Beats News

Kapitan is Dori Sadovnik, half of the groundbreaking dancefloor-scorching duo Red Axes.

In his debut solo LP Alaska, Kapitan takes us on a journey into the deepest realms of his inner psyche. Through his modular synth experimentations, his analogue approach for synthesis and organic instruments he created an lp that is both personal and outgoing, fresh and nostalgic at the same time.

Weaving samples from his non-stop traveling schedule as half of one of todays top dance acts, playing guitars, drum machines and synthesizers, the album feels contem- porary and timeless, like it could have been written at anytime in the past 30 years and still feel relevant than ever, echoing Mort Garcon’s modular experimentations as well as early Air music.

23 minute drone piece. Another stunning extraction from the REX ILLUSIVII archive.
Previously Unreleased. 1 sided with embossed insert. Very limited. Essential.

First time on vinyl! Official bonus 12 inch with songs from "Temple of Glendor", originally released on Tape via Plaque from Bristol + 2 New Bonus cuts!! Only 100 copies! "A series of twisted stairwells, fly dungeons and mossy, dimly lit passages. Help our hero navigate into the lower echelons of Glendor's claggy labyrinth and unlock the real secret behind it's master's evil ways. Potions can revive dead party members, consulting occult spaeman can unlock bonus levels. Destroy all the master's treasure chests and collect the keys to emancipate his disfigured servants from their opiated haze and assist with the struggle deeper into shadowy purple chambers. For this journey expect fragmented visuals with ever-tessellating rib vaults, turnt-up combat mechanics with challenging boss battles for a cerebral quest seeped in dread and unease."

Welcome to another chrome-plated Arcola curveball, this time in the form of a trio of the moodiest cyber steppers from the shadowy LEVL.

Somewhere in an AI ether, faded pirate radio transmissions merged with drowsy half-memories of Metal Gear Solid and gained sentience. The results are subtle yet sublime, a masterful combination of percussion and atmosphere to get truly lost within.

These three shots of cave-dwelling soundsystem mutation are as evocative as they are insular and in the midst of these uncertain days you may just find you need them in your life.

Dread technicians Pact Infernal debut on their own Altar Label with 4 all new haunted constructions

Soft Machine is a surreal wander through the mystical sonic forest. A vision curated and designed by Chicago native Justin Aulis Long. A Cyclopian point of view while gazing through a wide lensed scope, which exists in the liminal spaces where light meets dark and angelic forces bath in the sludge and stardust of unfiltered eroticism.

Eye of the Minotaur - collage 001 is a collection of artists working in varying musical practices that are channeling the solitude of mutantness, strolling through the familiar yet unfamiliar halls of the uncanny, refusing ordinary structures of the mundane, grasping the cold humor of cynicism, basking in the dichotomy of cosmos and chaos, and invoking the energies of Eris and Eros.

Setting the ground is Ciarra Black, a Berlin based New Yorker who makes no apologies for her bare knuckled soundscapes. DuPont Street is a ritualistic unification of discordant entities that summons visions of Pazuzu (lord of the demons) and Inanna (goddess of love) fornicating beneath The Tree of Life. Razor edged synthesizers slice through the atmosphere with the precision of an avenging angel’s flaming sword, while a psychedelic drum code activates ritual movement of the body.

As the needle passes beyond the next threshold it is met by a towering totem, bristling with the illuminated light of the sonic astral plane. Erected from the foundational matter that birthed the Detroit electro punk sound, Eyes Up continues to add to the narrative that is drenched in deranged electronics intuitively mangled in a post punk tradition. Dystopian percussive rhythms generate an unorthodox domain where muffled utterances present an aural Rorschach test. Could this be the riddle of the Sphinx, or an ancient spectral being that possesses secret knowledge? Only its creator, Stallone the Reducer, holds the key.

Fixed at the axis of the journey, Perfect Headache Forever, a mystic operating within the DIY spaces of Chicago, levitates on a transcendental mass that is equally melancholic and optimistic. Her voice hosts a strength equal to a pantheon of titans. Armed with a magical electronic musical box, she weaves narratives that are prophetic. Itself Ecstatic is a voyage through a misty soundscape that begins at one point, but ends in a distant other, in accordance with a system of divination.

Gazing into the murky waters of the oracle’s cauldron, Circling Vultures, (a collaborative effort by Justin Aulis Long and Kenneth Zawacki) channel and evoke the spirits of Antonin Artaud and Geroges Bataille. The poet’s voice, engaged in an act of mutilation and self cannibalization, howls while projecting visions of sacred conspiracies, sensations of vertigo while peaking over the edge of the abyss, and the looming weight acquired from the solitude of the Minotaur alone, sitting silently at the center of the labyrinth. Accompanying the mystical bard’s verbal declaration is a triggered mechanized synth that roars with the vitality of Cold War era Wave music, which is then juxtaposed against applications of loose keyboard playing. The artist’s hand is revealed against the calculated actions of machines.

