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Slow Reels combines Ian Hawgood's love of reel-to-reel tape machines and vintage synthesizers with James Murray's melodicism and richly textured digital sound design. Their Morr Music debut, ‘Farewell Islands’, is an arresting, fluorescing album that blends full-frequency dronescaping with a slow-burning ambient minimalism.

Ian and James met on the UK minimal music scene releasing each others' music on their Home Normal and Slowcraft labels. Their recording collaboration began remotely while Ian lived in Warsaw, spending long nights with his collection of reel-to-reel machines: “I created a number of loops with an old and sadly dying Akai which was noisy and would stutter quite a bit. I also found myself using older tape on cracked reels and the effects of this really helped develop a newer path for my own work”. James began to weave piano, guitar and synthesizers into the material from his London studio, combining the two artists' tonalities into something so unexpectedly compelling it took them both by surprise. Ian then transferred these manipulations back onto tape, further refining and defining the sound during deep dive experimental analogue mastering sessions.

The role of old technology in Slow Reels' work lends a sense of decay and transience sure to resonate with admirers of William Basinski, Rafael Anton Irisarri and Benoît Pioulard, but the underlying melodies set a clear counterpoint: a longing for the vivid is deeply grounded within this music. The four cinematic, long-form movements of ‘Farewell Islands’ possess a delicate romanticism and emotional urgency that engages and gradually overwhelms the listener.

The islands of the title are both real and notional, as James explains: "places of meaning to both of us in our lives, found now only out of time, belonging outside the present and out of reach”. This nostalgic farewell also marks a fresh beginning, as the duo's ongoing Brighton-based studio sessions generate further reels of unearthly electronic landscapes that seem to hiss, warble and granulate their own way onto tape.

For Hyperdelia’s newest release "For Always" LP, Andreas Dzialocha creates an enchanting ghost music. Animated by his solo bass playing and haunted by aleatoric acoustics, the record unearthes the instrument’s low end harmonics. A spectral music that sits somewhere between the timbral finesse of Julia Reidy, Tim Hecker’s noise gestures and the spaced out reclusivess à la Arthur Russell. The vinyl is a cute transparent blue and comes in a see-through PVC cover: limited edition of 200 copies.

For Always LP is produced in collaboration with Sam Slater (Hildur Guðnadóttir, Shapednoise, Zebra Katz, Mica Levi) and with support by composer/violist Marta Forsberg (Passepartout Duo, Ellen Arkbro, Stellan Veloce) and sound artist/singer Fågelle (Henryk Lipp).

Dzialocha recorded the initial bass material residing at the Baltic Sea in Lithuania. Afterwards and in collaboration with Sam Slater, he reworked the material in Stockholm: here they reamped the original stems and turned the studio itself into a living dub creature. Dzialocha, who is also a programmer, created an algorithm to sequence and filter the bass inputs. This software in turn randomly enables loudspeakers, headphones and tape machines that were placed in corridors and staircases. As an eerie result, we hear both Dzialocha’s stripped-down bass playing, the (non)logic of the algorithm as well as the specific resonances of the room acoustics: all of these have merged into one sentient instrument.

For Always LP is populated by a myriad of these machinic, acoustic and indeed personal traces. Marta Forsberg and Klara Andersson join by providing viola (on IV) as well as guitar, voice and lyrics (For Always). The record is animated by all of these forces and in ensemble they sing a wonderfully abstracted ghost music: for always.

Andreas Dzialocha is an electric bass player, producer, composer and developer. His work consists of both digital and physical environments, spaces, festivals, software or platforms for participants and listeners. In his work the computer itself serves as an artistical, political, social or philosophical medium; it deals with computer culture, machine learning, platform politics or decentralized networks. He is founder of the Berlin based ensemble Serenus Zeitblom Oktett, member of AI UNIT, a network for machine learning based art projects, co-publisher of the self-curated magazine platform BLATT 3000 and co-founder of the intermedial score platform Y-E-S. He studied art history, musicology, media philosophy and computer science in Berlin where he also lives and works.

Reissue of the fantastic debut LP from France's pioneer avant-electronic unit ART & TECHNIQUE. Originally released in 1981 by Hi-Tech records. Haunting obscure minimal electronic sounds, ambient and atmospheric ventures, abstract minimal wave with some ethnic elements. And excellent use of rhythm boxes, sound generators and strange vocals, reminds of 23 Skidoo's “7 songs”, early Muslimgauze, O Yuki Conjugate´s sound and the atmospheres of Jon Gibson or Jon Hasell.

Re-mastered by former member Bernard Filipetti. Limited edition of 300 copies.

Second volume of 'The Encyclopedia of Civilizations', a collection of split LP's where selected artists offer their own insight into fascinating ancient cultures.

In this volume the music is inspired by Atlantis, a legendary civilization surrounded by mystery. The LP is presented in a special limited edition (500 copies) with an extensive booklet that tries to shed some light on the myth of Atlantis and will help you to immerse yourself in this fascinating civilization while you listen to the music. The sleeve is printed in the old way, letterpressed with metal movable type as Gutenberg used to do it, as all of the Abstrakce editions.

DSR lines is the project of Belgian electronic artist David Edren. He's been releasing his music for almost two decades on labels such as Ultra Eczema, JJ Funhouse or Black Sweat. His Atlantis tracks are one of his best works (if not the best) so far, developing an exquisite use of modular synths. David presents a mature work, the result of an intense experimentation with synths such as Buchla 200 or Serge Synthesizer Systems. His arpeggios and oscillations sound like music that would be played in an Atlantean temple worshiping an ancient god (probably Poseidon or Minos) if this wise civilization had reached our days. Organic minimal electronics developing a very personal sound, a spiritual approach that could be a modern continuation of the investigations started by JD Emmanuel, Ariel Kalma or Michael Hoenig.

Bitchin bajas is the project by Cooper Crain (also from the band Cave), Dan Quinlivan and Rob Frye. They have released material on labels such as Permanent records, Drag City, Hands in the Dark and Important records. They present an astonishing 20-minute-track inspired by the diaspora of the Atlantean people after the great cataclysm that sank their island at the bottom of the ocean and plunged its splendor into darkness forever. Warm, instrumental, psychedelic and melodic music that drinks from the electronic minimalism of the 60s and 70s (Terry Riley, La Monte Young..) blended with the spatial feeling of the kosmische maestros (Klaus Schulze,Harald Grosskopf, etc.). Deep electronics, hypnotic pulses and enigmatic melodies introducing acoustic instruments such as flutes or xylophones that will make you float in space while thinking about our Atlantean ancestors.

Luz Azul is a group started by LA-based vocal and performance artist Anna Homler (aka Breadwoman) together with musicians Marcos Fernandes and Robert Montoya in 2007. On this record they compose their own mesmerising cosmic universe where the hypnotic speaking in tongue voice of Anna Homler blends mesmerising together with the sound of her found toys intensified by the shamanistic percussion of Marcos and the pulsating electronics of Montoya.

