Beats News

At bleedin' last, The Boats' gorgeous debut album Songs By The Sea (2004) turns up on vinyl! Along with first-ever vinyl issues of We Made It For You (2005) and Tomorrow Time (2006), plus a very special side of unreleased, unheard outtakes, Static Clings (2017) - which are all collected in the The Boats Archive boxset, you should snap these limited runs while you can as they're unlikely to appear on wax again.

Scrolling thru the mists of time to 2004, a very different world indeed, and The Boats formed as an outlet for Kraftwerk-addicted composer Andrew Hargreaves and his pal, Craig Tattersall, fresh from a decade spent with cult post-rock group Hood and as half of The Remote Viewer, to pursue the ideas of post-rock, modern classical and lo-fi electronica along more intimate, personalised ginnels of folk and ambient music, with the cherry on their home-baked treats provided by vocals from another close friend, Elaine Reynolds.

Songs By The Sea was their wistful and charmingly humble introduction to the world; ten tracks balancing exquisitely pop-wise songwriting with gently pulsing, elusive electronics and a patina of crackle that became a real signature of their sound long before everyone else cottoned on and starting putting out pale imitations.

At the time, it received heavy rotation in our record shop, Pelicanneck, and was something of a shared secret between fans from Manchester to Japan via their home-town of Burnley, and still owns a certain section of our memory banks to this day that's often triggered by the smell of coffee, waffles and toasted rye bread in the morning just as much as smudged Hulme sunsets in summertime.

We don't want to gush about it too much but, listening to it now, and on a format the album always quietly yearned for, it's just chokingly nostalgic in its own, low-key and endearing style and leaves little doubt in our minds that Songs By The Sea is one of the finest ambient-pop records to emerge from this region.

What new can be said about this incredible band? They have played the most danceable electronic death disco on the planet since 2012…or was it 2112? The past and the future melts together, trying to draw their timeline but anyways, right now their new 7” ”Stonerdisco”/”Superstandard” is out on Höga Nord Rekords.

Exorcist have embraced hard rock more obvious than before, especially on the A-side, which is a boogie nightmare with fuzz bass and totally freed from guitar solos. The rhythm section with Osynlige Mann on bass and Tentakel on drums, plows in usual manner down space and time while Vesslans synthesizers shoots gamma rays through Exo-universe. The B-side is haunting, unsentimental dystopic disco.

The Exorcist prove that they still hold the powers of making supersonic dance music!

Two years on from their move to Berlin, British Brothers Alex & Digby return with a 10 track, triple LP album to their home imprint Flash As a Rat on the 19 June. The album is said to show the duos full commitment to sound and experimentation after being Written during a very personal time to them both. The Album title "For My Process' echoes this. Coming form a engineering background as well as being know for their modular Wizardry and band based upbringing, expect band Psychedelia with dance sensibility.

All sounds recorded at various locations in Europe, South America and at EMS, Stockholm using the Buchla 200 modular synthesizer.

soar, all sounds recorded with Klara Lewis in Montreal 2018


Mastered by Russell Haswell. January 2020

Cut at Schnittstelle, Berlin by Andreas Kauffelt, January 2020


Image : Mark Hogben

Layout: Nik Void

The last two years have seen me maintaining an association with an unusual bedfellow, death. The loss of Mika Vainio, as well as three members of my own family, has had a profound effect on me and spurred a lengthy reflection on life, death, and everything in between.

Parallelly, while studying the philosophy of science, I came across shadow photons:


"Tangible photons are the ones we can see or detect with instruments whereas shadow photons are intangible (invisible) detectable only indirectly through the interference effects on the tangible photons.

There is no intrinsic difference between tangible and shadow photons: each photon is tangible in one universe and intangible in all the other parallel universes.

They travel at the speed of light, bounce off mirrors, are refracted by lenses, and are stopped by opaque barriers or filters of the wrong colour. Yet, they do not trigger even the most sensitive detectors. The only thing in the universe that a shadow photon can be observed to affect is the tangible photon that it accompanies. This is the phenomenon of interference.

Shadow photons would go entirely unnoticed, were it not for this phenomenon and the strange pattern of shadows by which we observe it.

Thus the existence of a seething, prodigiously complicated hidden world of shadow photons has been inferred."*


I have drawn a parallel between shadow photons and death. The interference phenomena, parallel universes, and how shadow photons affect tangible photons they accompany, offer, in my opinion, similarities, an unknown universe which is death and how we, remaining tangible human beings, are affected. This quest has led me to be more willing to accept chaos in my life and to conclude that Death is perfection, everything else is relative.

Sixth release on Danish label Petrola 80 is the blissful debut album by ambient/experimental artist Merdh Laleh. Featuring saxophones, choir, drums and much more, Merdh Laleh explores ambient emotions through a Lynchian dreamscape packed with emotion on a total of 10 tracks, showcasing his characteristic playfulness and experimentation in sound. Emotional electro-acoustic music anno 2019.

Sludge machine music slapped through the infinite mixing desk by SRS - the combined mind of Sunun and Robin Stewart. At any pointData Fossil'sgiddy industrial riddims could collapse under their own weight. There are Sunun inputs and there are Robin Stewart inputs - but everything is offered up to their machines gladly for an output of nu-human-beat. Voices drift through the mix in hushed Italian and Robin's gruff roboticized drawl, floating dub chords left hanging for cavernous subs and rattled bones, distant harps and arps, a sudden blast of trills. 'Spit Fossil' itself is a clipped noise-pop wonder - the aural equivalent of a lights-on Avon dancefloor with only the weirdest left standing.



Recorded on the rooftop of a housing project called Camelot in 2018, the two Bristol locals debuted the live / unplanned collaboration in an inflatable arena called 'Toldo' in the Brunswick Club ballroom (RIP). Then again at Young Echo at the Cube Microplex - a night where it's said anything is possible (Sunun even dubbed Guest's live human heartbeat there recently….). IfData Fossilis hard to describe - it's just the sound of the musical freedom of a city that will never run dry.



It's a high Bokeh honour to welcome Sunun back after we helped release her 2018 debut,Ooid EP. Her live show continues to be the most inspiring re-use of dub principles we've witnessed (again and again). Time only grows her music outwards causing the Young Echo collective to demand she join them. SinceOoid,she's released a 12" of MPC wonders with close Bristol pals Cold Light.


