Beats News

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A fetid Yorkshire noise classic resurfaces on Hospital Productions like something that died down your drainpipes in the ‘90s.
Smell & Quim curled out ‘Cosmic Bondage’ back in 1995 and it’s remained a firm favourite of Prurient’s domineering label since then. Helmed by Milovan Srdenovic and Jack Shit, Smell & Quim dwell in the gutter of culture and their music is suitably obsessed with themes of porn, fetishism, alcoholism, necrophilia and basically anything that gets the Daily Fail clutching their handbags.
They’re notorious for mutilating and burning a pig’s head live on stage, before being promptly ejected from the venue (run check the clips on YouTube!), and have an abject, black sense of humour that’s totally germane to UK noise and freakish noise offshoots such as Goregrind. They’re fucking off it, basically.
‘Cosmic Bondage’ is one of S&Q’s earliest and most revered outings. Newly clad in cover photo of the hirsute Barbie doll trussed with rope that came with the original tape released by Stinky Horse Fuck, the music is just awful in the best way, ranging from blitzed anal hardcore to gut wrench soreness and a final work of freeform squall starring Hakim Tubitz and Ibrahim Ibrahim on North
African lung pipes.

Chicago-based contemporary electronic musician Steve Hauschildt has composed panoramas of synthesized sound for over a decade. First within his former band, Emeralds, an American touchstone of 2000s home-recorded psychedelic noise music, and later across a steady and critically-acclaimed stream of solo releases spanning ambient techno, arpeggiated electronica and post-kosmische styles utilizing synthesizers, computers, and digital processing. In 2018, he extended a collection of rich, visceral tracks titled Dissolvi, his first release on Ghostly International and his most collaborative work to date. Just a year later, Hauschildt returns with Nonlin, an album that's freer, leaner, and looser, both structurally and conceptually; less linear compared to its predecessor, but still captivating. Developed and recorded in several studios during and around the edges of tour - Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Tbilisi, and Brussels - this material emulates an alienating encounter with a smattering of places, a replicant of culture shock, a solitary and stark experience with uncanny environments, melody and dissonance as oblique locales. Nonlin finds Hauschildt evolving his palette of tools, integrating modular and granular synthesis. The improvisatory and generative nature of modular systems, when paired with his signature grid-oriented and hand-played techniques, guides these compositions slightly out of line to hypnotic effect. Opener "Cloudloss" permeates the mix with an unsettling smog, which reappears and all but engulfs "A Planet Left Behind." On cuts like "Attractor B" and "Subtractive Skies," pockets of air rest between sequenced pulses, whose crumpling and flattening folds build into a restrained rapture of crisp frequencies and milky reverb-swallowed coruscations. The album's title track and centerpiece logs on to a foreign network, a fractured percussion signal that modulates and stutters into static amidst curious melodic sparkling in the hazy bandwidth. "Reverse Culture Music" casts an elegant and brooding stream of strings, pizzicato and churning bow from Chicago cellist Lia Kohl, against chiming minimalist synth frameworks. A surprising pattern emerges in the taciturn systems at work. Hauschildt continues to expand his already horizon-wide repertoire, here exploring the effects of corrupting coordinates; a flight subject to the collapsable abilities of time in remote spaces, a smearing of the axis to elegiac ends.

After Où poser des yeux in 2009 and La paroi de ton ventre in 2013, Les Hommes-Boites are back with La copie d'un autre which will soon be released on Brussels' young and sparkling label Gnignignignigni. Composed of Carl Roosens, Emmanuel Coenen and Pascal Matthey, the band Les Hommes-Boites tells and sings funny stories of animals, look-alikes and dark rooms on happily haunting electronic, not to say pop-music. "On est toujours la copie d'un autre" ("We are always the copy of someone else").

Future Ethics’ first release is an eight-track compilation on a special USB stick with an accompanying zine. The label wanted to foster a spirit of collaboration with an unusual compilation-building structure. Artists gradually added to the compilation as it grew: each artist received the existing tracks and was asked to contribute or remix a track from the compilation. This took time, but resulted in a cohesive and beautiful compilation, rich in emotion, ranging from a vintage club rant from tati au miel; disoriented housy jams from Bergsonist, Beta Librae, and Violet; tense experimental compositions from Englesia and Odete; a 139 BPM banger from softcoresoft; to a dancefloor-melting System of a Down edit from Estoc & Bored Lord.
The zine features an interview from Discwoman’s Frankie Decaiza Hutchinson, writing on off-Facebook event organizing from Adwoa Afful, a beautiful cover from collage artist Fenna Fiction, and a guide to recognizing opioid overdoses and administering Naloxone from Liz Singh and Sara Martin in Toronto. It also features a comic from Berlin-based artist @juicycomics and a poem from Wafa Ktaech.

English aural terrorist Never Worse debuts on Strange Therapy with the 6-track cassette Gutter. Being true to its name, the work is a series of grinding assaults in which modern industrial/noise music with rhythmic tendencies becomes a template upon which brooding soundscapes are sculptured.