As fellow percussionists and sound artists, Marcos Fernandes and Robert Montoya's collaborations began in 1983 and ran the gamut from ambient to noise, rock to electronica to improvisation. Both were founding members of Trummerflora, a collective of creative musicians based in San Diego from 1999 to 2009.

All three artists were active in the improvised music scene in Southern California and met at Spring Reverb 2006, an annual festival of experimental music curated by the Trummerflra Collective. At the time, Fernandes was experimenting with processed percussion as well as phonography and samples while Montoyawas exploring improvisational possibilities on the computer.

Fernandes and Homler expressed their mutual interest in collaborating but it was not until the fall of 2007 that they performed a series of concerts together. Pleased with the results, they performed together again in the spring of 2008 with the addition of Montoya. There was chemistry and the trio promptly decided to enter the studio to capture their collective magic. The session yielded the music found on Luz Azul.

Anna Homler - voice, pocket theremin, sample sticks, whistles, assorted dry and squeaky objects, greeting cards, wood devil, tiny metals and motors and potato slicer
Marcos Fernandes - percussion & electronics
Robert Montoya - electronics

Third volume of the series MATERIAL ELÉCTRICO this time released on vinyl. Compilation of international mutant electronic underground.

A tour around experimental electronics covering abstract rythms (Santiago, Black Zone Myth Chant), industrial new ebm beat (Celldöd, Klack, Violet Poison, Bässt), minimal wave (Circa Tapes, Sam de la Rosa) and the great collaboration between Sam De La Rosa & Kyle Dixon (Survive, Stranger things soundtrack)

Limited edition of 260 copies. Mastered at Sountes Studio. Artwork by Joni Kosmos and typogragpy by Israel Pinilla.

'Control Voltage Project' is a long running project of Alper Maral & Mert Topel; Alper Maral is one of the most significant sound discoverers around Turkey through auditory and academical researches he has made about experimental electronic music.

Mert Topel is a versatile musician, one of the most important keyboardist for many artists in popular music in Turkey. He has released his first solo album “Serendipity” in 2017.

Control Voltage Project is named after the electric signals which are used for the interactions between various physical sound layers. Recordings of CVP -first album from the duo- was finished in 2005, and released in 2015 on “Müzik Hayvanı” as free download on web.

The album is making its roots through an endless sound pool that created by synthesizers, vocoders and tape recorders such as KORG MS 20, YAMAHA Motif 8, PROPHET 5 and TASCAM MS 16 which have characterized by different styles and times.

The duo’s 12 track album is a complete adventure from abstract
and fragile moments to groovy but spooky sounds.
Control Voltage Project is finally released on vinyl via Müstesna Records.

For the new Arma release Ena explores different, distinct facets of his sound across three productions. “Pale” distills his vision of techno as a minimalist, repetitive construct. Working around non-standard time signatures, he creates a densely woven lattice of percussive pulses, which cut a polyrhythmic path through nightmarish sheets of noise. “Secondary Color” uses a broader palette that opens the Ena sound up to the light,,, “Wired” heads further away from the grid in pursuit of sound design exploration, as a rack of pipes and chambers strike, boom and chime against artful distortion and cavernous reverb. While Ena has historically been hesitant about remixes of his material, he warmed to the idea of long-time Arma friend JASSS reworking “Wired”. Taking the track into her own fiercely individual sound world, she uses the harmonic tonality of the original as a jump-off point for an epic, emotionally forthright chiller loaded with coldwave bombast, trap hats and Silvia’ own voice. Coming from entirely different angles of approach, Ena and JASSS are bound together by their fearless individuality. You can sense the slithers of pre-existing music somewhere in their constructions, but such familiarities are no more than faint echoes of places they passed through on their way to somewhere new.

'This album was created over the course of 2017-2018 and is heavily influenced by descriptions of landscape and environment in the work of authors Shusaku Endo, J.G. Ballard and Cormac McCarthy. Fragments from a land that is a largely silent place. An ancient place. A non-place. A wilderness.'

More info soooon!

Glad to rescue this authentic lost treasure from music genre. TEMPLEBEAT, Italian group now extinct which moved between EBM and Industrial. The formation created in 1990, is part of the self-named second generation of EBM groups. Originally published on cassette in 1992 by label also Italian, Energeia.

Not Waving aka Alessio Natalizia is back. His Human Capabilities album was one of the highlights of the label in 2014, so it seems only right to get 4 artists to create their own unique versions for this EP. Starting with Pye Corner Audio, Martin Jenkins solo proto-electronica project has been a growing success since fist putting his cult tape recordings to vinyl. A great live performance at Cafe Oto got the label wanting more and the recent split LP release with Not Waving on Ecstatic Recordings made a remix
inevitible and he does not disappoint. 7 minutes of brooding, slo-mo dub dance s a perfect opening, haunting and searching in equal measure. This is followed by the new project from Valentina Magaletti (Shit & Shine) and Tom Relleen (The Oscillation). Tomaga's recent debut LP Futura Grotesk is a mesh of live expermenation of electronica meets percussive, kosmiche interplay and worth checking. Taking the industrial loops of the original they provide a improvised jam of drums, bass and anything to hand to trip the light fantastic. Perfect. On the flp, we head for the dark corners of a (techno) basement via L/F/D/M's remix of Double Blind. With releases on Optimo Trax and Clan Destine Trax, Richard Smith's project seemed perfect to take
on the industrial dance of the original. Stripping things right back, the core of the track is looped incessantly for maximum intensity before far away melodies bring you back again. Finally, the EP closes with a wonderous remix from drone specialist Abul Mogard. With his recent SchleiBen split series LP on the label, Abul is again at his best, taking the melodic ambience of the original and modulating it in to a brooding and emotional remix that is a perfect marraige of the artists minds.

After a digital single on Optimo Music Digital Danceforce, Optimo Music welcomes Bergsonist to the main label with a full album. Ridiculously talented and prolific, Bergsonist is one of thee most interesting, thoughtful and important artists of our times.

Bergsonist aka Selwa Abd is a New York–based artist and musician originally from Morocco. She is the founder of Bizaarbazaar, a music platform and publication that publishes podcasts and interviews by DJs and producers from around the world.

Under the guise Bergsonist (derived from Deleuze’s Bergsonism),
she uses a variety of media to investigate social resonance through divergent conceptual aesthetics (minimalism, techno, and music concrete, to name a few). Through her work, she explores notions of identity, memory, and social politics.

In 2017, she started Pick Up The Flow, a resource to promote congregation and exchange between peers. Currently, co-run with Stephen Decker. In 2019, she co-founded 3afak with DJ Sanna, a collective that aims to empower Arab women’s creative vision in
New York.


Words about the album:

Middle Ouest is an ode to my history, present and future self. Like a sonic autobiography, It’s the first body of work that realistically depicts my identity. It’s a statement towards all the people who tried to put me into a box. I’m not a box but a genre-less ocean. I don’t make genres, I just make music I feel making in the moment.

It’s all about capturing the moment in a given time. If the aesthetic happens to be house or techno then it is. But I’m not a techno artist... I’m just a free sonic ‘voyageur’. I make music as i feel the world; it can be dark, jovial, weird… I mirror the feelings into sonic compositions. However, the only variables that never change in this equation are the message and intention.