Recently bearing his dub-side to all that didn't know on Trilogy Tapes'Time Travel EP, Robin Stewart is half of world conquering techno-cult Giant Swan. Also a veteran of Rwdfwd stable of imprints (Fuckpunk and NoCorner) - his music DNA is equal parts shoegaze and steppas. In 2020 he was officially recognised for having the largest collection of Bokeh t shirts.

(Please note these are handpaintesd sleeves that have been handled and aren't always perfect - part of their charm - but please be aware)

One of 2020’s most distinctive new dance and electronic soul LPs, ‘Não Fales Nela Que A Mentes’ sees Kuduro auteur Nídia come into her own with a strikingly fresh, deep and original showcase of Afro-Portuguese dance music.
Five years on from Nídia’s debut 12”, and notable recent production and remix work for Fever Ray, Kelela and Yaeji, the Lisbon/Bordeaux-based wunderkind’s 2nd album lays out a supremely supple and crisply defined sound placing a critical, dare-to-be-different spin on elements of the African Zouk, Kuduro, Tarraxho and US R&B sounds she grew up with. Now after becoming something of a cult one-to-watch, and still only barely in her 20’s, Nídia’s sound has patently matured in terms of its emotional levity and pacing, but at no expense to the thrilling, rude angularity of her early 12” and 2017 debut LP ‘Nídia É Má, Nídia É Fudida’. Nídia’s music is now just cooler, concentrated and on-point stylish in a remarkable way that uncannily matches the mood of the times.
Showing off sharply honed melodic sensibilities and nudging her drums into singular syncopations, Ndia’s subtle but radical alteration to her sound now calls to mind beats by Timbaland, Lenky, The Neptunes or Equiknoxx (even LL Cool J) as much as her label mates on Príncipe. By stripping her sound down to its essence, rather than cluttering with FX or bait sounds, she’s arrived at a raw dancefloor blueprint that’s tough playing but sensitive, unafraid to go slow, heavy and heads-down in the club while also packing combustible peaks of excitement.
With effortless suss, Nídia shifts from an ‘Intro’ of experimental rave minimalism comparable to Rian Treanor,
to a mix of Arabic wind motifs and clipped Deep South bounce recalling Virginia Beach’s best on ‘Popo’, while a trio of ‘Rap’ instrumentals tilt the game from mutant drill to 3-step sickness and a super strong nod to LL Cool J’s ‘I Need Love’. Zipped in with the a bubbling 8-bit slow banger ’Tarraxo do Guetto’ and grimy shockout eruption of ‘Capacidades’, Nídia’s cool hand on the pressure gauge keeps interest rapt until the finalé fanfare of ‘Emotions’, which surely matches the likes of Lex Luger or The Dream’s brassy mini-symphonies for emotive grip, but in a less muscular, more sensitively ambiguous way that Nídia coolly owns.

Exceptional, humid tarraxho beatdown pressure from Lisbon/Bordeaux-based wunderkind Nídia, accompanying her killer 2nd album.
Spinning off from the slower highlights of her album, ‘Não Fales Nela Que A Mentes’, Nídia’s 7” perfectly displays the subtly radical advances in her productions style on two achingly squashed and rude swivels that set her sound head and shoulders apart from the crowd.
Initially soft and tentative, but ultimately hard and freaky, ’Tarraxoz Academy’ plays out a heavy, druggy tension between its burning, biting point electro-leads, wavey organ refrain and dragging drums that recalls a screwed take on an imaginary DJ Stingray & Nkisi joint.
The modern rare groove of ’Cheirinho’ on the other hand comes marks a leap forward, or even sideways, from what you may expect from her early work, draping velvet chords on a natty swing beat like Omar-S gone broken beat or Dego doing Angolan R&B.

Premiere on Fill-Lex Records of the Russian-Greek producer based in Seville Maxim Gkikaev aka Rise Black, in which he presents us with themes composed from 2016-2019, the first release in its volume 1, volume 2 will be published at the end of the year.
With an electro heart, these songs take us through his last years, a mixture of various types within the genre, more aggressive, or with sweetness, in sad and melodic moments or more experimental and raw, with a continuity as few know how to do. Broken bases and broken rhythms with melodies that will stay in your mind in direct trip to the brain.

Rise Black and with his other aka Oscitin has released on labels like Moustache Records, Retrowave Records, Underground Music Experience or his recent publication in Tripalium Records Corporation in his sublabel Digital Mutant Series.
Apart from his facet as an artist he combines it with editing as co-owner of labels such as UME, NYY Records and Another Perspective, and he is the host of the Electronic Wave parties in the Prisma room in Seville.

An album with 11 tracks that will not leave you indifferent, come in and enjoy

I listened to it day and night, in Tokyo's subway, walking across the busy streets and empty avenues. Sitting on the pavement in front of a konbini, a can of whisky-perrier in hand. On the plane, amidst the opaque grey clouds. And at the temple - humid mountainous scapes and dry wood.

In Japan the sun sets earlier, and the warmth of the day lasts a little longer, so it fades more smoothly into the night.

Aesthetically and musically speaking, it makes you want to dance the ‘JIVZ’, somewhat inebriated, a little too early in the afternoon, as if it were too late already, with nylon-bodies, bulging booties but the shoulders cumbersome, as the notes of 'HDV' play along.

Then, at first slow and wobbling, you hit the road onto some warm and cramped nocturnal destination. Preferably serving sake and broiled foods, 'D1V4G' on my mind.

Recall Eno through the volutes of 'M45C4R4D3'. And 'QYURKY RUQ' in Cutty Ranks' live and its lo-fi riddim.

The impression of being an airwave lost in between two AM frequencies, in the near-quiet of this interstice - 'D41N7Y 5QU4R3'.

Then you open an eye, look to your left, the body buried under a plaid, the pendulum of the big wooden clock has lost the pace, 'In Transit Across The Uni', and you can't help but think these ebony and solid oak monsters sitting in the living room once were that incredibly hi-tech cupboard in an ancient home. Giant mechanism, in the heart of the house. Watches and proportions. You close your eyes.