Bite The Concrete welcomes us with its haunting dark vibes, before it explodes in an industrial march made of mechanical movements and ominous lines. The rhythmic mantra uses pauses in order to convey a sense of dread. The listener will find himself crushed under the obsessive track. Dead Tooth presents grinding distortions and shrilling effects, evoking a factory-in-hell wherein an obscene ritual is consumed amidst the ever-functioning machines. An eerie atmosphere pervades the number, but the grittier side of the music is not forgotten. Cannibal is a dissonant tour de force with ritualistic noisescapes among which ghostly harsh vocals moves, preying on our fears. An ancient world made of prehistoric rules collides with the industrial setting, fusing past and present in an ominous mantra.

The Title Track is a dark dimension with grim landscapes and underlined tension, an affair full of grit and epochal visions. It slowly adds the usual ritualistic elements in a well crafted structure in which a suspended tension never find its climax, losing itself instead into nothingness. Misery is a dark ambient voyage exploding with considerable disturbances and droning effects. A crawling movement guides us toward ominous moments of silence, ready to be assaulted by obsessive marches. The last track is a remix of Bite The Concrete by experimental artist Oil Thief, who reworks the track into a more experimental take on noise music, full of shrilling effects and compulsive stomping attacks. Rhythmic noise innuendos enrich the palette here used, offering a hypnotizing repetition. But it doesn’t end here: the second half sees a different course dwelling in melancholic synth-lines, before returning to harsher territories.

There are still so many treasures to be discovered out there, but once you find a gem like this you can definitely put the research on hold for a little while and give it a deep listen. Recorded at Fono Roma in 1971, Eroina is a series of haunting improvisations - each one inspired by the effects of a different drug - made of whirling electronic glitches, skronky horns, pounded piano, funky drums and weird tape experiments delivering the best drone/spaced/drugged out free jazz performed by the legendary ensemble of Ennio Morricone, Mario Bertoncini, Egisto Macchi, Battisti D'Amario, Franco Evangelisti and Walter Bianchi. A timeless masterpiece.

The newly founded label Yalanci brings you its first release from the series of deceptive music.

This debuting EP gracefully portrays a universe of atmospheric, bass-driven compositions, conveying a sense of spatial charm in its reverb-drenched sequences. Forming an alliance between dark and beautiful, the sinister vocals that are pronouncing poetry in Azerbaijani language, blend in a percussive conversation with the rustles, chirps and whispers that create a flavorsome sense of both gemlike lucidity and perpetual movement. The pensive hypnotic ambiance of some pieces in this EP is tastefully assembled together with machine-like percussive dynamics of others. This spiritually charged release allures into an exploration of darkness and light, emptiness and fullness; luring you forward but seeming to take you back. You don't know what you don't know.

Omochi’s debut single, Devil is an amorphous urban lysergic bass-pop expulsion. A motorbike ride through late night Tokyo, headlights and neon ooze across wind battered eyeballs. A sudden lurch takes the ramp up to the overpass, revealing the electrified vista. With a dime bag of psychoactive tweaks and bleeps, a foraging bassline - a Billy Cobham on K. Dial-ups cry out to connect, once the signal catches, it's moved out of view, as the organ mourns the hint of dawn on the horizon.

A Happy Moment: percussive spasm, bass once again lurches, unfolding. Omochi’s lyrical push-me-pull-you phased out vocal, the drum machine falls down the stairs, while church organ goes secular, concentrating on the notes outside - mind your pews and Qs.

Omochi, (honorific “O” before mochi - show some fucking respect) in daily parlance is actually a rice cake, a dense glutinous product suited to many recipes, be they sweet or savoury. Stick one under the grill, watch it burst open, wrap it in crisp seaweed and dip it in soya - a healthy snack, and a staple around Japanese New Year. Like everything, Omochi also has its dark side - each year it kills off a small section of the aged community, the gluey bolus a hard act to swallow - the unwary can quickly choke to death.

So maybe Omochi's music is best to sample in small chunks initially? Could be too much for the uninitiated? A 7” might be a safer initial taste of what Omochi is going to do to your brain - there's an album on the way - could be time to stock up on soft furnishings.

Omochi is in fact Tadaki Matsunaga, of early 2000s Tokyo three piece Femini Flyers. The Feminis were Tadaki (bass), Sachie (vocals) and Koji (drums). Their 7” single “Like You See” / “Masterbed” was an early Ethbo release - the most requested track from Japan Blues’ Boiler Room Collections video, since it was first aired, way back in 2014. Since that recording, Tadaki has built, and been working in, his home studio. Devil and Happy Moment are a hint of the album that Omochi has ready. Grill-ready - wanna bite?

Mastered by Kuratani, pressed at the only independent record pressing plant in Japan: Toyo Kasei. Housed in psychoactive sleeve and label artwork by Mishumaro Nakamura.

With airpay support from Ben UFO, On The Wire (BBC),
Do!! You!!! (NTS) and Japan Blues (NTS).