Despite working often alone, Savvas Metaxas is someone who rather thinks in terms of community and connectivity, who prefers alliances over ego, who is a sound artist as well as a musical activist.

Coming from Thessaloniki, Greece, he co-founded Granny Records, puts up local shows, worked with the Goethe Institute, did site-specific sound installations in London, collaborates with other experimentalists like Spyros Emmanouilidis and released brilliant albums on fellow tape travellers Coherent States and Falt, among others.

Why is it important for us to write down these trophies/landmarks/selling points? Because Savvas is not at all about trophies/landmarks/selling points, he is about connecting things, and this, in our humble opinion, is one of the most fundamental qualities of experimental music, and experimental art in general. It is about rearranging disparate materials, transcending different layers of reality, speaking without the use of words or clear significants.

On the four tracks of „Transmitter“, he is exploring sound in a classical set-up, experimenting with chance-operational radio frequencies and their impact on harmonic structures extracted from synthesizers.

The result are compositions with a haptic quality, a glimmering, grainy music that is directly effecting the room in which it is played in. So despite its broad frequential range: don’t play this tape too loud, as it really interacts with its surroundings. Hence, the names, or rather name tags of these tracks are mostly devoid of interpretation and are purely descriptive. „Words“ is, easy to suggest, a composition based on a voice talking in greek, while „Stormy And Colourful“ is a specification of what is heard on that piece. These two are framed by „Heterodyne“ and „Paradoxical“ - characterizations of the techniques used in the working process.

The artwork of the tape is a continuation of this work method. Clear structures, using the specially built typeface and the spinning of letters and words to manipulate perception and to obstruct a simplification, reducing the logic of words to a sign language that obliterates meaning and identity, a process which, as Simon Reynolds put it, induces ecstasy.

Experimental German Rock & Electronic Music from 1971-81. This latest instalment in Soul Jazz Records' successful Deutsche Elektronische Musik series delves deeper into the German nation's vaults to bring a fascinating new collection that again brings together a selection of classic German electronic and rock groups, including Neu!, Cluster, Popol Vuh, La Düsseldorf, Agitation Free, alongside a host of rare tracks by lesser known artists which includes Michael Bundt, Bröselmaschine, Dronsz, Achim Reichel and others.

The music of 'Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3' ranges from the introverted pastoralism of Hans Joachim Roedelius and Bröselmaschine, to the angular and futuristic electronic experimentations of Klauss Weiss, Pyrolator, Deuter, Michael Bundt and others, to the proto-punk of La Düsseldorf and the heavy space, progressive and cosmic rock of Missus Beastly, Niagara and Dyzan.

The music on 'Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3' was all recorded in the 1970's up to the early 1980's, at a time when forward-thinking German electronic and rock groups were searching for a new musical identity in order to separate themselves from both the cultural legacy of post-world war two Germany as well the 'cultural imperialism' of USA and UK rock.
In this process German groups created some of the most unique and inspired music, the defining motorik beat alongside a host of ethno-musical influences from far afield - including Turkey, India, Brazil - as well as the musical and futurist possibilities of developments in electronics and technology itself.

"Deutsche Elektronische Musik 3" is released as a heavyweight 3x12", deluxe double CD pack and digital release. The new extensive sleevenotes are by David Stubbs, who is the author of the acclaimed book, 'Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany' (Faber & Faber).

Huma is the personal project of Andrés Satué, half of the duo Esquelas, project in which they released “Inciso” (Ensmble) and more recently “Un pozo lleno de anzuelos” (Bestiarie). He was participant in the RedBull Muisc Academy BassCamp in Madrid 2015. He is also cofounder of Versal and Bicefal.

This is his first EP as Huma. “Las tres fases del movimiento” is based on two ideas, on one hand the three phases of movement of Meyerhold biomechanics, and on the other hand the three phases of movement in bodybuilding. Joining these two ideas he generates a very physical, visceral and emotional journey.

«A visceral and emotion-laden situation that sometimes seems to set in front of the abyss, but the most important thing is that it generates a movement.» —David Gozálvez, Neonized

“… Huma manages to make his music a purely corporeal act: his cuts are like dancers who move in complex and different ways in space. Sometimes they move as if they want to touch the sky … » — Fantastic Plastic

«The intersection between extreme, saturation and depth is what describes this new project of Andrés Satué …» — Frankie Pizá, This Is Underground

* Jennifer Lucy Allan’s Arc Light Editions releases Here, the debut album by little known electronic and tape music composer Ruth Anderson (1928-2019) who died just before she was able to see her first solo release out in the world. Here reinserts Ruth Anderson as a trailblazer in the history of electronic music in the USA, as one of the first women to set up an electronic music studio. Here gathers microtonal electronics, drone and meditative long-form works and a mischievous plunderphonic collage into an album that is playful, meditative and bold in its minimalist approach to sound.
*  Ruth Anderson's work is often stripping back to the basic building blocks of sound, speech, or poetry. In an article written by her partner, the composer Annea Lockwood, Ruth describes her music “evolved from an understanding of sound as energy which affects one’s state of being. These are pieces intended to further wholeness of self and uni- ty with others.”
*  Anderson was born in Montana in 1928, and originally trained as a flautist and composer, studying with Darius Mil- haud and Nadia Boulanger in Paris on Fulbright scholarships, and was the first woman to be admitted to Princeton University Graduate School in the early 1960s. She also worked as an orchestrator for NBC-TV and the Lincoln Cen- ter Theater production of Annie Get Your Gun with Ethel Merman (1966). After joining the faculty of Hunter College, CUNY, in 1966, created its Electronic Music Studio. She was engaged in studies of psychoacoustics, Zen Buddhism, and was a committed teacher. She remained at Hunter teaching composition and music theory until her retirement in 1989. As Louise Gray writes in her sleevenotes to Here: “That it is released now, in 2020, to a musician born in 1928 and who has had an active musical and compositional life, certainly since the 1950s, is a cause for celebration as well as for some dismay.”
*  “Pregnant Dream” is a collaboration with poet May Swenson (whose poem of the same name is reproduced on the inner sleeve). “Points” is constructed from pure sine waves, a veil of microtonal sound intended as a healing piece that generates quiet energy. “So What” hovers in electroacoustic space, and crescendos in oscillations and phasing. The playful proto-plunderphonics of “SUM (State of the Union Message)” is constructed from sounds sampled from TV commercials, made one January while Anderson was waiting for a studio to become free, offers tongue-in-cheek resistance to politics and communication as pertinent today as then. She wrote that her intention with "SUM" became “to say as little, and by omission, as much as the President (Nixon) would in his address.”
*  Side B of Here is taken up entirely with the restful and meditative “I Come Out Of Your Sleep”, constructed from the speech vowels in Louise Bogan’s poem Little Lobelia. It is a deeply calming and mindful piece, intended to be played at low volume. Anderson intended the shape of the vowels to become breathy melodic arcs and tones, which be- comes the core of a stylised meditation. As Gray writes, it is “both intimate – a breathing, gentle entity – and simulta- neously vast – the wind whistling around a mountain, the slow unfolding of something that only an attentive listening will reveal.”
*  Ruth Anderson died on November 29th, 2019, aged 91, just after approving test pressings for Here. She was a Pro- fessor Emeritus of Hunter College, CUNY, where she was the director of the Hunter College Electronic Music Studio from 1968 to 1979, one of the first in the USA to be founded and directed by a woman.
*  Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Arc Light Editions thanks: Ruth Anderson, Annea Lockwood, Giuseppe Ielasi, Louise Gray, Chris Muirhead/DMS, and Carole Berglie at The May Swenson Estate, who kindly gave permission for the re- production of Pregnant Dream by May Swenson.