I figure myself the creature from the cover dancing an elastic dance, when comes the last of the 'JIVE ED' - its limbs suddenly zoomed-in, stretching out like chewing-gum seen from a disproportionate perspective, retracting just as quickly. Something that would fit the beach scene from Funky Forest like a glove, or the one of the animated short's screening.

Only frustration, the hope for a stronger, lastingly groovy and cheerful 'LYFSPAN’.

Correspondence on 12/12/18 at 13:02 - Charli TAPP























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On his adventurous first new album in 5 years, Vladislay Delay renders an extreme ecology of electronic sound inspired by time spent above the arctic circle, surrounded by tundra and the rawforce of nature and visually given life by Ripatti’s wife, Antye Greie-Ripatti, aka AGF.
Although it features no location recordings, ’Rakka’ clearly imparts its theme thru a riveting palette of weathered textures, unyielding rhythms and the kind of reverberating, widescreen sound design that’s defined his catalogue of cult, contemporary music since the late ‘90s. While Vladislav been notably absent from release schedules in recent years - aside from working on the soundtrack to ‘The Revenant’ (2015) recording with Sly & Robbie (more of that to come) in
2018 - this new album is surely a bracing reminder of his knack for creating utterly immersive environments at the poles of ambient, dub, and noise.
Inspired by the struggle to survive in unforgiving conditions, the music patently resembles a number of styles associated with music from northerly latitudes. Elemental traces of Scandinavian black metal, Pan Sonic or Deathprod-like power electronics and Thomas Köneresque ambient isolationism are all detectable in the album’s brutal panoramas, and evidently speak to a shared conception of the extreme arctic’s uncontrolled and uncorrupted wilds, and their frighteningly magnetic sort of push/pull on the senses.
Titled in Vladislav’s typically alliterative style, the tracks cascade in aggressive iterations of gravel-swilled rhythm and tonal attrition. The barely-harnessed might of opener, ‘Rakka’ triggers a chain reaction on events that follows into a sort of blast-beaten ambience in ‘Raajat’, and what sounds like throttled blvck metvl vocals meshed with flashcore in ‘Rakkine’, whilst ‘Rampa’ hammers home a martial noise techno tattoo, and the final couplet take this sound to its logical end-of-earth degrees with breathtaking form.
‘Rakka’ is certain to both reaffirm and upend what listeners know and love about Vladislav Delay,while firmly galvanising his sound for an unsure future.

Words from Ransom Note...
Undivided, unified, the overwhelming sense of oneness. Feeling and experiencing this was her strongest desire since the departure, a deep longing. Walking back to base, she knew this had been obtained, it was clear and ran through her like water. Though she did not feel complete, she did not feel intergrated or a part of the whole, as it were. The collective 'one' disected, distributed and proliferated without her. Did she feel spaciousness or emptiness?

Netsh is dead, long live Netsh ! The 24 year old producer is back on Comic Sans Records and delivers a 6-tracker EP that sounds like a
true aggiornamento in his music.
The braindance inherited from Aphex Twin which we can hear in Neural Netshworks, is here replaced by something new that defines
the contours of a 2.0 upddate of his creative process.
Netsh has left aside most of his usual hardware and used different time signatures.
This renewal in his working method gave birth to Cyberbass, an energetic style in which IDM and futuristic bass music blend
to musically describe a close dystopia where humanism has given way to transhumanism.
The EP and its tracks are crossed with contrasts, the ear is often knocked out by a powerful polyrythmic before being released by
emotionally intense breaks.
It's probably Netsh's way of illustrating one of the biggest philosophical debate of our time : will technology free human kind or on the
contrary enslave him ?

Faitiche presents Jan Jelinek’s album Tierbeoachtungen in a limited pressing on vinyl for the first time. Originally released on Scape in 2006 as a CD and download, the album’s six tracks took their cues from Jelinek’s live concerts of that period: dense, slowly unfolding loop improvisations made with a laptop, various effect pedals and miniature synthesizers. It is music that floats in a semi-conscious state between dream and awakening, always slightly mysterious, leaving traces that lead directly to the psychedelic-cosmic music of the kraut era.

In his release notes for Tierbeobachtungen at the time, the late lamented Martin Büsser wrote:

"The animal is experiencing a renaissance in music. It provides a reflective surface for our notion of the unbridled and irrational, of that Other the philosophers Deleuze/Guattari – as part of their ‘Animalisation’ – called the embodiment of artistic deliverance. And yet, how much of a liberation can art actually tolerate? To what extent can music truly throw off its fetters without descending into chaos? Jan Jelinek’s album title provides a first hint of this development: Tierbeobachtungen (animal observations) is his fourth album for ~scape, and it addresses the issue of release and liberation. Recorded almost in transit, while preparing his move to a new studio, the tracks reveal and relish in their improvisational character, and drifting, lost sound – yet they never lose sight of their underlying structure. Tierbeobachtungen might be Jelinek’s freest and most personal work, with simply arranged tracks based on four to five layered and modulated loops, while his own studio equipment provides the main sampling sources, from synthesizer and guitaret to vibraphonette. Jelinek takes on the role of observer on this record, with a level of reflection remaining audible throughout. However, this is by no means intellectual, distanced music – Jelinek leads us straight into a thicket, an acoustic jungle where sumptuous splendour meets the uncanny. A long tradition of psychedelic music pervades the recordings – Amon Düül, Cluster, My Bloody Valentine – yet whatever musical memories might vie for our attention, these are no clear-cut references, just loose associations. On occasion, one might even be tempted to take them for field recordings – gems discovered, stored and returned from their travels by ethnologists fifty or a hundred years ago. Similar to the pioneers of industrial music, like Cabaret Voltaire or Zoviet France, who experimented with field recordings to challenge Western listening habits, Tierbeobachtungen takes us to new, unknown territories and brims with sounds that defy geographic or stylistic classification, not unlike the semi-conscious state between dream and awakening. (...)" Martin Büsser, 2006

New 2xlp of grinding beat experiments from Black Dice's Eric Copeland. Controlled chaos, chopped sample mayhem, moments of beauty and destruction over four sides.