Bringing the document to its finale, Libby Del Barrio, a multi disciplinary artist based in San Antonio, performs a closing ritual in a manner that only she knows. Setting fire to the Elysium Fields while personified as Moze Pray, Del Barrio rejects plastic narratives that aim to pacify. No Tears, is an unapologetic account of life’s feedback loop around the Wheel of Fortune. Sacrificial actions through ceremonial performance reveals a gateway founded on truth and torment. Moze Pray’s ability to combine musical production, poetic vocalization and ritualistic body performance is charged by chaos and amalgamates into a product of pure expression that defies the rose colored filters aiming to conceal harsh realities.

Athens based composer Akis Daoutis (Akis) remixed by Tolouse Low Trax, Bartosz Kruczyński, Benoit B and K100 Signal.

For Russian electronic music, Mikhail Chekalin is not only a major character, who has affected the scene's establishment and development, but also a kind of symbolic figure. His music has been praised by many in the West - from journalists and critics of all kinds to Frank Zappa and Karlheinz Stockhausen, while in Moscow Chekalin's name was excluded from the official cultural agenda for a long time: he was accused of propaganda of foreign 'pro-Western' aesthetics and up until the end of the 80's wasn't allowed to release his works or travel abroad. This, however, didn't interfere with him recording dozens of innovative electronic compositions and contributing greatly to the development of unofficial Soviet art in general - for example, providing sound design for the famous exhibitions of 'Twenty Moscow Artists' on Malaya Gruzinskaya or arranging the first audiovisual performances on a specially constructed 'light organ'.

However, just like all great artists, Mikhail himself prefers to focus not on personal achievements, but on creativity. 'I don't have a biography - only a discography' - this quote of the author may become an entry point of sorts into the compilation presented. This archival collection of works recorded within the period from 1978 to 1987 are Chekalin's multigenre experiments ranging from spatial music (in essence, ambient's precursor) to more contemporary synthesizer and post-symphonic compositions.

Contemporary genius James Ferraro pushes his hybrid style to beautiful effect with a 62 minute
opus striking an elegiac nerve of brilliantly slippery soundtrack music that short circuits the
difference between Philip Glass’ music for ‘Koyaanisqatsi’, the kind of schlocky tones you might
expect on a Graham Hancock video about ancient civilisations and some Hans Zimmer score for a
wide-eyed Spielberg epic, as if re-imagined by 0PN and Kara-Lis Coverdale.
The piece breaks down into 11 parts, conducting a spellbinding traverse from the primal,
metallic noise and buoyant chorale of ‘Embryo’ to the bittersweet curdle of ’Xerces Blau’, taking
in spectacular FM synthesis sound designs with the transitions between ‘Omega Generation’
and ‘Cyber Seed’ or the perceptive depth to ‘Recycled Sky that show off an enhanced grasp of
production nous, all while still allowing for that Mona Lisa smirk to his sound with the title and
EDM nods in ‘Malign Blossom’.
As ever with Ferraro, though, not all is quite what it seems. He somehow manages to highlight an
ambiguity between the objective reality and its mediated, subjective reflection, with a music that
speaks to the impending, heightening drama of the situation, but also the saccharine melodrama
of weepy emoji-adorned social media statuses (#Attenborough) and the well-meaning but
ultimately piecemeal measures taken to avoid the inevitable

The subversive electronics duo is back at it again for the sixth release on Planet Euphorique. Ambien Baby brings you another slab of total sonic disorientation, the good kind; the one that invites you to dance, but also questions the stifling boundaries of genre within electronic music. Dreaming up a sound that welcomes confusion and experimentation over the tried and true. Here we have a spectrum of colour and vibes; electro, experimentalism, and primal sensibilities mash and clash in an odd harmony that begs the question, where are we now

Electronic Experimanetal, House, Techno
Live recorded to a Tascam 134 tape deck at the ICIF Studio in Lichtenberg Berlin 2018.
Design and hand printed covers by the Erik Jaahalli. Stamped and numberd label. Limited 303 copies.
Mastered by Emanuel Lauria for In City And In Forest.

Somnia ne cures, nam mens humana quod optat, dum vigilat sperat, per somnum credit id ipsum.