Anoyo ('the world over there') draws from the same sessions with members of Tokyo Gakuso which led to the 2018 work Konoyo, but rendered starker, solemn, and stripped back, with more of a naturalist tint. Hecker's processing here moves in veiled ways, soft refractions and whispered shrouds woven within improvisational sessions of traditional gagaku interplay, evoking a sense of vaulted space, temples at dawn, shredded silk fluttering in the rafters.
This is boldly barren music, skeletal and sculptural, shaped from wood, wind, strings, and mist. Modern yet ancient, delicate and desolate, Anoyo inverts its predecessor to compellingly conjure a parallel world of illusion, solitude, and eternal return.

Control Voltage Project is a long running project of Alper Maral and 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.

The much anticipated debut album by Giant Swan, the brainchild of Robin Stewart & Harry Wright; an acerbic marriage of industrial percussion, abused guitar, hypnotic bass and liberal vocal manipulation.

Having built a formidable reputation for their hi-octane improvised performances, relentless international touring and a succession of acclaimed EPs on respected imprints such as Whities, Timedance and Mannequin. 'Giant Swan', on their own freshly minted Keck label, sees the pair stepping things up significantly.
A full-length musical statement that bristles with the galvanising energy for which they're known while introducing a fresh depth, range and sonic nuance to the equation. File under: techno-not-techno.

Named after a beloved track by screamo overlords the Blood Brothers, Giant Swan was originally conceived as a side project from the duos role as guitarists in the band The Naturals, with formative influences such as My Bloody Valentine and Lightning Bolt being distilled over time with inspiration from the varied and always vibrant local music scene in Bristol.

From dub soundsystem teachings at the Trinity Centre and Black Swan or the fiercely experimental early transmissions of friends in the Young Echo collective. Equally at home setting up their table of machines and pedals in the middle of the dancefloor at legendary clubs like Berghain and Tresor as they are playing the Glastonbury Festival, Supersonic or the Royal Albert Hall, Giant Swan have grown to take their place as one of the most singular and determined groups to emerge from the UK underground in many years.

PAN tout a real beauty with Stine Janvin’s scintillating vocal suite ‘Fake Synthetic Music’ - a transfixing and distinguished demonstration of the voice as a hugely flexible instrument, presented in a range of minimalist yet extreme, probing scenarios providing a radical new perspective on familiar sounds.
Conceived as a full-body physical and ambient live performance for theatres, clubs and galleries, ‘Fake Synthetic Space’ is an intently focussed and singular follow-up to Stine’s previous solo LP ‘In Labour’ Pica Disk, 2014 and her input to last year’s Native Instrument release ‘Camo’ for Shelter Press. Where both of those releases found her vocals combined with field recordings in myriad ways, the Norwegian artist’s latest side is stripped right back to vocals and FX, offering a visceral investigation of her full frequency range with results that explore the deeply uncanny auditory phenomena of otoacoustic emissions in melodic, minimal sequences referencing pop, techno, and trance.
Placed in a broad history of extended vocal investigation ranging from Dadaist poetry to the resonant acoustics of Alvin Lucier, the minimalist abstraction of Steve Reich, and the unearthly sonic spectrum covered by Maja Ratkje, ‘Fake Synthetic Music’ is anchored in the modern day by its use of clinically technoid pulses and repetition, and not least by its ambiguous title, especially in the age of fake news. Through the prism of the voice, Stine both literally and metaphorically reflects contemporary obsessions with authenticity and artifice, using trickery and illusion to strangely reinforce her own sense of self and likewise provide listeners with a life affirming experience.
Between the alien cadence of ‘Mood’, the playfully invasive sounds elicited from Glitch’, and most strikingly in the mesmerising stereo swing of ‘Like Right Now’, Stine presents genuinely shocking rearrangements of her voice quite unlike anything out there right now, and by the time the escalating pitches of ‘Tripple A’ and the whooping avant-jazz-techno of ‘Zen Garden’ have exerted
their effect, it’s becomes patently, piercingly clear that Stine’s sound art operates on a remarkably incisive plane of synaesthetic perception.

It's the third album by drøne for Pomperipossa Records - Anna von Hausswolff's label. drøne is called 'Mark Van Hoen' and 'Mike Harding' - and for 'The Stilling', guest musicians include Charlie Campagna (Player for Cello & double bass), Katt Newlon (Also Cello) & Zachary Paul (Player of Violin). With the trademark drøne sounds of static, radio voices, field recordings, modular synths and found sounds, recording chance sounds right up to the final mix add to the dynamism and energy of the album.

"Drugstore phones" is a double LP from Russian wizard Piper Spray. This enigmatic producer is a hidden gem of Russian electronic underground. The album is taking you on an unexpected trip in many ways - it's hard to define the genre but one can feel the author's willingness to experiment and explore new sounds. This sonic documentary of Piper's world is breathing and constantly changing, though it's the most balanced and mature work of the author. A spectacular opener for GOST ZVUK's gatefold LP series.

Primarily Known As Codex Empire, Mahk Rumbae Slides His Antechamber Project Over To Horo For An Ep Of Crushing, Relentless Stagger-tech.