Sunwatchers are a New York-based ensemble (featuring current & former members of NYMPH, Dark Meat, Chris Forsyth's Solar Motel Band & Arthur Doyle's New Quiet Screamers) that blur the lines between avant-jazz, punk, psychedelia, Ethio-jazz and desert blues, creating joyous, chaotic, mystical elegies to modern sound. Their eponymous 2016 album was released on Castle Face Records in 2016, followed by their Trouble In Mind debut, "II" in 2018, and their third album "Illegal Moves" in 2019. Despite (perhaps) being the band's most accessible & melodic work to date, New York quartet Sunwatchers` fourth album arrives in a flurry of notes with the buzzing hum of Sunwatchers vs. Tooth Decay"; the title referencing a 1976 album featuring athlete and activist Muhammad Ali. A cheeky nod to be sure, but laced with the utmost reverence. This attitude sums up Sunwatchers' aesthetic in a nutshell; the acknowledgement (typically via the band's irreverent song titles or album art) that the things in life we should take seriously are better faced and understood when disarmed by a wink or nudge. The band may cloak their fiery activism in a jester 's outfit, but it does nothing to dull the force of their attack. The one-two punch of "Love Paste" & "Brown Ice" hits next, with the former 's tender opening melody punctuated by exuberant "WOO!"s while the latter launches into an urgent, stuttering march that utilizes an effective musical wind-up and release, ratcheting up a ferocious intensity across its near six minute runtime. "Thee Worm Store" closes out the first side, beginning with a lumbering synth growl, until it picks up speed and ends as a frantic noisy free-for-all. Side two strides forth with "The Conch", an obvious `Lord of The Flies' reference, and a delicious subversion of the idea of a "hero's anthem" weighted down by the trappings of tribalism. The album's showstopper however is "The Earthsized Thumb", the near twenty-minute closing track. Guitarist Jim McHugh lays down a hypnotic Saharan guitar melody as the rest of the band ushers themselves in one by one over the tune's distinct musical movements, a cosmic "Quick One" for all the heads perhaps? The album's title "Oh Yeah?" is at once an homage to Mingus, Thee Oh Sees' album "Help" (whose Brigid Dawson hand-sewed the tapestry adorning the album's front cover), and (naturally) the rallying cry of oolBrave himself - the Kool-Aid Man-as-Braveheart avatar the band adopted as their symbol.

What are the bounded limits of sense? How is it we come to know the world and moreover how is it that we share that experience collectively? Where are the points of mutual understanding and how can we approach the spectral aspects of our sensing of the world?
It’s these questions that have shaped the approaches used by Werner Dafeldecker on his first fully fledged electro-acoustic outing. Parallel Darks charts out a divergent, yet relational sound field that reflects an intensity of practice that Dafeldecker has cultivated over the better part of three decades.
Concerning himself with sounds that often lie at the periphery of our listening, Parallel Darks layers dense spatial textures into a tightly woven sonic fabric. Calling on materials collected through field recordings, analog synthesis and through his extended instrumental techniques, Dafeldecker seamlessly draws together
these sources, creating an at times blurry harmony between elements that might otherwise appear incongruous or in contest.
The sound world Dafeldecker creates is one that is simultaneously musical and profoundly abstract. As potential elements of harmony emerge, they are pulled away through various dynamic interjections, which the draw the focus of the ears. Even in the moments where the sound world settles, micro shifts and submerged densities call the listener deeper again. There is no one singular plateau of sound, rather a constant deepening, a beautiful abyss of spectacular pressure and vital acoustic darkness.
Recorded across 2018 and 2019, each of the editions two pieces dwell on sounds’ capacity to be a spectre.
Parallel Darks uses sounds at the very threshold of perception that suggest uneasy acoustic spaces and haunted zones within which the rules of listening in the everyday must be abandoned. In these zones, Dafeldecker carefully crafts hidden sonic relations that call for an intensity of listenership. He rewards us for our auditory efforts with a music of profound detail, subtlety and exquisite beauty.
“It compares music and reality. The music functions like an observer: the music observes reality. And it is precisely the limits of this approach that make us realize something about the observation instrument.
The music, the culturally created, thus becomes a metaphor for perception. A perception that can in no way do justice to what has been perceived, and in this failure can tell us all the more about the limits of our perception and about the process of creating reality in perception.” — Peter Ablinger

Employing a toolkit of cutting-edge DSP, Swarm Intelligence reimagines classic rave frameworks for dancefloors of the future. "Ultraware" traces a path through electro, big beat, jungle and acid - optimising and reconstructing until only fragmented traces remain. Following up from his widely acclaimed "Against the Dying Light" album, this EP marks a new shift in the ever-evolving Swarm Intelligence sound. A relentless explorer of audio technology, here he utilizes spectral processing alongside convolution and granular synthesis to craft a gritty sonic repository for the four tracks. Even in moments when the sequences disintegrate into chaos before reassembling into a coherent form, there is never a feeling that Swarm Intelligence is not in full control - this is an artist who thrives on complexity.

Lexachast is an ongoing collaborative work by Amnesia Scanner, Bill Kouligas & Harm van den Dorpel. Initially birthed as a joint, improvised performance between Amnesia Scanner and Kouligas at the ICA, London in 2015, it was later recreated and extended
with visual artist van den Dorpel into a 15-minute online-only audiovisual work – known simply as Lexachast.

Since then, it has expanded into a live show that has been performed at Transmediale, CTM Festival, Unsound Krakow & Adelaide, Next and LEV Festival and during Paris Fashion Week in collaboration with the brand Ottolinger. Now to be released on PAN, is a new document of Lexachast in its current, full-grown form.

Whilst broadly inspired by the experience derived from and exposure to algorithmic patterns as generated by visual artist Harm van den Dorpel’s specially-devised program, the work is a sonic reference to the fallouts of avant-EDM and cyberdrone.

This in turn is simultaneously mirrored by the perturbing visuals, created by a unique algorithm that sources and blends various
filtered imagery from DeviantArt and Flickr in real time – with a bias towards the NSFW, extreme banality, and ornamental melancholia.

The results were a perfect fit for the deliberate intention of non-intent, an anti-video of sorts, which ended up as a defining element for the project.