In his first anthological compilation, No Way Records chooses to focus attention on electronic music where the rhythm is almost absent and the sound is perpetually suspended and liquid. A selection of ten tracks for ten artists who explore ambient music in its different identities and contaminations. "Haunting Memories" opens with the rarefied and evocative ambient of NFEREE and Fonemi, going through the industrial echoes of La Pièce & CHSTRL, the analogical sequences of Paul André, the "artificial intelligence" of Wayne Duggan, the science fiction territories of Baransu and Main Leaf, the electro of Sicarius Hahni and Kryss Hypnowave. The collection closes with a leap in the heart of the parallel universe of Falkke. Music for the fourth dimension.

Format draws from its Latin origin: "formatus", meaning "to be formed". Over two years, Germany's Max Wureden produced a variety of tracks using completely different approaches. It wasn't until they were placed together in unison that the strengths from the variety of productions came together. Max's studio recordings lined up alongside live performances; field recordings of foot-steps and sounds from deep forests amongst broken leaves and custom synthesizers; processed guitar-loops weave amongst soaring ambient pads and energetic driving analog pulses segue classic 90's ambient depicting the very furthest reaches of space. Max's abstract impressions were weaved together and Format was born. The result captures the very best of Max's multi-disciplinary techniques we've come to admire throughout his many productions and collaborations over the years with the likes of Thore Pfeiffer and his releases on Kompakt's Pop Ambient series.

*Third vinyl release from the Berlin based Jazz-O-Tech Records.

Jazz-O-Tech introduces Black Gardenia Vol.1 composed by Berlin-based duo BEAT MOVEMENT.
The duo presents an unusual, psychedelic and moving techno jazz EP in collaboration with techno pioneer Sunil Sharpe, Italian saxophonist and composer Gianni Mimmo and the jazz quartet Gamapawa.
Black Gardenia is a mesmerizing aesthetic sound experience, taking the listener on abstract journeys and into cinematic sceneries. The title track "Silent Rain" opens the A-side with a soft and emotional fusion of drones and saxophone, followed by the sovereign and psychedelic slow groove of the track "Aphex Twin shot my neck". The B-side is a dancefloor killer combination between Sunil Sharpe's intelligent techno remix of “Silent Rain” and Gamapawa's featuring track "Untitled Reconstruction", where drums and saxophone reach the speed of 150 bpm.
Black Gardenia will be distributed worldwide in 300 limited edition copies.

Analogue Attic continues to draw from the fresh stream of talent running out of Australia, this time with Jack Burton, a composition student from the prestigious Victorian College of the Arts.
His debut LP 'Lake Monger' was composed across two cities over a period of a year, and features contemplative synths, techno and experimental influences.

The record climaxes in the three-part, 12 minute title track that swells in energy and intensity, drawing influence from ambient masterpieces of the 90's with modern day production, demonstrating impressive compositional maturity.

No stranger to records that side-step club conventions, Banlieue’s latest release truly stands out from the rest of its catalogue.

Altkat is a Turkish-Armenian musician born in the late 40s and active since the 60s when he first started experimenting with an Anatolian saz, a two track tape recorder, and a fluegelhorn. Today, the saz is still there, the bugle is gone and the tape recorder has turned into a computer. Altkat, who spends most of his time working as a percussionist for sephardic and balkanic bands, is above all interested in the transformation of noise into music and does not shy away from using synthesizers and drum machines, along with his saz, to create his music.

Emerging artists rarely exceed listeners’ expectations with a complete album right out of the box, but Deena Abdelwahed is the exception that proves the rule. While the young artist of Tunisian origin stood out with her daring DJ sets, it is her surprising first album, "Khonnar", released at the end of 2018 on InFiné which sealed her status of eclectic producer, guaranteeing her a place among the best releases of the year by Resident Advisor, Trax, Tsugi, The Quietus and Vinyl Factory. Khonnar remixes compiles a series of remixes in 12”, inspired by the unique atmosphere of Deena Abdelwahed's first album, while extending it across the entire spectrum of electronic, club and experimental music.

Italian club culture pioneer Beppe Loda, has played more parties and mixed more genres than Jesus (according to Vice Magazine) and his contribution to dance music cannot be underestimated (thanks DJ Harvey). He refined his unique sound and skills, during his long residency at the mythical Typhoon club in Italy from 1980-1987, hypnotising thousands of dancers every week and recording some of the greatest mixtapes ever made (thanks Vice Magazine again!).

New Berlin Based label Protofuture, with its “Typhoon Tapes” series, decided to bring back to life, some of this these mixtapes. probably Focussing on the lesser-known and not non on Youtube'd (yet) between tapes from more than 200 available that were recorded, with the goal being to expose showcase them as, what we consider to be, an important reference heritage, for the present and the future generations of deejays, diggers and music lovers.