Shanghai’s Svbkvlt spring a killer new batch of martial steppers and pointillist electronics by 33EMYBW backed with remixes by Lechuga Zafiro, Ikonika, and Hakuna Kulala’s Don Zilla Originally Issued on digital formats late last year to coincide with its live premiere at Poland’s Unsound festival, ‘Arthropods’ is now available on a limited vinyl pressing for the first time and manifests as the alien spirit twin of the soul-seeking creatures 33EMYBW brought to (semi)life in
the ‘Golem’ album. Her animist powers appear strengthened here, generating unique constructions that synthesise aspects of footwork, deco-club music and trilling trap with crystalline melodies and a virulent, gremlin-in-the-machine sort of madness.
This stuff is pretty much exactly what we reckon a lot of folk imagined music to sound like in the year historically imagined by Blade Runner. From the lush pads and flyaway chorales of ’Symmetry’ the album delivers a futurist rush of probing electronic tones and posthuman, bone-bending rhythms between the rail-gunning attack of ‘Tentacle Centre’ and the tri-step trills of ‘Induce’, packing thrilling runs into dembow DNA mutation with ‘Adam Bank’ and a sort of militant sinosoca-footwork style in ‘Arthropods Continent’, while ‘Drum3’ sounds like it evolved from a patchleft on a synth in the Radiophonic Workshop.
For the remixes, Ikonika evens out ‘Arthropods Continent’ into a sort of bucking ballroom workout, and Lechuga Zafiro reins in ‘Adam Bank’ with a fidgety parry, but Uganda’s Don Zilla keeps it out there with a cyclonic twyst on ‘Drum3.’

New York’s Fridman gallery re-activates its record imprint with this absorbing collaboration between Ben Vida (fresh from his stunning 4 hour ‘Reducing The Tempo To Zero’ opus for Shelter Press), and noted composer for dance, Marina Rosenfeld - whose collaborative album with Warrior Queen and Okkyung Lee P.A. / HARD LOVE’ is to this day one of the most brilliantly singular LP’s we’ve stocked. RIYL Jim O’Rourke, Laurie Spiegel, Terre Thaemlitz, Rashad Becker.
Working in the space between improvisation, sculpture, sound installation, and experimental composition,
both artists’ skill for creating highly descriptive yet elusive sound structures is at its illusive and ephemeral best across both pieces, from the strangely penetrative metaphysical point of view explored in ‘Any Landscape’, to the sprawling tendrils and searching electronic filament of ‘Branches’ that feel like the process of mycelium or spores finding a way into the cracks between the decayed concrete, glass and steel of crumbling urban environments.
Drawing on decades of combined experience, ‘Vertice’ unfolds along two 20 minute pieces with a natural grasp of more delicate sounds opening out in vast imaginary spaces. Their palette of field recordings, vocals, keys and electronics is placed at the service of an elusive underlying schematic, snipping away at the ligature of logic until their sounds are released into space as clusters of animated insectoid patterns. It resembles patches of gently overgrown vegetation, like rooftop gardens or thickets of mossy growth overhead.
In scale and fractured design, it comes to describe a vertiginous sense of detachment from reality, probing and challenging the listener’s proprioceptive senses with cool but heady arrangements of free-floating,
aerial, and seemingly unmetered tones and dabs of vocal that appear to describe a slow and purposeful movement above and around our architectural surroundings.

Birmingham, UK’s sprawl of low rise warehouses and their links to the military-industrial complex inspires this crushing new take on the “Brummie” sound and spirit from former native Arash Moori for his longtime pals at Type In nine harsh and disorienting bouts of angular drums and hazardous noise texture, ‘Exothermic’ doubles down on the tonal and rhythmic brutalism of Moori’s debut for Type, ‘Heterodyne’ (2015). It forms a deep topographical reading of his home region’s maze of 1-storey munitions workshops, flyovers, canals, and spaghetti road systems, all intersected by the ghosts of Jungle pirate radio and lit up by hotspots of nostalgic reminiscence; places where he studied, walked thru, DJed atand protested with long-time friend and Type label co-owner, John Twells. Moreover ‘Exothermic’ is concerned with how this environment and the city’s progressive past affects the mood and music of its contemporary population, and how it ultimately came to inform the visceral nature of the “Brummie Sound”.
Working to a fierce, noisy aesthetic that’s been firmly expressed in hard-bitten Brummie and midlander music by everyone from Black Sabbath to Scorn, and even Coventry’s Delia Derbyshire, who acknowledged the infamous Luftwaffe blitz on her home city as a formative sonic experience, ‘Exothermic’ explodes with a tightly coiled, abstract-industrial energy that’s surely worthy of comparison with any of them. In fits and bursts, rhythms inspired by the city’s pirate radio jungle heritage clash with sheets of metallic calamity; sawn-off percussion ricochets the space like shrapnel searching for a target; and structures are torched like Raymond Mason’s municipal artwork ‘Forward’ which went up in flames during the city’s 2003 demonstrations against the Iraq war. It’s all intended to mirror a negative feedback loop of intensity between the place and its people, and does so with a mix of bostin’ glee and dark humour familiar to the region.
From this meld of psychogeography, subjective hauntology, and objective history, Arash Moori’s work in ‘Exothermic’ most cannily and explicitly results a simulacra of a place shaped by emotions, personal memories, and accreted histories, and rendered in a temporal flux as chaotically tiled and riven with radical energies as the place itself.

New Fries has never been interested in being a band. What we mean is a spirit of abandoning ideas of what songs should be, how they should be performed, and by whom. We’ve never been interested in the tradition of songwriting—though we’re interested in musical elements like repetition, space, and dynamics. We have wanted our music to make people dance but have also wanted to produce the feeling of that being taken away from a room. We often work around these sorts of energy transfers (whether or not we name them this way). This space to make music in has felt wild and free. We have also contradicted ourselves. We are also always changing. In 2018 Ryan Carley (synthesizer) left the band and we found ourselves at our first juncture to restructure and re-evaluate New Fries. This is such a classic boring story, we know. But immediately we knew that as a three piece (the band’s original formation) we had to turn to something new and open—the way some describe “beginners mind”. Anni grabbed bass (which was new to her), Tim grabbed guitar and a sampler as a new juggling routine, and Jenny reduced her drum kit to three pieces. We wanted to create a structure that allowed us to be curious about being in transition.