Deriving from the acclaimed performance and exhibition — staged by Anne Imhof at the 57th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia and awarded the Golden Lion for Best National Participation— the album Faust is part documentation and part elaboration, the sonic capture and extrapolation of the gestures, intensities, and durations of the live event.

Serving as the dramatic backbone of a several-hour long performance seen by thousands over the course of the Biennial, the soundtrack was a product of the collective and its individuals, animating and organising the performers while immersing the audience in the potent images of power and paradise.

The music for Faust was written in a band-like process by Imhof and her close collaborators Billy Bultheel, Eliza Douglas, and Franziska Aigner during the months leading up to it's premiere at the opening of the German Pavilion in Venice. From the chaos of the performative, the album is constructed out of live recordings and original arrangements, teasing out the most potent strands and weaving them into a new composition of brutal feeling and baroque intricacy,
each track a testament to the energy that brought it into being.

Faust is anchored around three pieces — Medusa’s Song, O.W.E.N., and Queen Song — written and sung by performers Eliza Douglas and Franziska Aigner, whosesonorous and elegiac voices imbue the work as a whole with their crushing depths and dolorous moods. Between these urgent vocal interventions march and twist the winding fugues and electronic abstractions of Billy Bultheel, who has dismantled and reassembled the sonic landscapes of the pavilion, crafting new
arrangements that couple the forcefulness of the physical encounter with the artifice of the studio.

Throughout the album and culminating in its closing act — the brutal chorus of Douglas’ Faust’s Last Song, a pulsing canon of looped and layered voice pierced by black metal screams.Faust is the record of a lost event and the promise of a new creation. The release of Faust illustrates the centrality of music to Imhof’s artistic practice. Her musical collaborations with Bultheel began in 2013, and this generative constellation expanded to include the contributions of Douglas and Aigner, together scoring Imhof’s Angst (2016) and recently her performance trilogy Sex (2019).

Ghost Box is very proud to present a new EP by Paul Weller. The eclecticism of his career goes without saying and in Ghost Box Weller finds the perfect home to explore his interest in experimental tape music and early electronics.

The four tracks here though are more than just experiments. Tape manipulation, field recordings and instrumental passages are artfully arranged to create a gently uncanny and psychedelic atmosphere.

During the final piece Rejoice the abstraction starts to resolve into a more conventional and joyful group sound. No sooner has the melody taken shape when it suddenly collapses, deepening the magic and mystery of the whole work.

In part this is musique concrète in the tradition of Pierre Schaeffer. The “sonic art” of Trevor Wishart being perhaps a closer parallel. Unlike the mid-century pioneers of avant garde music, Weller introduces subtle melodic elements and ghostly fragments of song. Pianos drift in from next-door rooms with an atmosphere not unlike the work of Virginia Astley. The resulting impression is melancholy and reflective with a dreamlike sense of loss.

Darkside Kuduro continuum styles from Lisbon’s PML Beatz, racking up the heaviest Angolan-Portuguese gear this side of Nazar on their debut for Príncipe Lobbed from their respective bases in Lisbon and Luxembourg (one of the countries Portuguese have traditionally sought a better life), the three tracks of ‘Pedra de 800 Kg’ hustle a strong introduction to siblings Lisandro and Ivan aka PML Beatz.

Drawing on a shared Cape Verdean and Angolan heritage, the duo started producing in their early teens back in 2010, but got distracted, as teenagers are prone to do, before returning to the software circa 2017 with a little help from their their former neighbour and mentor, DJ BeBeDeRa - whose grinding tarraxhos have been issued on 7” by Promesses - to finally produce this killer trio of club workouts.

Hypnotic and hard in a signature Príncipe style that firmly resonates with SA Gqom, strains of syncopated UK Bass and mutations seeping out of all corners of the internet, the EP kicks off with a mesmerising mix of New Beat-esque choral drones with synthetic Berimbau-like riffs and flinty rhythm in No Cubau’, before ‘Manganza’ doubles down the darkness with murderous bass drones and distorted drops recalling Durban taxi techno vibes, and ‘Pedra de 800 Kg’ - so titled after their father’s motivational expression “That’s easier to lift than a 500 Kg rock” - recklessly pushes the dance to a steely, uptempo frenzy.

‘’The Duel’’ is a sonic portrayal of the process of one coming to terms with a loss of a loved one. Each musical piece paints the emotions of such a processes. The ‘’Intro’’ shocks at a realisation of such a loss and immediate denial, which is portrayed by visceral and tightly searing sounds. Its questionable tone and thin layers of frequencies symbolise one’s own questioning for the reasons of such loss and the thin layer of security one feels without the presence of its loved one. The second track promotes the idea that denial cannot be continued due to the anger and self-blame within oneself as envisioned with deeper frequencies and more foreboding synthesizer soundscapes. ‘’Transition’’ lifts up the atmosphere by suggesting false hope of one somehow able to put off or delay the ordeal completely while ‘’Depression’’ hits back with heavier sounds confirming the reality of one’s loss of a loved one and subsequent quieting of the soul that follows the departure of a loved one.

The silence of the last pieces promote the space to think and feel in-depth which gradually evokes the feeling of acceptance of one’s loss. The sense of time limitations and realities of impermanence vibrate through in and out the release, forcing one dealing with such a loss to fight and duel oneself until a transformation pushes one to accept the loss, realise matters of life further and enrich one’s life by embracing life while it’s here and appreciating the life of others who are and were here for one another.

‘Elettroencefalogramma’ scans the full breadth of electronic composition by Italian musical mastermind Antonino Riccardo Luciani, who’s perhaps best known for his library records, but on the showing here had a strong, prescient line in mind-bending, fathoms-deep experimental and academic work with tape and early, pre-synth devices.

Awarded unprecedented access to polymath composer “Tony” Luciani’s archive of inter-disciplinary work, Finders Keepers’ Andy Votel follows his pressing of Maria Teresa Luciani’s ‘Sounds of The City’ with a first compilation survey of her sibling’s vast catalogue, newly issued via the Dead-Cert label he curates alongside Sean Canty and Doug Shipton.

The set falls deep within the label’s remit of reissued and previously unreleased work by overlooked and undocumented pioneers of 20th century sound, revealing a distinctive mix of material that nods to contemporary, tape music, neo-classical, jazz, electro-acoustic and counterpoint composition.

Drawn from original tapes recorded during the 1970s, ‘Elettroencefalogramma’ spans the heyday of Luciani’s work, before synth music was popularised. In this sense it’s worth noting Luciani’s links with Teresa Rampazzi and the pioneering electroacoustic group NPS - and namely Serenella “Serena” Marega - with whom he shares a strong affiliation toward embracing the possibilities of new music at the dawn of an unprecedented sonic epoch.

There’s a sense of being in transition between worlds and eras in the opening blend of melancholy strings and bubbling electronic rhythm ‘Battery Farm’, and likewise the cranky mixture of bestial growls and dissonance in ‘The Zoo’, while the rattly rhythm of ‘Offices’ uncannily recalls Trunk’s recent issue of ‘Mechanical Keyboard Sounds’ from the modern day.