“The Experimental Music Program 01/94 was recorded around may '94 at the Sound Music Room club in the north of Italy. Which was the club opened by the same owner of Typhoon, after the that legendary club closed in 1987. It is a very little-known or heard tape, a mix of space rock, trip-hop, break beats and trance, that didn’t see the light, except for less then 100 copies dealt passed between a small circle of clubbers in the north of Italy at the time.”

**We have dug the original covers from 1994 and all the original stamps from the Typhoon era, also a good dose splash of leftover ink, that has been used to stamp all the tapes, from the 80’s till until this release. **So that means that it comes with the original cassette cover from 1994, hand-stamped using the original stamp and the ink from the Typhoon era.......authentic!

* Belia Winnewisser is returning to Präsens Editionen with Radikale Akzeptanz. The record is her debut album as a solo artist and it marks her second release on 'the curious label arm of Lucerne's zweikommasieben magazine.'

* Radikale Akzeptanz, a furious amalgamation of (synth-)pop references and more abstract sounds, combines long running traits from Winnewisser's practice in various band projects with rather new interests from her studies in sound art. Thus, bittersweet off-pop-hymns with bubble-y melodies can be found next to austere examinations. Add a good amount of time spent in clubs and you get a Skull Disco-esque banger at the end of this gutsy album.
The title Radikale Akzeptanz—or radical acceptance—stems from a concept in evidence-based psychotherapy. Even more than the concept as such that is about accepting uncompromisingly your situation, however, it is the expression's mere sound that is of interest to Winnewisser. Homey and adventurous, gentle and challenging, at ease with itself and full of tension(s).

Edition of 300copies, artwork (incl. booklet) by Vinzenz Meyner.

Quotes:
'Interesting stuff! It has a surprising bit of post-rock language in it to my ears, just executed with electronics.' - Byron Westbrook (Hands In The Dark, Umor Rex)
'A pleasant listen! Especially 'III,' 'Trapped In My Mind,' 'The View' and 'Albasty.' Also, found that the idea behind the title is weighty to the extent it can be related to relevant issues of today's ways of interaction!' - Arcagelo de Castris (Macao, Dance Affliction)
'Sounds like John T Gast, Caterina Barbieri and Klara Lewis making tunes on a space ship!' - James Marrs of Laura Lies In
'This is really good.' - Hypermedium's Timos Alexandropoulos 

Press / Promotion*Airplays on NTS Radio by Flora Yin-Wong, Hypermedium and more, airplay on Radio Raheem by Arcagelo, feature on Noods RadioVarious (release) events upcoming, incl. a show at London's Café Oto, an exhibition in Lucerne and gigs next to Lorenzo Senni, Puce Mary and more.
Premiere of 'WAHDWTH' on Bizaarbazaar.PE / zweikommasieben mailing list = 2000 subscribers

Social NetworkingPräsens Editionen - Facebook = 550 likes / Insta = 500 / Spotify = 350 subscriberszweikommasieben - Facebook = 5200 likes / Insta = 2000 / Twitter: = 680 followers

We all know that when it's a real vibe you can't go wrong. If you add talent and hearth to that you got gunpowder for pure bangers. And that's exactly what we at Hoga Nord Rekord wanted to accomplish with the sixth release of our UK 12inch series. Consequently we contacted Jo Howard from Sunderland in the North East of England.

As a producer and DJ he uses the alias Bird of Paradise. Smoking Weekend is the name of the four track EP. BoP came to prominence via his output on labels such as Jennifer Cardin's Correspondant imprint and New Yorks Throne of Blood. His debut e.p on the former reached number one in the Juno download techno charts in December 2015. As a DJ, he has honed his skills both at his own parties Cubik and Body Talk. As well as being a resident at Man Powers 'Tourist Parties' wich have afforded him the opportunity to play alongside Todd Terje, John Talabot, Daniel Avery and Ivan Smagghe.

Jo is raised on a steady diet of punk/post punk, and learning to play instrumentation from an early age defines why Jo's way of arranging music and his eclectic taste is different to his peers. Something that fits Hoga Nord more than hand in gloves. We prefer to ride it like bareback pirates as you should know by now.

The Smoking Holiday EP opens with Tito. The spooky oblique intro will soon start to roll deep into a dark cadenced haunting and whispering tune that will twist, trance and tribal your mind back to the early 90s mornings. On a loving, yet a bit dark and grimey, dance floor in- or outdoors. Second track Joy-Rides will lug your brains and fizzle your feet with its eclectic format. Ambient mixed up with rhythmic techno and bleep - a good appetizer of Bird of Paradises DJ-sets. B-side chugs on with the title track and ends with a electro tune that sends funky fresh flirtations to Andrew Weatheralls and Keith Tenniswoods project Two Lone Swordsmen. Bird of Paradise: It's authentic, can't go wrong!