Following On From His S/t Antechamber Debut For Instruments Of Discipline, Rift Sees The Artists Minimalist Brutality Refined Into An Even More Dominant Language. From The Nightmare Grinds Of Dagger Complex And Rift To The Sinister Rhythm Of Repudiation And The Conjuring Ambience That Emanates From Arch Of Hysteria, The Rift Ep Offers An Intimidating Assemblage Of Doom Laden Sonics. The Limited Vinyl Edition Of This Release Is A 10" Cut Onto A 12" Plate.

Black Truffle announce the release of Le Piano Englouti (The Sunken Piano), the first collaboration between Brunhild Ferrari and Jim O’Rourke, offering up two side-long realisations of Ferrari’s tape compositions recorded in concert at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe in 2014, revised and mixed by O’Rourke in 2019. The title piece weaves an immersive web of electronics, pre-recorded piano, and field-recorded sounds, including the raging Aegean sea, the tranquil atmospherics of a Japanese island, and the roar of a pachinko parlour. Far from a slice of audio vérité, these geographically distant sites intermingle in an unreal space where they often become indistinguishable. Shadowed by electronics and reverberant snatches of piano, the field recordings rise up and recede like ocean waves, creating a constantly shifting texture that is nonetheless warmly inviting. Chirping birds are confused with their electronic doubles; snatches of footsteps and voices are engulfed by ambience of unclear origin. Increasingly present throughout the piece, the piano rises up one last time before being swallowed up for good by the pachinko parlour. Tranquilles Impatiences (Quiet Impatiences) takes as its source material the electronic sounds produced by Luc Ferrari for his 1977 Exercises d’Improvisation, seven tapes intended to be heard alongside instrumental improvisation. Brunhild Ferrari’s piece layers Luc Ferrari’s sounds into a dense new work that emphasises the insistently pulsing rhythms of the source material. In this realisation with O’Rourke, the piece becomes a monumental sound-object, a slowly shifting mass of skittering electronic tones, shimmering reverb, and growling bass from which field-recorded events occasionally arise. At times, the placement of these fragments of real life in a pulsing, insistent musical landscape calls up Luc Ferrari’s classic Petit Symphonie; at other points, the swarming electronics bring to mind O’Rourke's Steamroom work or even the vast expanses of Roland Kayn.

Presented in a deluxe gatefold sleeve with liner notes from Brunhild Ferrari.

Silver Vinyl

Woe are King Midas Sound on ’Solitude’, their crushingly desolate new album, auspiciously cued for a Valentine’s Day release on Shapednoise’s Cosmo Rhythmatic label. A meditation on loss, narrated by Roger Robisnon and produced by Kevin Martin (The Bug), ’Solitude’ sees KMS gut out their sound following the bittersweet shoegaze-dub blooms of their ‘Edition1’ 2015 collaboration with Fennesz, resulting in a starkly noirish elegy to extinguished romance and love in the endtimes

Combining the grown-up, confessional vulnerability of Robinson’s lyrics and dreader-than-dread delivery with the most stripped back arrangements in Kevin Martin’s entire catalogue, the duo drill deep into emotional sufferation with simultaneously suffocating yet somehow beautiful results. Over the course of 12 songs, they glacially limn a coming-to-terms with a loss that has been enforced or unexpected, and ultimately arrive at the starkest conclusions with cinematic effect.

’Solitude’ pushes King Midas Sound’s pessimism to heart-rinsing degrees. Staging Robinson in a series of vantablack scenes veiled by smoky, minimal synth-lighting, the poet processes irrational and incessant feelings of rejection and loneliness. From the aching desolation of ‘You Disappear’ to the unflinching realisations of ‘X’, the ache imparted by Robinson’s lyrics is only amplified by his quiet stoicism, while Kevin Martin finds power in a sense of deferred gratification and his embrace of negative space.

The effect is nothing less than transfixing in the physicality of Robinson’s descriptions and the detached nature of Martin’s sferic electronics on ‘In The Night’, while pangs of lush optimism lend an exquisite contrast to the desiccated riddim and gloom of ‘Alone’, and the sylvan keys in their sensuous reverie, ’Her Body’.

‘Solitude’ is a more than worthy follow-up to King Midas Sound’s two albums for Hyperdub and their collaboration with Fennesz for Ninja Tune. It’s bound to reset what you know about KMS, and become a go-to album for anyone going thru conscious uncoupling, domestic strife, or meditating on love in the age of info overload.

Repress

Five years ago, the expression Russian electronic scene bore a tone of futurology and expectancies rather than a real state of affairs. It was possible to put together musicians of local and genre importance easily in general, but not of significance in national scale. With rise and further development of Gost Zvuk, Russian electronic music achieved power not only as cultural phenomenon within country s borders, but also fully proved to be a thing of international meaning. Starting operations in 2014, the label quickly defined its domains of authority and engagement and created full-bloody community of musicians, where everyone has a special view on his own work and unique sound. The projects presented on this compilation can be rightfully called the contemporary vanguard of Russian and global electronic music.

Each of resonant artists holds his own disparate creative field and impact. However, in this diversity the unity of creation of beauty and ingenuity is born, that distinguishes Russian independent electronica. All compiled tracks perfectly characterize the artists involved, sometimes from extremely striking sides; from HMOT s chaotic improvisations to kedr livansky s ethereal grooves, from unearthly landscapes of Gamayun to undistracted concisions by Ol or Buttechno. Both electric boffinry and club anthems merge into united vision, placed in graceful frame of Rashad Becker s mastering.