But Luciani excels at quieter, introspective styles, as with the flute-led vision of ‘Desol 2’, and most remarkably in the stygian, primitive drum machine pulse and clammy string droens of ‘Forest of Chimneys’, which is surely crying out for imagery of Satanic mills, while the rupturing tape of ‘Bombardment’ sets him firmly in a lane of advanced Italian noise that connects him to Gruppo’s Roland Kayn and Maurizio
Bianchi.

Chasing up Good Morning Tapes’ standout EPs by HTRK’s Jonnine Standish and UK synthesist, XVARR, the ’All Welcome’ 12” pairs three previously tape-only tracks with a trio of exclusives on a killer compilation from the promising French labelSupplying a varied and engaging experience ranging from Tapes’ classical Indian invocations to Eszaid’s gutted D&B and Kiki Kudo’s fizzy electro-dub, ‘All Welcome’ renders the label’s aesthetic wide open with a wonderfully shine-eyed appeal to mutual, empathetic ambient souls and lovers
of electronic magick.

Tapes, aka South London enigma Jackson Bailey, coaxes the EP into action with the woozy title tune of his 2018 tape ’Silence Please’, meshing electronic tanpura drone with mysterious winds and sloshing tabla drums in a respectful tradition of English artists including Robert Wyatt and Shackleton, before Eddie Ruscha’s Only Thingz spies Eno via The Orb and Vangelis in the glyding
synth pads and smeared brass tone of ‘All Eyes Open’, and Berlin-based Brazilian artist INNSYTER follows a deliciously groggy ambient hunch in ‘Morning Blend’.

The label then play it closer to home with an eviscerated D&B dub by Eszaid, co-owner of the Paris-based Collapsing Market label, with ‘The Most Sacred Syllable’ primed for fans of Andy Stott or Demdike Stare, and Anthony Naples takes it to NYC with an extended mix of his scudding piano house workout ‘Goodness’ off the ‘Take Me With You’ tape (not found on the LP released by ANS!), and Kiki Kudo keeps it stateside with the palpitating electro-dub fizz of ‘Hala Dub’ in a style relatable to E.M.M.A. or Jay Glass Dubs.

Arandel's new opus, 'InBach', released 24th January 2020 by French label InFiné, pays a poetic, infinitely respectful and innovative homage to Bach's sacred workings.

Arandel was granted limitless access to the galerie of (sometime rare and ancient) instruments, as a well as a countless recordings of the prestigious Musée de la Musique in Paris with a view to sounddesign his brand new creation. He performed a few months after at Philharmonie Paris a hybrid live performance/DJ set 'Switched on Bach', named in acknowledgement to the legendary 1968 by American composer Wendy Carlos (Tron, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining).

From candles to LEDs, from DJ sets to museums, from historical instruments to machines, from Bach's themes that have entered the collective unconscious and inspired contemporary flesh and blood musicians… 'InBach' was a foregone conclusion.

In the immensity of Bach's oeuvre, in the company of his fellow wanderers, within the constraints of his-torical instruments, emboldened by the delightful, sometimes technically dangerous friction between acoustics and electronics: Without a net, Arandel walks a tightrope without a faux pas.

Vital Sales Points:

- Strong French environment including institutional support from Philharmonie / Musée de la Musique in Paris with a big shows' scheduled.
- A hybrid album with a mix of rare instrument sounds, synthesizers and innovative creative bias.

A profoundly original record steeped in millennia of pre-Islamic (pagan) and Islamic theology and Arabic tradition, ‘Dhil-un Taht Shajarat Al-Zaqum’ translates into “a patch of shade under the zaqum tree” and sees Myslma convey an ancient sense of existential angst via the contemporary prism of electronic music in his singular style of emo-R&B and weightless grime expression.

Although entirely sung in a form of classical Arabic that even modern day speakers may not comprehend, Msylma’s impassioned delivery and intonation conveys the gravity of the album’s themes in no uncertain terms, meaning that native and non-Arabic speakers alike will be absorbed by the album’s emotional pull.

Turning cues from a rich knowledge of pre-Islamic and Quranic poetry into a work of subversive literary fiction, Msylma charts a transition from a romanticised childhood, thru the rising self-awareness of adolescence, to problems with parents and the sardonic cynicism of adulthood, before looping back to childhood, and resolving with a burned-out, sore conclusion in an eternal here and now; effectivey mulling ontological and existential themes that surely resonate with a lived human experience wherever you’re listening from.

Whether channelling a pained sort of R&B/soul spirit in the aching delivery and floating chords of opener ‘Inqirad (Rihab-U Dhakir)’, singing from the midst of a weightless grime skirmish in ‘Min Bab AlKamal-i w AlDawam’, or scaling the lofty heights of ‘Astaqi AlGhamam’, no knowledge of the lyrics’ meaning is required in order to immerse in and empathise with Myslma’s music.

But if you’re the inquisitive type, we’re sure that a quick Google translate of the track titles will offer more concrete pointers to each song’s meaning and, in turn, open listeners to a world that’s familiar yet beyond their immediate conception.

This is an album that will stick in the mind long after the music stops playing, opening windows into parallel dimensions as fascinating and dramatic as the visions of Scott Walker, as haunting as Omar Souleyman’s lamenting mawwals, or futuristic as Fatima Al Qadiri.

Blue Vinyl The Caretaker despatches the final scene of a 20 year-long act that has uncannily lurked in the shadows of so many of our listening lives. Clad for the last time in Ivan Seal's specially comissioned artwork, this final stage sees The Caretaker mirroring the ultimate descent into dementia and oblivion, again using a patented prism of sound to connote a final, irreversible transition into the haunted ballroom of the mind that he first stepped into in 1999.

The project really took on new dimensions in 2005 with the 72-track, 6CD boxset 'Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia', which was accompanied by an insightful unpackaging of it's ideas by cultural critic Mark Fisher aka K-Punk; a stalwart of the project who identified it (alongside music from Burial and Broadcast) among the most vital, emergent works of Hauntological art, a form of music often preoccupied with ideas about memory and nostalgia (but one distinct from pastiche), and the way that they possibly overwhelm, occlude, or even define our sense of being.

By using fusty samples from an obsolete analog format, and by doing so in the 2nd decayd of the 2nd millennium, The Caretaker perfectly and perversely bent ideas of anticipation/expectation with his arrangements, playing with notions of convention and repetition.
The project crystallised as a real gesamtkunstwerk for these times, and one arguably defined by a stubborn and intractably chronic drive against the grain of modern popular culture, or even a refusal of it.

And so to the project's final goodbye. With the outside world muted, and only the timbral residue remaining like smoke, everything moves as slow as a Lynchian dream sequence, until a conclusion so ineffably sublime occurs that we can't mention it for fear of waking up.

With his departure, we'll just take respite in the fact that The Caretaker was always there, inverting our world and supplying space and time and theory for thought, prompting us to dwell on the realest and darkest matters via the prism of the surreal and the unreal in a way that, in the long-run, can prove to be more effective at grasping the immediate state of cultural amnesia and the world's increasingly tight feedback loops, and arguably bring us to the realisation that it's
all a hyper-complex mess beyond anyone's conception, but we must at least attempt to try and understand, no matter how futile it seems.