Much of this record sounds and reflects on this in-between. It’s anxious in its repetitions and unsure of genre. It rejects a singular character or emotion and attempts to instead act as a container for many. Anni’s lyrics state this directly: “it lacks a mood, it lacks definition” / “curiosity beyond expectation”. Her lyrics describe the spaces, objects, people, and situations that embody an in-between—her grandfather who worked as medium, the ecology of the foreshore, Mount Tambora’s eruption in 1816 that produced the Year Without a Summer, and mesh (the fabric). The result is a collage of 6 songs and many otherwise quick ideas.

Much of this collage was testament to the work of engineer/musician Carl Didur. Carl (Zacht Automaat, formerly US Girls) is a long-standing pillar of Toronto’s experimental music community. He is also a tape expert, which we knew these songs needed entering the recording process as mostly bare grooves. The result was less that of hiring an engineer than it was working with a collaborator. His musical ideas are all over this record. ‘Is the Idea of Us’ is the situation of musicians/non-musicians making music together perhaps completely illegible in the music on this record and to the random listener who doesn’t know our story in South Bend, Indiana (how did you find us?!) But with this title we name this absurd gesture, through our changing relationship to making music both as a unit and as individuals. There are enough bands out there; we insist on do it differently.

Maenad Veyl returns with his sophomore album, ‘Reassessment’, a collection of 13 tracks inspired by inner turmoil and change. Expanding on the sound palette established with last year’s critically-acclaimed ‘Body Count’, Feriero ventures into heavier, more abstract territories and collaborations with Years of Denial.
I wrote a new album as Maenad Veyl at the end of last year, in part inspired by events surrounding some personal health issues and a (minor) surgery. I wanted the music, title and artwork (shot over a year ago) to reflect what I experienced then, as I saw them as a metaphor to other changes I was going through at the time.?
Needless to say, as we geared up for release as we usually do, the world ground to a halt. All the images , words printed or spoken on the album have changed meaning since and, compared to what many people are going through now, my “inspiring changes” feel distant and unimportant.?
We’re not blind to the fact this could be seen as inappropriate or in bad taste, and we’ve contemplated every alternative, but in the end we’ve decided to keep things as “business as usual” as possible, so ‘Reassessment’ is now up for pre-order. - Maenad Veyl

Santilli debuts on Mad Habitat, a gorgeous complement to last year’s “Surface” on Into The Light. The instrumental palette here is focused around crystalline electronics and a battery of percussion, a beautiful synthesis of vaporous and earthy tones that recall the timeless sound-worlds of heroes like Jon Hassell and Steve Tibbets. A reflective mood diffuses across the entire record, conjuring up pensive visions of sun-dappled water and stretches of the coast. The sounds themselves have a shimmering, holographic quality, conjuring up the sort of auditory and spatial depth you can get lost in as each side unfolds

Clear Vinyl

Between Sleeps is a french producer based in Paris, passionate about sound design and synthesizers. His stage name and musical world evoke the state of semi-consciousness, when neither awake nor asleep. With dreamy pads and strong rythms, his music mixes electronica, house and techno. Boards Of Canada, Lone or The Field are among his main influences. All the tracks included in the EP Fantasia have been composed with the same hardware set-up: a sampler, an FM synthesizer and a substractive analog synthesizer. Every track has been recorded in one stereo take.

Second installment on OK SPIRIT goes deep into the digital dub fantasies of Employee. Echo reflections on nine-to-five dilemmas with a dizzy remix by DJ Neewt.

Over the years, American composer Rafael Anton Irisarrihas become ubiquitous within the spheres of ambient, drone and electronic music. Whether it’s through Irisarri’scelestial long-form albums or his lauded audio engineering credentials for countless artists and labels, Irisarri’s consistent dedication to his craft never wavers from the forefront.

While Irisarri’s compositions typically field an array of modern ambient overtones threaded through oceanic symphonies with tape loops, bowed electric guitar and vast washes of overdriven sound, his recent debut album for Dais Records, Peripeteia, portray these common themes giving way to metal and classical influences that emphasizes Irisarri’s melancholic tendencies. These unique overtures, coupled with his signature layering of distortion and bleached-out textures, fabricate an audible environment that would seemingly be at oddswith, yet gracefullycomplementeach other. In Irisarri’s own words, “My previous works internalize any exterior forces or circumstances, while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that approach, focusing on the personal in order to tell a wider human story.”

The emotional depth found throughout Peripeteia is impeccably on display with the track, Mellified. A collaboration with Spanish composer Yamila, the choral arrangements bring to mind the sacred music of Arvo Pärt, while her voice combines the Andalusian “Cante jondo” style with medieval modes, almost drowning in layers of octave fuzz distortion and dystopian synths patterns. On Arduous Clarity, the bright arpeggiating melody that churns throughout, offers the initial glimmer of optimism in an otherwise decaying tale of personal turmoil. This encouraging glimpse is short lived however, as the song Refuge/Refuseseemingly plummets into the mourning depths of somber despair. A chorus of voices steadily crawls from its desolate terrain –a sea of broken spirits, eternally resigned to strain and bellow their final lament. Fright and Control, a piece which is equally soul churning, seems to possess a satisfying resolve, as if after years of searching, one’s very salvation has been laid to rest through the acceptance of mortality and the enlightenment in death. Irisarri’s complexity is utilized to a forcible success, slowly pulsing throughout the foreground of his audience, further emphasizing the impending dread of resolve.

Artist statement: "Peripeteia is about the last few years, sudden reversals in fortune, illness, and comforting mortality. These sudden changes in personal life mirrors the sociopolitical transformations happening at a larger global scale in countries all over the world. Previous Irisarri works internalize exterior forces/circumstances while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that narrative, focusing on the personal to tell a wider human story."

A new sub-label of the longstanding Canadian electro imprint Suction Records, Ice Machine — focusing on old-school wave/post-punk sounds — is thrilled to present a new, deluxe reissue of “Pow Wow”, the debut 1982 solo LP from Cabaret Voltaire’s Stephen Mallinder. Now expanded to a double-LP, and also released on CD/digital, it’s a definitive reissue which now includes Mallinder’s early solo discography in its entirety. This collection of mutant dub/funk/postpunk sounds just as fresh and contemporary in 2020 as it did in 1982 (note Autechre’s inclusion of standout cut “Del Sol” in a mix earlier this year), and highlights Mallinder’s crucial contributions to Cabaret Voltaire.