Maybe this compilation won t close the question What is the Russian Sound? , which has been arising for more than twenty years. Nevertheless, it is able to give an extensive view on the evolution of Russian electronica in the 2010s.

“A monument to the endless possibilities afforded by an improvisational spirit, but more importantly it highlights Yoshimi and
her band’s tireless and ever-evolving voice.” - Pitchfork “In the seemingly impenetrable, fantastic murkiness of Japanese experimental psych pop, more often than not, Yoshimi has been a beacon.” - FADER (cover story) OOIOO is a name that should be familiar to anyone who’s waded into the world of rock - and so should their leader YoshimiO’s. Percussionist and founding member for the Boredoms and Saicobab and a longtime collaborator of Kim Gordon (of Sonic Youth), Susie Ibarra and Robert Lowe, among others. It’s no surprise that each OOIOO record has been as energizing and enthralling as the last, which might be the most consistent thing about their eight records - each focus on and offer listeners something new. ‘Nijimusi’ was mainly recorded using a conventional rock ensemble of two guitars, bass and drums but often feels more than that, the phrasing and rhythms becoming something new slowly and then all at once. It’s rock but hard to pin down exactly; psychedelic, shimmering distortion, shouts and tight instrumentation giving way to a controlled burn of instrumental breakdowns. Founded in 1995, OOIOO continue to wow. After six years without releasing new music internationally they’ve created a new album that goes back to the roots of being a four-piece band. OOIOO’s members came together as musicians who move freely between the audible and inaudible, rhythm and non-rhythm, noise and silence. ‘Nijimusi’ can be considered music but it is also a work of art that stimulates the sense of touch and smell, while being atmospheric and ethereal at the same time. Pressed on crystal clear vinyl in deluxe gatefold package designed by Qotaroo using artwork by Ooido Syoujou. Also available on CD and black vinyl. LP formats include digital download code.

Polytechnic Youth team up with Morecambe’s Horror Pop Sounds imprint. (A previous collaboration brought the world the wonderful “Tisch Tennis” by XAM Duo in 2017). Both labels are incredibly excited to release - for the first time - and from the vaults of the Polish Radio Experimental Studio: “Smile Eyes And The Children Folk”.

“Usmiechniete Oczy I Dzieci” (Original Polish Title) was briefly aired on Polish TV in the summer of 1983. A bizarre and surreal show aimed at children; it was pulled from transmission after the first series for a variety of understandable reasons. The story told of a small rural community of children (all the adults had vanished inexplicably) who worshiped a mythical figure called ‘Smile Eyes’ residing within a giant mushroom cluster. The children must, at all times, adorn a variety of odd masks which reflect their status within the community. The show is somewhat forgotten now, yet there are a number of (now) adult groups that regularly gather to celebrate this brief curiosity from their youth.

The soundtrack is by little known Polish TV composer Szczepan Buczkowski who, after many years of serving up bland jingles and incidental music for TV, was finally freed to unleash his array of talents, and collection of Soviet built synthesisers to full effect. He composed a woozy soundtrack of early 80’s synth goodness, where moments of beauty and terror burst out of the murk to create a mood of mystery and menace. Buczkowski also utilised the Polish Television’s youth choir, subtlety weaving them into this incredible soundtrack. The disquieting leitmotifs contribute to the truly disturbing effect the show had on young TV audiences.

A fantastical piece of work that has finally been unearthed by the Polish wing of Horror Pop Sounds in their quest to release long forgotten TV and film productions. Previous releases on cassette by the likes of ‘Art of The Memory Palace’ (Voiture Blanche Dans Le Noir) and ‘The Asistent’ (Anja and the memory People) sold out long ago. Together with our comrades at Polytechnic Youth this album will be released on transparent red vinyl with full original artwork from Telewizja Polska design and includes full colour A4 original Polish TV studio print. Restored and mastered by Stephen James Buckley.

... This album is sure to appeal to aficionados of Krystof Komeda, Lubos Fiser, Andrezej Korzynski et al. 300 copies only to the world.

The record sleeve of Dark Loops was injected with carbon powder by the artists. Please be aware of this on purchase and handling of the record and inlays.

Dark Loops is the third instance of Carbon Theater, an ongoing research project by the Institute of Incongruous Translation (Natascha Sadr Haghighian and Ashkan Sepahvand). As the other acts in the series, Dark Loops unfolds from a found site, the abandoned Fort Walem, which was now turned into a bat habitat. The field recordings and synthesised loops on the record further investigate the discrepancies between sensing and knowing and challenge the anthropocentric narratives within current discussions on planetary climate change.

iven Jones’ rather slack approach to track titles (both being consistent with and sometimes even just supplying them), it’s a bit of a relief to realize that two tracks with the same name are indeed related. In the case of “Arab Jerusalem”, which makes up nearly half of the newly-released Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade, that kinship is immediately apparent even though both tracks are clearly their own experiences.