The new album by Robert Piotrowicz does not fit any category. What this multicoloured electronic instrumentation aims to channel is the acoustic experience and energy of the performing musician. As a result of a wide range of creative means used, the narrative language of the compositions bursts withtension and mystery.

The album includes slow hypnotic passages of stone electronics (“To Fleh”), vigorous tempos and circular repetitions (“Euzo Found Gitar”), sprawling artificial soundscapes, back-to-origins ethnicity (ethnical subsoil and elements) liberated from any geographical identity (“Ocarina Wars”), as well as dreamlike minimalism with unpretentious cinematographic traits (“Flares Et Wasser Hole”). Some of these unusual melodic patterns may resemble the corporality of the animal throat rather than any human-created instrument (“Electros Spong”).

Although Euzebio was recorded with synths, the final shape of individual tracks and the album’s overall acoustic image go far beyond any electronic genre. The instruments have not become a goal in itself. They were merely a building block, a tool that helped achieve the album’s extended structure - a diverse whole with rich spatial features.

All sounds performed and recorded by Robert Piotrowicz on Buchla and Serge synthesizers at EMS Elektronmusikstudion in
Stockholm 2013/2014. composed, mixed and premastered by Robert Piotrowicz artwork and photos: Robert Piotrowicz design
and layout: Lasse Marhaug special thanks: Ocarina Jones and Tomasz Gil mastered and cut by Rashad Becker at D&M Berlin
Produced by Musica Genera

In the last years, Asfast (aka Leon Leder) has established himself between Deconstructed Club Music and Dark Ambient. Originally socialized in the Breakcore scene, which also had a strong Metal impact, Leon Leder merges his diverse influences in order to create a new level of aesthetic entity called „The Prime Same“. He almost skips musical measures while using a slow narrative linked to oddly rough and intrusive rhythm passages. These noteworthy characteristics emphasize the idiosyncratic sound world of Asfast. While „Altar“ (Amen Records, 2018) already revealed moments of mysticism and symbolism, „The Prime Same“ sets out to deepen these impacts by deconstructing genre boundaries. Asfast celebrates a ritual, which faces the conflict of accessibility and confrontation without losing its inherence and particular focus.

Focus in restraint
Ascend and descend
Disembodied rituals through wordless narratives
Something opens and closes in slow motions
The inner becomes the outer, drawing paths and lines that eventually,
somewhere, cross each other again
In the end, these puzzles might solve themselves

In 2018 Asfast released his latest single "Drag Shift" in cooperation with SOAP & SKIN and EVELYN PLASCHG. His new album „The Prime Same" is the first one for denovali.

Danish musician/composer Mads Emil Nielsen continues his Framework series; a collection of open, hand-drawn graphic scores and recordings. The series includes Nielsen’s own subjective translations of the visual material and sound pieces accompanied by visual notations, and collaborations – in this case with Andrea Neumann, Jan Jelinek and Hideki Umezawa. Framework 2 consists of printed scores and recordings, released on 2 x 10” vinyl + DL.

Circles (Disc1: side A) is a dense, 03:45 collage of synthesizer recordings made during a residency at EMS (Elektronmusikstudion), Stockholm. The first graphic score is an illustration in three parts, based on sketches and drawings made intuitively while listening during and after the recording process.

Framework Fragments (Disc1: side B) created in collaboration with Andrea Neumann is derived from live recordings made with electronics and inside piano, and is based on the second score. The piece was made by the two musicians improvising from the seven graphic score fragments, sequenced using individual timecodes and then edited by Nielsen into a more complex collage, following closely the structure of the original recording. Originally a 4-channel composition, Framework Fragments was presented as part of the two artists’ “Creepage Current” sound installation in Berlin, Copenhagen and Milan, 2018 & 2019.

Nielsen then invited two artists to interpret the notation & score – electronic musician Jan Jelinek and sound artist Hideki Umezawa. These recordings are included on Disc 2 (on transparent vinyl). Jelinek chose to focus on the second part of the Circles score – following its structure / timeline and translating the elements into three separated loops blending in and out, one after another, surrounded by additional sounds and random textures.

Umezawa interpreted the Framework Fragments score. Various recordings based on his improvisations made with the Serge synthesizer – once again during a residency at EMS (2019) – were organised to ensure the sound material correspond to each element / score fragment. Finally, the material was re-arranged in detail and edited into the 9 min. composition.

Circles written & produced by Mads Emil Nielsen, Stockholm / Copenhagen, 2015 / 2017. Made for “Sichten 1” compilation curated by Frank Bretschneider (raster-media 2018). Framework Fragments (4-channel piece) mixed & completed by Andrea Neumann and Mads Emil Nielsen, Berlin 2017 / 2018. Circles – 2 written & produced by Jan Jelinek, 2019. Framework Fragments – 2 written & produced by Hideki Umezawa, 2019.

Tunisian leftfield experimentalist Deena Abdelwahed returns with an EP that takes her message back to the dancefloor. Straying away from personal identification, these tracks focus in on the sonic influences of her home region, be it in terms of rhythmic structure, sampling or other local sources. A highly versatile package for any forward-thinking DJ and further proof of this producer 's unique ability to fuse Arabic music references with club music.

Repress

In 1981, Alexei Borisov, a history student at the Moscow State University, formed his first band "Prospekt (Avenue)", drawing inspiration from kitchen table talks and new wave music coming from the West. They broke up in 1984 and a year later Borisov joined forces with Ivan Sokolovsky, an electronic music enthusiast and a connaisseur of rare synthesizers, to introduce the new and "updated" version of the band. By becoming Notchnoi Prospekt (Night Avenue), Borisov and Sokolovsky started moving towards industrial music and viscous, psychedelic synth pop.

In 1986, after a few conceptual, revolutionary albums as Notchnoi Prospekt, various solo projects and collaborations, the duo reunited in the studio to record their only instrumental album "Kurorty Kavkaza" (Resorts of the Caucasus). Built around the hypnotic meshing of afro-caribbean drum machine percussion and vintage Soviet and Italian synthesizers' vivid sonic palette, the resulting record was something that was absolutely different from Borisov and Sokolovsky's dark signature sound and wasn't well received both by the public and underground scene.

Until now, these tracks were never released and Notchnoi Prospekt never performed them live. Shortly after the recording session the duo focused on a return to their industrial roots that resulted in a number of monumental albums including "Kisloty" that became an instant underground classic.