Glorious new Floris Vanhoof LP co-released with Kraak. Comes with 24 page colour photo book.
. Modern experimental Belgian brilliance by this ever exciting artist. Do Not Sleep! 220 copies only. BIG TIP !

"This music and these pictures are made out of curiosity about how multiple images overlap on film
and how waves that arise in tiny electronic circuits translate to the outside world.
2 side long pieces and a selection of 24 slides printed on a lush 30 by 30 cm format give an
alternative for popular myths “our memory is a tape recorder” and “the exact photographic
memory”. When we take time to listen inside own heads, what appears might be closer to the
double exposed images and swirling tape manipulations then we imagine.

Whooshing echoes out of homemade musical circuits and acoustic recordings processed through
configuration of tape recorders and filters mix the same way as the colors in the layered images.

The title is comes from the book 'The Pattern on the Stone' by inventor W. Daniel Hillis. The word
'computer' usually refers to an electronic digital device. The book tells about the existence of
computers where water flows instead of electrons. This 'fluid computer' serves as a source of
inspiration for deconstructing the ubiquitous algorithmic machine, and for new technologies to be
revived through untracked sidetracks."

Nach zahlreichen Releases auf Ninja Tune, Anticon oder Planet Mu erscheint das dritte Studioalbum des britischen Electronic-Produzenten Greg Feldwick aka Slugabed auf seinem eigenen Imprint Activia Benz und trägt den rekordverdächtigen Titel: "Any Attempt To Control The Environment Or The Self By Means Which Are Either Untested Or Untestable, Such As Charms Or Spells".

Last year, after his mind-warping gig at Cafe OTO, we presented the new world of Yximalloo, and his label Sakura Wrechords, from Tokyo.

Yximalloo's (Naofumi Ishimaru) long and varied career in music covers a period as manager of Yellow Magic Orchestra back in the day, when he also started producing his own music on cassette. Later branching out into CDrs, his discography is voluminous. Sometimes collaborating with Momus, Jad Fair (Half Japanese), Sympathy Nervous (Vanity Records) and others, he has quietly put out over 70 releases, all with his undefinable catalogue of styles.

An unknown track of his was released in 2013 by Kompakt, as "Wanted". An unknown artist - they had lost the details of the CD he'd sent them - they were compelled to release it anyway. It was the only vinyl release of Yximalloo's until "Best Of". Now he returns with a second volume.

Culled from just a few points in his prolific career, this release has hints of early Residents, Hosono's jerky formative sample projects and deep- in-the-woods Texas Chainsaw Massacre vocals - just a few more glimpses of Yximalloo's dimensions. Shipping in two weeks.

‘Tribes 1.1’ by Weird Dust is the third release on Brussels-based label and vinyl purveyor Crevette Records. The six tracks reflect an eclectic taste in hardware, melding organic and heavily processed sounds into a sort of musical retro-futurism. The percussion distinguishes itself, simultaneously free-form and mathematical, and certain to make you dance. Up close, ‘Tribes’ gestures at something alien, like going back to the jungle, but on another planet. This is what the future was like; notice the weird dust all around you.

PAN welcomes back the Lifted ensemble for a second cross-continental adventure off the grid,
simply titled Lifted 2. It expands on the expression of improvised fusion that brought about the
spectrum of styles explored on their 2015 debut album for PAN.
Lifted is now a core group of Future Times boss Max D, Matt Papich aka Co La, Jeremy Hyman and
Motion Graphics., alongside Jordan GCZ, Dawit Eklund, Will DiMaggio, Beatrice Dillon and Bass Clef
“On this record we went a lot deeper into our kind of studio technique,” Lifted say. “We tried to
cultivate the sound using the studio as a primary tool, almost a member of the group in a way.”
Max D’s international crew of Future Timers play deft roles throughout Lifted 2. Jordan GCZ
and Dawit Eklund both return for ‘Lifting’ alongside 1432r’s Sami, NYC’s Will DiMaggio and Sao
Paulo’s Repetentes 2008. Beatrice Dillon and Bass Clef, two highly-decorated artists from the UK
underground, make telling contributions which mark the latest in a long line of celebrated creative
collaborations for the pair. Further input comes via Aya, vocalist and bassist for crucial Japanese
experimentalists OOIOO, and Martin Kasey, a friend of Papich with a background in Baltimore
theatre, summoned for Lifted duty to provide some striking saxophone blasts.
How do all these collaborations manifest on Lifted 2? It’s a sort of inverse process full of blind
takes with the results more bruised than polished. “The song stays fluid until the end. We pile the
ideas really high and then decimate them,” Lifted say. “We delete until the songs are crystallizing;
lay a grid of silences to organize the tracks. The breathing spaces become definitive.” These seven
tracks adroitly weave through mood and vibe, demanding heads lock in with an initial blast of
whip sharp percussive hits and contemporary no-wave blowouts before letting off steam with
soothing ambient synthesis. “Black Pepper” acts as the album centerpiece, an unhinged mangle
of SH101 basslines, freeform flute & saxophone and multiple percussive sources brought to order
by Papich’s studio dubs. “Rose 31” edges closest to the kind of jazz fusion that inspired the project
from the off, Lifted utilising the various classic instruments deployed by the greats of the game.