Some words from Mr.Mallinder on the scene and era from which “Pow Wow” was born: “It was an interesting, and inspiring, time. The primal caterwaul of punk was dying and lots of really significant things were emerging from the fires. Much looser vibes were in the air and there was a much more exploratory feel. Punk had championed a visceral, anti-intellectual approach but in truth the real characters brought so much more to the table, and what began to happen - from people like The Pop Group to Throbbing Gristle, and emerging scenes from No New York to Factory Records - is we began to embrace the art of it all. There was acknowledgement of the importance of books, films, graphic art, and experimentation with all those mediums. We were just as interested in turning over rocks to see what lay beneath, as throwing them. There was a sense of new magik emerging.”

“Pow Wow” was commissioned by the Fetish Records label, and recorded at the Cabs’ Western Works studio, where Mallinder would spend his days recording with Cabaret Voltaire, and continue on alone into night recording his debut solo material. “I slept very little in those days,” he adds, continuing: “It was done on 8 track and very multi-tracked, so lots of recording, then bouncing, and overdubbing, to get the integrated feel of the tracks. I became very adept at pressing record then jumping onto equipment to play it - it was actually a very 'live' record in that sense. I've always seen rhythm at the core of what I do so I loved the layering of counter rhythms. The sequence/arpeggiator parts were all drum machine triggers that were played live. It was about creating a distinct groove so arrangements came from weaving in and out of those linear grooves. It was fun to play everything from drums, guitars, keys, trumpet, percussion, tapes… and record and produce it all. Prince got it from me!”

Surprisingly, Mallinder’s first solo LP would also prove to be his last - that is, until last year’s critically-acclaimed solo return “Um Dada”, on Dais.

This new edition of “Pow Wow” contains 14 songs, and is housed in a recreation of the original, iconic Neville Brody jacket, painstakingly recreated using scans of Brody’s original artwork elements. The 2LP vinyl edition is in a reverse board, thick-spine jacket, and adds a 12”x24” folded poster/insert, featuring unused elements from Brody’s original designs, sketches, and instructions for the LP. The CD edition comes in a reverse board, 6-panel digipack.


2-11 from the Pow-Wow LP on Fetish Records, 1982.

13-14 from the Temperature Drop / Cool Down 12” on Fetish Records, 1981.

12 from the Fetish Records compilation The Last Testament, 1983.

1 edit from the Pow-Wow Plus LP on Fetish Records (Japanese pressing), 1984.

New technologies have affected the way we discover music. As much as I love crate digging, it was while browsing Bandcamp that I stumbled upon Baby Bye. The song caught my attention and as soon as I finished listening to it, I listened again and again, in what seemed to be an endless loop.
In my living room, images of a fireplace came to my mind, I was cozy while outside progressively turned into the landscape of Siberia. The unforgiving winter with its cold and darkness surrounded me, but I felt wrapped up in warmth and light.

I contacted Chikiss and invited her to play live at a STAUB. When I asked her if I could release her music, she offered to rerelease Baby Bye.
Being so in love with the song, I accepted instantly. When we started to work on the record, I realized I wanted to add something more, not just reissue a track. I feel sometimes we do not treat the things we love with enough respect. I feel fortunate to be given the chance to treat her music with the attention I thought she deserved in the first place.

That is why I asked Stanislav to remix the song. It may seem like an odd choice, but by doing so I brought together two of my favorite artists. This record means a lot to me and I sincerely hope you will appreciate it.

From the crystalline sources of the stony rivers through the waves of 5G networks to the blood stream of yellow plasma. Mustikoita ja kissankelloja is like a chaotic sonic sedimentation of new weird Finland music revitalised and flowing through different waste channels, protected habitats and clogged veins. You can scan the microview and listen to the pointillistic murmur on a petri dish or try to stalk the tectonic movements.

Do you remember the pure electronic ocean of the Pacific Tubular Waves created by Michel Redolfi in 1980? Take Redolfi's water music, pour it into the electron–positron collider, and use Olli Aarni's nanoscopic microphone. You'll find a frenetic mix of trembling static, singing bacteria, thermal bubbles, crinkling fossils, buzzing signals and crackling glaciers – all teeming on unseen wavelenghts.

The result is a living matter: soundscapes recorded in humid forests, endlessly mutating patterns, and warm ambient evaporating from various well-known electroacoustic studios.

PS: Disinfect your ears after each listening.

We are proud to present UNDERMEDVETENHETEN, a new live action role playing game developed alongside London games company Frand.

UNDERMEDVETENHETEN is a simple, science fantasy game for 1-12 players, with a focus on atmosphere, storytelling and player cooperation - perfect for newcomers to live action role playing. It takes 2 minutes to set up, lasts around 30 minutes, and no two games are ever the same.

Players take on the roles of humans aboard a vessel on an endless journey into the depths of space. They are not lost, but all hope is, as they hurtle stricken into the void. Your only access to the universe outside is through the ship's altruistic artificial intelligence, Mima.

As immersive chapter cards are revealed one by one, players must interact with Mima in order to shed light on the universe around them, indulge in fantasies of worlds past, or attempt to right the ship's blighted trajectory.

Can you make sense of the abyss?

UNDERMEDVETENHETEN comes complete with a soundtrack composed by John B McKenna. Together with our partners Lost Map Records and Foundation of the Teacherock, we have pressed this to a limited run of 300 records.

The joyful, tender, almost too tender, but at times extremely intense album entitled Televize was made by the inflamed, wholly focused, at times completely scattered, dissipated and organically chaotic ensemble called the Roman Radkovič Collective. It throws at the listener a threshold music and a poetic experience of the world.

If one record can mediate otherness, a music which can never be imagined without first-hand experience, it is the LP with the magical title Televize. It sounds like a gargantuan musical belly which can swallow anything, churn it, mix it and eject it back into the world in unexpected constructs. These are full of broken rhythms, dense layers of sound, disfigured melodies, chants, recitations, hectic yelps and urgent tidings, while showing occasional glimpses of precious lines of melody. Although it may seem that the main logic behind all the output of the Roman Radkovič Collective can be found in extensivity, a total surf on noise, free and grotesque pop-cultural soundscapes (we hear bits of classy Czech evergreens like Czech anthem, Zaľúbil sa chlapec, Yellow Submarine, Když jsem šel z Hradišťa, but also various confessions, laments, art brut poems, expressions of absolute spontaneity, imagination and boundlessness), after repeated listening the intensity of the protagonists shines through. Intensity in the sense of a measured deepening of the internal need to express oneself, to circle around the obsessively loved topics, texts, their heroes and loves.