Released as the first track on the Minaret-Spearker picture disc 7” in 1996, “Arab Jeruzalem” (spelling also sometimes being fairly slack) is 5:42 of effectively shifting dark ambience, wordless female vocals drifting over the hand percussion, chimes, and static of the track, with eventual conversational loops discussing... something underneath. The end of that version is especially striking for the way the woman’s wordless singing starts being sampled in such a way that it overlays the whole track (and, slightly, itself). The almost 24-minute “Arab Jerusalem” here might be called the Deer Hunter version of the same story, building with great patience and many more abstract detours towards what now seems like simultaneously an excerpt and, now, a climax. As with many of Jones’ more ambient tracks, the great length just lets it cast its spell more thoroughly and entrancingly.

The other three tracks, meanwhile, suggest some of Jones’ other work but never evoke them as directly as “Arab Jerusalem”. “Jordan River” is nearly as long (a second shy of 20 minutes) but strips out the vocal elements in its predecessor, focusing instead on a more active percussive workout (analogue and digital both) and a river of hiss running down the center of the track. The title track of Lalique Gadaffi Handgrenade might bring to mind the title of “Lalique Gadaffi Jar” from Libya Tour Guide (last reissued by Staalplaat in 2015), but if they’re sonically related Jones must have practically melted the other track to get this one. And the closing “Desert Gulag” (like the title track, a much more manageable length than the first two epic tracks here) bears a slight resemblance to “Negev Gulag” from 1996’s Fatah Guerrilla, here what was a piercing, repetitive drone is softened and looped over more of Jones’ percussion. The result is a well-rounded release that shows off many aspects of Jones’ sound as Muslimgauze, while existing (like many of these DAT tapes do) in conversation with much of his previously released work.

'Moira', the new album by Monolithe Noir opens it's doors to the voices of a few fellow artists who can easily be described as "peers" - 'ROZI PLAIN' on the spellbinding 'Blinded Folded'.
'PETER BRODERICK' on the intimate 'By Twos' and Belgian Elsie dx on the haunting 'Valslava' - who are fuelled by the same drive not to settle for a single colour or tone.

Unpredictable by nature, surprising by choice, Monolithe Noir's music escapes all the over-used adjectives that divide our record collections but cheerfully digs into clearly distinct repertoires: from prog to ambient segueing into electronica and folk with a dip into the hidden gems of the Italian music library.

... It never hides behind a screen of fake complexity, clearly it speaks straight to us! Hope, you enjoy.

Since 2000 Mapstation has been the moniker for the solo work of TAL Label founder Stefan Schneider. Schneider has won international acclaim as a founding member of KREIDLER and to rococo rot as well as through unique collaborational works with artists such as Joachim Roedelius (Cluster/Harmonia), Bill Wells, Katharina Grosse, Dieter Moebius (Cluster/Harmonia) Sofia Jernberg or Jochen Irmler (Faust). There has not been a new Mapstation release since 2009's THE AFRICA CHAMBER which had former FELA KUTI member NICHOLAS ADDO-NETTEY on percussion.

The new album PRESENT UNMETRICS, is not entirely a stand-alone creation either. There are guest appearances by THOMAS KLEIN (KREIDLER) on percussion, MICHAEL ACHER (THE NOTWIST) on Sousaphone and an outstanding vocal contribution from japanese singer HACO, all deeply woven into the digital topographics of the music.

PRESENT UNMETRICS offers a collection of radically subtle music. The guiding principle of the album was to construct direct and nuanced tracks which embody a sense of open-ended incompleteness and heterogenous dynamics.

Out of sync bass arpeggios, infused with uneven rythms, fractured synth stabs and intimate melodies, frequently created here with a Schlumberg sine wave generator, are continuously engage with experimentation, both on sound and structure.

Expertly pieced-together and produced in timeless fashio, PRESENT UNMETRICS displays all the coherence and artistic authority of an album on a constant quest so vital to the music of Mapstation. An album that couldn't have been made by any other than Mapstation.

3x12"

The SENTINEL LP represents the manifesto of one part of the spectrum of MethLab's club-oriented sound. Featuring a cross section of our forward-thinking artists and special guests and illustrating a dynamic set of sonic aesthetics to usher in a new era of diverse music and an open-minded approach to the dancefloor. Expect searing audio that resides on the very cutting edge of bass music.

“The third part of our "Ode To The Soundsystem" is here and the abstract sound of the last Ossia album is no longer evident. The influence of the early Disciples 12"s shows up for the first time, with a Drexciyan connection happening on the b-side, creating one of the most lethal and militant 12"s that we have ever released. Ossia is back on Berceuse Heroique and we are very happy about it.”

Clear Vinyl.

Raime explore exquisitely honed rhythmic instincts with scintillating results on the 2nd release on their RR label.

Where the London duo’s 2018 EP and RR debut ‘We Can’t Be That Far From The Beginning’ evoked a meditative mood from the info overload of their home city that left acres of space to the
imagination, the ‘Planted’ EP rejoins the dance with four tracks that icily acknowledge strong influence from Latin American and Chicago footwork styles in a classically skooled mutation of hardcore British dance music.