“Style” can be defined as that special ability to watermark every track with an instantly-recognizable identity. Local Suicide, aka Munich’s Brax Moody and Greek-born Vamparela, has it in spades. And following releases on labels such as Bordello, My Favorite Robot, Multi Culti, Roam, Duro and OMBRA, it only made sense that the duo would eventually find its way to Lumière Noire. After all, “black light” (as per the meaning of Chloé’s label’s name) could describe the way Local Suicide’s music flirts with the more troubling zones of the listener’s psyche, where danger roams and aural comfort is no longer a guarantee. The EP’s two tracks set a dark, shifty sonic tableau, in which German-American multidisciplinary artist - and a unique personality of the Berlin underground - Nicki Fehr comes to blend his voice with Vamparela’s. With its swerving bass slithering over a slow tempo, Leopard Gum is the perfect slow burner, a slice of comatose disco that will find its way to the darkest corners of nightlife - and haunt its DJ sets. The synths that come crashing across the track’s Smagghe & Cross remix add their saturated signature that provide a different kind of hook through its breathless nine-minute run. The same measured tempo is found once more on the more ethereal Already There, where Local Suicide affirm their adherence to the more captivating signatures of new wave and post disco. Permanent Vacation stalwarth Lauer adds a surprizing electro pop shimmer to the track. With Leopard Gum’s opaque and impenetrable atmosphere, Local Suicide have released one of their strongest efforts to date.

Pale Bloom finds Sarah Davachi coming full circle. After abandoning the piano studies of her youth for a series of albums utilizing everything from pipe and reed organs to analog synthesizers, this prolific Los Angeles-based composer returns to her first instrument for a radiant work of quiet minimalism and poetic rumination.

Recorded at Berkeley, California's famed Fantasy Studios, Pale Bloom is comprised of two delicately-arranged sides. The first – a three-part suite where Davachi's piano acts as conjurer, beckoning Hammond organ and stirring countertenor into a patiently unfolding congress – recalls Eduard Artemiev's majestic soundtrack for Andrei Tarkovsky's Solaris. "Perfumes I-III" employs the harmonically rich music of Bach as a springboard for abstract, solemn pieces that sound as haunted as they are dreamlike.

While the first half of Pale Bloom showcases Davachi's latent Romanticism, the sidelong "If It Pleased Me To Appear To You Wrapped In This Drapery" reveals the Mills College graduate's affinity for the work of avant-garde composers La Monte Young and Eliane Radigue. Softly vibrating strings rise and fall like complementary exhalations of breath. As the fluctuating pitches create overtones that pitter and pulse, the piece slowly and subtly evolves – suggesting a well-tempered stillness, yet without stasis.

Open Letter to the Government of Georgia and Madam President Salome Zurabishvili

Dear Governing Class of Georgia and dear Madam President,

I hope you will allow me to first write my sincere greetings. I will spare you the J'accuse, but I am going to delve into a sinister and shameful situation for our otherwise beautiful country.

My name is Irakli Kiziria, I was born in Georgia and I am a musician living in Germany for almost two decades. I first heard about Mikhailo two years ago through friends and activists. I listened to his music and met him during an interview with Electronic Beats that happened in 2018. To be able to meet him in prison gave me the chance to exchange with him on different projects. It is not easy to collaborate with someone alienated from “regular” society, with no access to the internet and so on, but it is also very interesting. After almost a year, I am very happy and proud to announce that my label is ready to release our record on June 15th.
I believe music is an expression of freedom and that Mikhailo expresses in his music his longing for it. Maybe if you listen to his music, you will hear the voice of our brothers and sisters in prison. Maybe you will feel and understand that he and many others do not belong there. Maybe you will find the courage to change these laws that hurt so many of our brethren. And maybe you will try to help them see their families and their friends sooner.