But screw all the trajectories of relations and discursive constructs, there are no similar records in the world, maybe with the exception of Schlingensief’s project Freak Stars 3000 with its similarly excited and possessed big band. The motto is: prophecy, joy, noise, only good things to the good, everything to everything and, most importantly, density embodied. Density which is intoxicating like Koulelo se koulelo červené jablíčko. There must be much of everything and it must go all the way and never fall short.

This album is the funnel of the world. Televize will glut and mesmerize you. All power to imagination! Don’t search for idioms, wage death on virtuosity, let yourself be flooded by the breached dams of joy and consciousness. And you will love the album art.

FUJI||||||||||TA, real name FUJITA Yosuke, is a Japanese sound artist. After countless performances in different contexts either solo or along artists such as Yamantaka Eye of Boredoms and the legendary avant-gardist SUZUKI Akio as well as a slew of solo releases, his LP »iki« (»breath«) for the Swiss-based Hallow Ground label is his first in nine years. On these four pieces, Fujita explores the idiosyncratic sound qualities of the pipe organ he has built all by himself in 2009. This - quite literally unique - instrument features only eleven pipes, an air pump called »fuigo« which was modelled after a traditional blacksmith’s one and has no keyboard. Inspired by traditional gagaku, it was designed to evoke rich landscapes rather function as just another musical instrument. While his previous records saw FUJI||||||||||TA explore various modes of abstraction, »iki« is a highly emotive yet meditative album, musically restrained but full of imagination.

»keshiki« immediately sets the mood for this record with a long sustained note that is punctuated by the soft clicking of Fujita’s air pump. Once Fujita carefully starts bringing melodies into play, the interplay of the drone and the discrete rhythmic element gives way to a fuller harmonic whole. »keshiki« is an intimate piece that perfectly displays the artist’s knack for painting a rich sonic picture with only a reduced palette. »nNami« juxtaposes the sounds of two pipes that are out of tune with each other, creating a hypnotic sensation of ebb and flow (»nami« translates to »wave«) that is full of subtle friction. It’s a staggering artistic interpretation of the instrument’s material characteristics. Clocking in at ten minutes, »osoi« (»slow«) is an overall melancholic piece that explores the relationship between different tone colours through minute changes in pace. Finally, »sukima« (»blank space«) is the shortest and the most rhythmic piece of the four. Composed of only staccati, it is a masterful exploration of the harmonic qualities Fujita’s stunning pipe organ has to offer.

Recorded between September and December of 2019, »iki« marks the culmination of FUJI||||||||||TA’s ten-year-long work with the instrument that he had built without any prior knowledge and started to teach himself to play without a manual in sight. It is, in other words, the unique result of a unique musical mind paying his dues to the uniqueness of his own creation; introspective and welcoming at once.

»KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure« is the conclusion of a 5-part cycle of works by artist Grischa Lichtenberger which was initiated with the album »LA DEMEURE; il y a péril en la demeure« in 2015 and continued with the triple EP release »Spielraum, Allgegenwart, Strahlung« in 2016. In addition to the concept of „demeure“, ones residence as a symbol for the joy and artistic possibilities one can find in isolation, Lichtenberger places a further emphasis on the expression of the voice, represented by the word „Kamilhan“. „Kamilhan“ is a non-existent word, an expression that Ernst Bloch once mentioned in an anecdote about his childhood. Fascinated by its sound but without knowing its meaning, it remained vivid in his memory in its purely „material“ form. Lichtenberger also refers to this childish perception of language. Words that we do not know, but repeat in our thoughts until they become insignificant. Lyrics in a foreign language that we do not understand and still sing along and imitate. With computer-generated voices, Lichtenberger tries to reproduce these experiences. In his tracks we hear syllables and phrases that are similar to words and that seem familiar to us, but whose meaning remains a secret. As on the previous album, the tracks on »KAMILHAN« are constantly torn apart and reassembled. Borrowings from hip-hop and even pop are unmistakable, desired, and yet delusive. Rhythms that are repeatedly broken in order to re-organize themselves into new temporal patterns. Melodies that are pierced by precisely these intricate rhythms. Voices that lack any empathy due to their artificiality. Lichtenberger himself describes these tracks as „crooked ballads“, which, by deliberately following classic pop song structures, try to sell us the absurd as the normal, and in turn smuggle some hope of recognition into the absurd. »KAMILHAN; il y a péril en la demeure« will be released on May 08, 2020 on CD and as a limited double vinyl edition including a handmade and signed silkscreen print.

clear orange vinyl Limited

The missed seed of cryptobotany music. Jani Hirvonen (Uton) and Johannes Schebler (Baldruin) reconstruct the mesmerizing world of the Grykë Pyje swamp tribe. Vinyl in your hands is a ceremonial sonification of the sacred herbarium, painted myths of the animal kingdom and voices behind the thicket.

A return to the time when the forests, tree crowns, soil, thickets and heaven were full of continuous murmur. Or, on the contrary, a vision of a future in which the chaos of natural noises will reign. Slimy earthworms and phosphorescent bugs crawl out of the holes and gaze toward the sky. Brightly colored birds pick juicy fruits and there is no silence, because it is absorbed by the buzz of a virgin ecosystem. In the caves, marshes and hollows of trees, the most important questions are decided. A polyrhythmic rain falls from the sky and washes the prehistoric mud from mammalian hair. Somewhere to see human footprints, but those who have left them are long hidden under giant leaves. The light, reflected from the vibrant structure of life itself, dances for all, in full color. The feast of photosynthesis. Nothing to see from the top. Plants, moss and mushrooms grow at a tremendous rate. They climb each other to break through the lush green blanket. And above all, the orange disc shines pleasantly.

