and soulful sampling.

Low frequencies and foggy tones make tracks like ‘Magdan’ and ‘Vertigo’ strike a chord between lo-fi electronica and abstract ambient noise, whilst the collaborations with Demigosh add an ethereal soulful touch that’s both stirring and emotive in equal measures. Exotic beat science is deployed on cuts like ‘R1’ and ‘Telefunk’, whilst the jazzy licks and lumpy rhythms of ‘Lost In Pacific’ seal off an extraordinary album that exemplifies the advancing maturity of Moiré’s sound and vision.