My name is Mikhail Todua, I am turning thirty-four this year and I was raised in Tbilisi. Music was always my passion since childhood, which is why I decided to work in this industry. Thirteen years ago I met a girl named Salome in a club, we fell in love and I married her before she gave birth to our daughter who is now nine years old. Sadly for the past six years, I have only talked to my little girl on the phone. She thinks I live very far away in the USA because we did not want to hurt her at such a young age with the truth.
On September 12, 2013, while I was driving back to Tbilisi from holiday, I was randomly stopped and taken into the local police station. After which I was sentenced to nine years for possession of the drug MDMA (for personal use). After two years in jail, I was granted the right to work on music, and the penitentiary administration allowed me to arrange one room and transform it into a music studio. Music is one of the most important things in my life and I could not be without it. I collected various parts of music gear that people sent me. It was not easy, and I had to depend on the kindness of many people to get what I needed. During my time in prison, I have managed to release five records. This is a labor of love that I craft and work on during the 5-hour blocks of time I get five times a week in the studio. I have created music for a play based on 12 Angry Men and for the documentary Facility 16. I also offer music therapy for my fellow inmates.

My name is Salome and I am Mikhailo's wife. We are preparing his music studio space that will be ready for him after his release. Of course, Mikhailo has changed, but I do not know if the reason is due to his arrest or simply time, because many people change and improve without going to prison. I do think that prison showed him a different side to everything. He uses time as productively as possible there and I believe he is using his abilities to the maximum. What he is doing there no one has done before in Georgia. In September it will be six years after his arrest and I think that this a lot of time for such an offense.

My name is Beso. A few days after I had been released from prison, after serving eight years on drugs charges, three police officers took me to the police station demanding cooperation in order to prosecute Lasha.

My name is Lasha and I was arrested in 2013 for the possession of 0.00009 grams of desomorphine found in a syringe. An amount so small, it cannot be seen with the naked eye.

His name was Demur, he was twenty-two years old and in August 2016 he committed suicide. The young man left a note which spelled the abuse he had been subjected to. A policeman had threatened him into revealing the identities of people suspected of dealing marijuana in the town of Samtredia.

We are just a few names in the thousands that have been impacted by the current Georgian legislation. Our drug policy is one of the strictest in the world. Is it right? We are not just numbers, we are lives that are destroyed, children that are left alone, futures that vanish.

Maybe Mikhailo found solace in prison and became what he was meant to be: a musician, an artist. But what about others who don't find this welfare, this strength? People with no support that are pressured by a police force who often do not see us as human beings, because the current laws do not encourage them to do so. Please Madam President and our government, think about this youth that is getting stolen away. We have seen and endured these sufferings for too long. We can no longer be prolonging these hardships that are unfair and unjust. What we are asking for is not to decriminalize or legalize the use of drugs, but to correct the political errors which have led to and caused so much pain for the children, women, and men of Georgia.

Georgia has one of the highest incarceration rates with 252.2 inmates per 100 000 inhabitants, in Europe, only Russia has a higher rate. (Source: SPACE 2018 survey)

Georgian law does not establish a threshold for small quantities, which means that possession of even particles automatically qualifies as a large amount, triggering criminal liability and a mandatory minimum five-year prison sentence.

Between 2006 and 2008, the first two years of the “zero tolerance” policy, the number of registered drug offenses tripled. It also coincided with a tripling of Georgia’s prison population.

“Last night I turned into a cat. Just like that.” A Colourful Storm presents an album by Brunnen aka Freek Kinkelaar, one of the everlasting beacons of the Dutch underground. One half of fabled group Beequeen (1988-2015) with Frans de Waard and collaborator with the likes of Nurse With Wound, Paul Panhuysen, The Residents, Merzbow and Edward Ka-Spel, Kinkelaar presents The Garden of Perpetual Dreams as a newly visioned recording of a cassette from 1989. Produced with Raymond Steeg of The Legendary Pink Dots and mastered by Steeg and Peter Van Vliet (Mekanik Kommando, De Fabriek, The Use Of Ashes).

Man Band returns with its second release of 2019. Newcomer Tibia makes his first contribution to the label with ‘Polypola’, an outstanding 5 track EP of otherworldly broken techno, rolling downtempo rhythms and electronica hits for spiritual awakening.

✖ INCL 7 STICKERS, 2 BUTTONS + 2 FOLDOUT POSTERS
✖ SPECIAL „GLOW IN THE DARK“ PRINTS
✖ LIMITED TO 300 RECORDS WORLDWIDE!
✖ COVERART by SCOTT ROBINSON 3D (UK)
✖ MASTERING by STAZMA THE JUNGLECHRIST (F)
✖ DESIGN + PRINTINGJOBS done by e_wann (BE)

Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum.

Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbiotic relationship with travelling bats, through the blue hour comedown to first light – Leo employs vibrant, buzzing electronics, plaintive strings and levitating clarinet to illustrate beauty’s brief conquest of nature’s harshest environment, with vividly evocative and deftly moving results.