"Kurorty Kavkaza" lay dormant and forgotten decades, and thirty three years after its recording, it gets the deserved official release.

unning Back Incantations present Yogtze!
A joint venture of Daniel Helmer - musician, producer (Mantra Mantra, Gudrun von Laxenburg)and filmmaker from Vienna and Daniel Meuzard - (Feater, Skymax, Vallay) and a headstrong trip deep into the tune-in-turn-on-drop-out-mentality of European minds outside of their natural environment. Helmer and Meuzard met around 2005 in Peru where they both participated in an ayahuasca ceremony.
After this experience they decided to travel and discover South America together for some weeks. During that journey, the idea of a musical project (Yogtze) was born.
Two years and many miles later, Helmer and Meuzard saw Alejandro Jodorowsky’s „Montana Sacra“ at a small film festival in Paris. The movie inspired them to create a musical composition that reflects its spirit and atmosphere. In order to do so, they decided to travel Morocco and record music on a small 8-track tape machine at a friend’s home studio in Essaouira. "The artistic process felt very natural. All we had to do was to open up to the cosmos and let the music flow through our bodies“, said Meuzard. Neither Meuzard nor Helmers intented to release those recordings, since the sessions were more of a personal nature and meant to create a musical experience for themselves.
A decade later, their moroccan friend, who stumbled upon the tapes while cleaning his storage, urged them to release their recordings so everyone could experience the same musical journey as they had back in 2007. "It would be a grand act of selfishness not to share this work of art with others“ he told them. Luckily for thew world, Helmer and Meuzard decided to finally edit, mix and master the rest of the material in 2018/2019 and named their project „YOGTZE“. Expect a record full of wondrous soundscapes, haunting melodies and capturing themes that would fit in many categories or definitions and none at the same time. Music from and for memories, tangerine dreams and chessboards.

4x12"

A massive influence on Prurient and Hospital Productions, Incapacitants’ seminal Japanese noise onslaught ‘Stupid Is Stupid’ reissued on vinyl for the first time since the 1993 double-cassette releaseSpawned by Osaka-based bank clerk Toshiji Mikawa as a solo offshoot from pioneering improv/noise unit Hijokaidan, Incapacitants initially revolved Mikawa and his self-titled feedback
instrument for three albums during the ‘80s, before he was joined by civil servant Fumio Kosakai (C.C.C.C.) circa 1991, and the pair have wreaked havoc ever since. ‘Stupid Is Stupid’ features some of their earliest and fiercest “pure noise” recordings from 1991 and was issued by legendary french noise label Sounds For Consciousness Rape (Anne Gillis, Con-Dom, Smell & Quim), and became a
cult staple of J-noise, hailed by everyone from Russell Haswell to Prurient, who now picks it up for this lovingly pieced-together vinyl edition, painstakingly restored by Kris Lapke (Alberich), and encased in sleeve art that mimics the original tape’s wire-mesh enclosure.
Selt-mantled as the “King of Noise”, Mikawa lives up to his lofty standards alongside Kokosai to the fullest across the 2 hour breadth of ‘Stupid Is Stupid’. Working hard within their style of “pure noise”, and with no concession to boring old musicality, the results are utterly febrile and seething with apocalyptic, spirit-wrenching drama; gushing torrents of high frequency squall that absorbs and spits out all that’s ferocious and effective from their influences such as Whitehouse, The New Blockaders, Borbetomagus and M.B., with a white hot sense of ecstasy that simply does not let up.
Thrilling in its sensory evisceration, the results push right up to the definition of their name, leaving listeners petrified and dealing with their own fight or flight responses to the sounds ultra violence sadism. But, as many lovers of the most effective noise might tell you, Incapacitants’ radical levels of panicked data overload are possibly, conversely meditative when you get into it.
Either way, this stuff is rarely surpassed in terms of sheer menace, and the fact that it comes from a pair of guys who wear suits to their day jobs only makes it that bit more potent and emphasises its necessary, cathartic nature.

Vinyl premiere of Masonna’s bona fide 1990 J-noise classic; a tortuous and shrieking example of Osaka’s most feared performer at an early crest of his powers.
A combustible force of nature working at the crossroads of alternative rock, death metal, and psychedelic synth music, Masonna’s music came to blisteringly define the “harshtronic” sound of Japanese noise as it lurched into the ‘90s. Following his 1989 debut ‘Open Your C*nt’ and a sick job on Bananarama (yep, them!), ‘Shinsen na Clitoris’ was issued in 1990 as the 3rd Masonna album
and it has since been staked in the annals as unmissable entry point to his savage and forbidding catalogue.
Maso Yamazaki aka Masonna would go on found prog-noise group Flying Testicle with close affiliate Merzbow in 1992, but in the years before he established a mean reputation for bringing unhinged human behaviour to his powerful live performances, known to last only a few seconds.
We can surely feel that energy unleashed and channelled into ‘Shinsen na Clitoris’, one of his best loved and notorious slabs. Gut-wrenched shrieks trigger torrents of hurtling distortion, limpid whimpers become barrages of face-melting abrasion, and collapsing tonnes of junk metal transmute into Tetuzi Akiyama-style guitar primitivism, always keeping recipients on the edge of their seat either out of exhilaration or a genuine fear for their own safety.
This is exactly the kind of stuff that has gassed the likes of Russell Haswell and Dominick Fernow (Prurient/Vatican Shadow) for decades now, galvanizing some of their strongest work with the feral nature that Japanese Noise is so widely praised for.

Blue Vinyl

Autoerotochrist’s Anjilla dons his Moonbeam Terror alias for a crushing solo debut with Hospital Productions. Laying rubble to your ears, ‘Comfort Knife’ blends teasing sampled dialogue and stark atmospheres with sheets of blistering hot noise for the faithful and types who prize their tinnitus.
“a startling and confrontational document of sheer noise textures from the immortal corpse or the corpse you can’t get rid of. the unstable and disturbing currents of riverbed noise clattering across the rocks of silt cliffs bubble up before receding again down the reverse side of the waterfall.
super crushing heavy electronics - ophelia has risen from the creek and will bring shame to her admirers. be sure not to miss moonbeam terror this year at hospital fest 12/7 in nyc! mastered by r.
mason (autoerotichrist/enemy soil).”

Red Vinyl 2x12"

Torrents of harsh filth from Black Leather Jesus man Richard Ramirez, recorded in 1999 and now sequestered by Hospital Production
“’amplified tactics’ collects 4 segments of live performances from texas and mexico in 1999, rolling back to an era when live noise shows were isolated mysterious affairs or opportunities to infiltrate mundane society via bars, tea shops, art galleries, youth centers and goth clubs. richard ramirez, who is one of the first and last standing harsh noise originators from the texan deserts
and humid turf that would spawn me of the most influential and dirtiest units to ever grace the xeroxed pages of zines ranging from industrial to grindcore. having touched all the most essential noise imprints of his time (tesco organization, praxis dr. bearmann, release, membrum debile propaganda, msbr, self abuse records, mother savage, etc.) continues to define ‘fetish’ in noise.
since the application of live recordings was a cornerstone of the artist’s studio process these live sessions are as wide ranging, fluid and climactic as any proper ‘studio’ releases from the vast library of sm noise that mr. ramirez has explored on the eve of 30 years of existence. if you’re looking for a entry point to probe the inner working of ramirez’s most iconic visions of noise - ‘amplified tactics’ is essential with its saturated ripping and wild envelopes, edited from the original 2xcdr originally released in an edition of 50.”