In four fleetingly ambiguous dancefloor workouts they carry on a conceptual theme exploring the digital subconscious with persistently invasive, alien ambient shrapnel - half-heard voices, aleatoric prangs, and tag-covered signposts - woven into and thru their tightly coiled and reflexive drum programming.

UPTOWN, ’Num’ flexes tendons and hips like a Leonce riddim that danced all the way from NOLA and ATL to the wintery dawn of a LDN warehouse, while the lip-biting tension of minimalist 160bpm jungle/ footwork patterns and jibber-jawed vocals in ‘Ripli’ suggests the Alien film’s protagonist lost in a mazy rave space, chased by H.R. Giger-designed face huggers (or gurning energy vampires).
DOWNTOWN, ‘Kella’ then catches them on a grimy dubtech bounce, cocked back and straining at the harness, before ‘Belly’ shuts down the dance with invasive, demonic motifs exploding over dark blue chords and palpitating jungle subs with impeccable darkside style.

2x12"

Karl O’Connor (Regis) rallies the Downwards troops for the odd family portrait of ‘Let Love Decide’, including the first new Concrete Fence collab between Regis and Haswell since that killer PAN hookup, plus all new and exclusive tracks by label staples Mick Harris, Nick Dunton, Simon Shreeve, DVA Damas and Karl Meier, plus Rachel Aiello’s Layne, and Khrone/Mjolsness (Male) and various appearances by Regis himself in different formations.
Cutting across the face of the label, ‘Let Love Decide Pt.1’ is the first part of Downwards’ contemporary portrait series aligning veteran hands with the new class of mutant industrial disciples. The nine tracks include a strong clutch of exclusive projects such as the EBM supergroup You Hung - a quartet of Nick Dunton (vocals), Jim Siegel (drums), Simon Shreeve (Live mix and Studio), and Karl O’Connor (synth) - and Karl & Ken Meier’s “ambient” alias Obelus, cued up beside previously unheard Fret gear by Mick Harris and a Cub collab between Karl O’Connor and Simon Shreeve, to highlight the label’s strength in diversity and shared purpose.
Naturally, the label kingpin Karl O’Connor is a constant throughout the compilation, a connective ligature that ties the slurred slow techno of Cub’s ‘Teenage Fists’ to the live band EBM praxis of You Hung, where O’Connor’s synth underlines Krishna Goineau-styled vox by Nick Dunton (65D Mavericks) and the gnashing drums of Jim Siegel (Raspberry Bulbs), as well as the welcome reappearance of his Concrete Fence duo with Russell Haswell in a sharp cut of pranging industrial funk that sounds like vintage Autechre, chopped and skewed.
Following his turn in Cub, Simon Shreeve also weighs in his powerful studio pressure on the soggy, gothic lurch of ‘The Space Between Cultures’, while Mick Harris ramps the distortion on a ravenous Fret cut ‘Helicopter Rig’. The rest is essentially a showcase of the label’s American ambassadors,
taking in the scuffed modular dub brawl of ’Scale Reference’ by Karl & Ken Meier’s Obelus beside Layne’s blank-eyed swagger, and a stark shot in the ambient unknown by Jonathan Khrone & Benjamin Mjolsness (aka Male), while L.A.’s DVA Damas stretch out across the D-side on a stripe of sexy darkwave-techno rolige.

Nach knapp 5 Jahren Funkstille meldet sich Squarepusher mit dem Teaser "Vortrack" aus seinem kommenden Album "Be Up A Hello" (Januar 2020) zurück, aufgenommen mit der gleichen, analogen Technik, mit der er in den frühen 1990ern seinen unverwechselbaren Breakbeat-Sound entwickelt hatte. "Vortrack" zeigt Squarepusher von seiner darkeren und härteren Seite, den Fractures Remix dann zu einer D&B-Granate perfektioniert.

Yes, at last! Kinky keyboard porn! Whisper porn! Vinyl Porn! And all at the same time.! And what an ASMR treat we have for you here.
Recordings of 12 incredible bespoke mechanical keyboards made and recorded by the master of this modern art, Taeha Types. Yes, this is actual typing sounds on amazing future/retro/cutting edge keyboards. Every track different. Every keyboard different. Listen and weep - Or sleep - Or something ... An INCREDIBLE & UNIQUE listening experience. The first mechanical keyboard album EVER !!!

For the last few years a small scene has been growing. The mechanical keyboard scene. It’s now quite a big scene actually.
It makes total sense as most of us use keyboards everyday, so why not have an amazing keyboard to use instead of the total crap one you have. I mean just look down. It’s shit isn’t it. So, some people worked out that things could be improved - A lot. - So they started to make incredible, kinky keyboards, using both old and new tech: and the possibilities and options in construction are endless.

There are key cap options (GMK ABS, PBT etc etc), spring options (Cherry MX, Pandas, Alps etc etc) and even backplate options (steel, aluminum, copper etc etc), and of course case options too. And all these options make a big or little difference. And once made these keyboards are carefully lubricated spring by spring to give them that little extra smoothness and “ping”.