Panelák. Fenced square garden at the entrance. Tree limbs, dried skin of snake, snails with cracked shells. Once upon a time there were plants. Soaked orange peel in front of the door. Buzzing of door bells. Elevator drone. You count the floors while you follow the picture instructions. Capacity and weight of three-dimensional space. You are entering the apartment. Horseshoe above the door. A wooden mask next to a whistling kettle. Seashells in plastic box. Phantom signal. Sheep fur on the couch. You straighten out all the folds. Mute TV. Documentary program- wolves, octopus, worms and a shark. Clock metronome. One minute, two minutes, twenty-seven minutes. 60% polyester pyjamas. Brain-shaped smog behind the window. Smoke, dust or just fog. You put wax in one ear, cotton in the other. I love this city and its outlying lands. My romantic landscape.

Sarah Hughes’ multidisciplinary arts practice, comprising composition, performance, curating and installation, revolves around the relationship between social and environmental systems of cooperation. The work draws from various contexts including ecology, feminist politics, alternative economies, land use, and protest in order to explore speculative systems of organisation and collaboration as the ground for social change.

Hughes’s work has been exhibited and performed internationally, including at South London Gallery, Punt WG Amsterdam, Cass Sculpture Foundation, Supplement, and Modern Art Oxford. Her compositions have been performed by various ensembles and at various festivals including London Contemporary Music Festival, Music We'd Like To Hear, and Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival. Realisations of her compositions have been published by Another Timbre, Suppedaneum, Melange Editions, and Consumer Waste, and broadcast on the BBC.

Tape / Cassette

It is raw material rather than tool. Polished metal body or beslavered tube. Just tenor sax at the end of its pilgrimage. It is sculptural object - assemblage without original function rather than a museum artefact of musical viruosity. Heavy metals flowing through the sewer from the concert hall. Small scrap dried by sunlights. Bubbling, squealing and rustling. Circular breathing - as if you have been blowing glass. Objects shaped by breath. Sébastien Branche as a sculptor and a bricolier.

Sébastien plays soprano, tenor and C-melody saxophones. He got started with improvisation through workshops with musicians coming from contemporary jazz or improvised music.
Interested in perceptive phenomenons, he works mainly with sound as a material, describing himself as a “sound crafter”. His interests also extends to body and space, as he regularly confronts his practice to contemporary dance, soundart, through collaborations mainly with photographer Diane Martinot and music and technology, through the use of programming language Supercollider. Based in Leipzig, Germany since 2015, he is an active member of the blooming local scene.

In just a few years and with a handful of releases, the Canadian producer better known as Yves Malone has earned himself a reputation. In The Beginning of Nothing he continues working with many layers of analog synths and a keen sense of drum machines to create atmospheres and textures extracted from late twentieth-century collective fears of a dystopian future. Created as a sort of score to an internal elegy, Yves Malone creates soundtracks of the daily fear, regret, and resignation that is his waking life, an effort to isolate and negate this anxiety, which is a constant and unwanted companion. Sequenced on mostly working vintage gear, The Beginning of Nothing tries to extricate a bit of beauty from a rapidly darkening landscape.

Transversales Disques present a reissue of Bernard Baschet and Michel Deneuve's 4 Espaces Sonores, originally released in 1982. Rare 1979 recording of Bernard Baschet performing on his Sound Sculptures.The Baschet brothers are known worldwide as creators of Sound Sculptures, fantastic shapes of moulded metal and glass, which combine the visual arts with music.François Baschet had always been fascinated by acoustics, by the relationships between the shape and material of an intrument and the beauty of its sound.Bernard Baschet was passionately interested in contemporary music and firmly believed that such instruments were the proper tools for modern music, for they offered to the artist and performer a personal means of expression denied by electronic devices.Together the brothers began to design and produce Sound Sculptures, which could also be regarded as musical instruments.Circa 1965, Bernard worked alongside Pierre Schaeffer as a member of the GRM (Musical Research Group) on the elaboration of what was to become Schaeffer's "Traité des objets musicaux" (Treatise on Musical Objects).The Baschet brothers also created structures and instruments of all sizes, including bell towers, windmills and fountains, using the natural elements of wind and water to make music. Bernard Baschet was especially proud of his pedagogical work amongst deprived and handicapped children, with the instrumentaium made up of fourteen pieces.

DJ Die Soon is a local legend and ongoing inspiration in the Berlin underground electronic music scene. Remaining largely unknown outside the city, with only a handful of releases and appearances to date, the man behind the mask delivers truly freakish beats built from chaos driven crushed drums and eerie horror style basslines.

KAPPA SLAP wrenches the Morphine catalog by the neck, takes it off it’s feet and slams it back unsteadily in front of the fans who loved the Container, Metasplice and Hieroglyphic Being output of the label. DJ Die Soon delivers extreme work here. The album is a mixture of instrumental pieces and vocal tracks featuring the talents of five contrasting MC's. Three Ugandan lyricists feature: there’s MC Yallah, with whom he worked during a residency for the Nyege Nyege Festival , Lord Spikeheart from the Duma hardcore pressure band, and the mighty ECKO BAZZ. Long time friend and collaborator Infinite Livez (Ninja Tunes) appears on the cosmic & eccentric Ranthworth, and finally there’s Japan’s MA, who recently dropped the incredible AMA album on the label. Incidentally, the pair (both Japanese) decided to collaborate after acclaimed performance at the Morphine Showcase Berlin’s Berghain in 2019.

KAPPA SLAP contains a lot of our favorite sounds all in one album. Stunningly, DJ Die Soon manages to paint the Morphine picture in one hard stroke.

Artwork courtesy of Lorenzo Mason Studio

One of the all-time fantastic masterpieces of tribal ambient, an absolute must-own for any fan of the genre. Peyote is a musical trip well worth taking.

Originally released in 1991 on cd and now released on vinyl for the first time.

O Yuki Conjugate (OYC) are an English post-industrial/ambient musical group founded in 1982 in Nottingham by Roger Horberry and Andrew Hulme and still - intermittently - active today. Originally inspired by the spirit and sound of post-punk, they soon started pioneering their own brand of ambient at a time (early 80s) when few people were interested in such a low-key approach. Their music has been variously described as 'ambient', 'fourth world', 'ethnic', 'tribal' and 'dark wave'; the band prefer to call it 'dirty ambient'.