After Desert Nighflower floats completely off the grid, an ever-present kickdrum drives Infinity’s near 20-minute trip into timelessness. Sharing Side A’s subliminal synthesised hum and free-form clarinet, Infinity moves fast and firm down a dub techno dirt road towards the end of time. As elements drop in and out of the mix, Infinity builds momentum to a pulsing, cathartic peak of poignant piano, ethereal keys and lucid clarinet expressions.

As an avid nature enthusiast, spatial awareness looms large in Leo’s work. His solo releases on Berceuse Heroique, Neubau and his own label Body Language have been inspired incarnations of techno, EBM, industrial and wave.

Patience is a new outlet for exploring further beyond the break than usual. Inspired by the music perpetually on rotation at HQ – with E2-E4 representing the format’s high tide mark – each release will be one artist’s deep dive down one inspirational wormhole spread across two sides of vinyl, or two side-long sojourns making full use of a round 12” piece of plastic. Set and forget, zone out to tune in.

Tim’s trash-opera ‘Time With People’ continues to be
performed around the world, past champions of which include
Object Collection, a.pe.ri.od.ic, Edges, and NEC, and he is a
co-curator of London’s longstanding ‘Music We’d Like To Hear’
series. Despite decades of fiercely independent production,
this is his only piece conceived of first and foremost as an
album.
'Pleasure Island' [SLP053] is available from 23rd May 2019 on
LP and download. Mastered by Giuseppe Ielasi. Artwork by
Rick Pushinsky. Distributed by Boomkat.


'Pleasure Island' is British composer Tim Parkinson’s
disquieting and joyous Slip debut: play time in end times.
Titled after the Disney adaptation of ‘Paese dei balocchi’ (or
the Land of Toys) in Carlo Collodi’s ‘The Adventures of
Pinocchio’ (1883), 'Pleasure Island' is a metaphysical
playground of organic and digital cohabitation, its inhabitants
pacified by toys and comforts.
Alongside Dawn Bothwell, Suze Whaites, Laurie Tompkins, and
Francesca Fargion, Parkinson exerts an uncannily emotional
pull from an unlikely but potent alliance of ultra-minimal
aesthetics, dead-beat drums, junk electronics, and mechanised
mantras.
Voices are hemmed in by electronic sound. People buffeted
around by machines.
Words surrounded by garlands of digital
interference. Time repackaged as countdown.

Moonshoe Records has bowled over first listeners by presenting this new side of their sphere - Air Space Ark’s debut, “All Rivers Lead” charts the course of divergent streams of contemporary ambient music, downtempo rhythms, and electroacoustic experimentation, arriving at a calming confluence of these sources. Across the 6 songs on these two sides, they evoke a calming and contemplative headspace

333 is an exquisite study in balance - the intermingling of bird song water sounds that could equally be field recordings or synthesized foley - the ambiguity adding a delightful trompe l'oreille effect - and crystalline keys ; these airy sounds weighted by washes of subbass.

BLANK PAGE is almost like a version of the previous track, retaining the nimble birdsongs and heavy sub, but foregrounding a lolling, stumbling hip-hop beat and placing more emphasis on the effects wizardry as abstract sounds careen across the track in wipes and wisps, before stripping down to a beautiful coda of birdsong, piano plinks and a textured backdrop.

The celestial keys, flute-like thrums and gentle chimes of WORDS BETWEEN SELF evoke the golden age of spiritual jazz, but the hazy ambiance and shuffling beats transmute the other elements around them into something more introspective and personal than jubilant praise. Lyrics aside, the subtle funk coupled with the pensive, meditative air channels the spirit of Stanley Cowell’s classic TRAVELLIN’ MAN.

LOFT IN 7 Is the most “out” moment here. It has echoes, literally, of jazz. Like decaying tape reels disintegrating in real time, we feel the tape buckling and warping under the weight of time as the sounds of a synthetic band warp and shift against electronic impulses and glitches, eventually leaving just a lingering, ghostly imprint. .

DUST SONG veers the closest towards a straightforward instrumental hip hop cut - a submerged sounding breakbeat coupled with a tender piano melody - but is buoyed by drifting pads and a dense, hallucinatory bed of effects.

CONCRETE closes proceedings. Charged with a crepuscular energy, it’s all-together as mercurial and magical as the transition from day to night. Different elements swirl and coalesce, honing in on dense, textural moments across a horizontal drift. The end effect is hypnotic yet captivating, so much so that when the track eventually blooms into silence at the end you’re struck by the brevity of the whole experience. Thankfully you can listen to it again!