The results are beautiful, fetishistic, futuristic in an odd retro style, and they sound AMAZING when they are typed on. This is classic ASMR / whisper porn, the gentle click and rattle of carefully lubed springy keyboards make the hairs on the back of your neck rise. Either that or they gently woo you into a peaceful, sublime state. This is a classic and groundbreaking new Trunk album for our modern stressful times.

The recordings on this album are the first ever release of mechanical keyboard sounds. They are from a selection of (enhanced) keyboards from the 80s, 90s and now. They were recorded by the master maker of the modern mechanical keyboard, Nathan from Taeha Types.
He has a large following on Instagram, YouTube (videos of his hands typing on his keyboards hit 10K in just a couple of days after upload), and he now has over half a million views on his Twitch channel where he constructs keyboards live.

Sleevenotes on the album have been put together by Jonny Trunk and Stu London (AKA Futurecrime) from the London mechanical Keyboard scene. He knows what the fuck he is talking about. And you might not understand it, but you can catch up real quick - like I did.

- Album mastered by Jon Brooks, who also really understand these
sounds. And if you don’t, don’t worry - lots of others will.

'Oval' marks Konrad Kraft's third release on the German label 'aufaabwegen/Cologne', and is his second release in his current series. Clear textures, wobbling rhythm structures and unexpected melodic particles develop into unusual soundscapes. Blurred and foggy layers give way to clear musical accents.During the recording of the album, KK used mangled and destroyed field recordings, only two software synths and a modular synthesizer. Making use of his favorite modules, he merged the two worlds of sound design, digital and analogue. The result makes interesting listening.

Over the past few years, Palms Trax has cemented his place on the Dekmantel roster and become one of the family. His upbeat attitude and knack for selection have made Jay Donaldson one of the scene's most in-demand and warmly regarded selectors. Combining rare, globally-sourced finds with exuberant house anthems, his annual sets at Dekmantel Festival have showed a nearly unmatched capacity for filling floors and creating grooves. Now, the UK producer puts his talents to work on To Paradise, tapping classic Italo, wave and Balearic house for an EP that has summertime written all over it.

Title track "To Paradise" kicks things off with an infectious, melodic chorus that spirals into a pulsing rhythm. It's full of those 'hand-in-the-air' type moments, and topped with blissful vibes. "Love In Space" follows with a throbbing bassline melded with rich atmospheres. It's more Adriatic than Balearic, careening with an anthemic affection and destined for festival season. "Heron" veers away from the Italo vibes and standard structures that hold regular dance tracks together. A departure into more experimental electronics, the dynamics are controlled through rhythms and the synthesised melodies create forlorn narratives across machine-driven sequences. It's a dynamic finish to this considered and perfectly timed trio of offerings.

"Drugstore phones" is a double LP from Russian wizard Piper Spray. This enigmatic producer is a hidden gem of Russian electronic underground. The album is taking you on an unexpected trip in many ways - it's hard to define the genre but one can feel the author's willingness to experiment and explore new sounds. This sonic documentary of Piper's world is breathing and constantly changing, though it's the most balanced and mature work of the author. A spectacular opener for GOST ZVUK's gatefold LP series.

'Matita Emostatica' is the re-issue of a sought after compilation connecting the most underrated outsider artists of the Milan scene, in the early eighties. The amazing artwork is the creation of influential designer and photographer Roberto Masotti, a very well known figure in the avantgarde and jazz realm (he made astonishing portraits for the likes of Anthony Braxton, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, Carla Bley, etc.)

The compilation was produced in 1981 by Al Aprile and released by Materiali Sonori. Among the 10 artists you can find future journalists, unstoppable record collectors, renowned photographers and influential underground persona ... just scroll down the album and read the names of Monofonic Orchestra, Angelo Vaggi, Baker Street Band, Al Aprile, Roberto Masotti and many others. The result was quite unbelievable, ranging from small cosmic opus to avantgarde symphonies and asymmetrical etno-world jams. In the end ‘Matita Emostatica’ was quite in line with the efforts coming from the rest of Europe and the other side of the ocean, so to speak the compilation wouldn’t be out of place in the Ralph or Crammed Discs catalogue. A postcard from a country that is no more.

The title of Magda Drozd’s debut album, Songs for Plants, goes beyond the invocation of an unusual implied audience and indicates her desire to challenge conventional listening experiences.
Plants have been central to the writing-process of the eleven-song LP by the musician, artist, performer, and curator. Drozd’s sound palette includes synthesizers, field recordings, a violin, guitar, her own voice, and recordings of cacti, the latter of which were made using the latest recording technology that allowed Drozd to render audible the sound of the prickly pear for example.
In this way, Drozd raises questions about authorship while she also shows up the absurdity of the relentless pursuit of new sonic sources in contemporary experimental music.
All this leaves Drozd with a highly poetic album located somewhere between experimental electronics, ambient, off-pop, and dub techno. Tender and abrasive at times, she manages to combine the melancholic, critical, hopeful, and distanced - as if Grouper, Jan Jelinek, The Space Lady, and Hierglyphic Being got together to re-record Alec Empire’s Low on Ice.