Beats News

Boli Group is a new ensemble spearheaded by Copenhagen based composer and producer Asger Hartvig. Responsible for some of the most fearless and intriguing works to come from the city in recent years, Hartvig is as imposing as he is mysterious, and his debut release for Posh Isolation makes no concessions. Hartvig is perhaps best known for his work with the group Synd Og Skam. And though less known, Brynje 1&2 is just as exceptional. Taking both technology and classicism as allegories, each group charts routes in and out of pop music, somehow arriving at an observer's distance to the distinct stylistic choices in the process. The label Visage has published the best of this, and the logic has certainly been carried into 'Boli Group LP,' the latest offering from Hartvig and his distinguished ensemble of Nina Cristante, Holger Hartvig, Thea Thorborg, and Cæcilie Trier. There is a nearly unendurable fragility to 'Boli Group LP.' It's as if Hartvig has let the complexities of his themes stand in mourning; his narrator taking a moment to themselves behind sunglasses, exhausted for the rose-tinted lens of the prepared script. The album is willingly dramatic, though it never plateaus into melancholia. Hartvig pirouettes at the edge with the sorrowful string arrangements and the pristine timbre of the piano, the immediacy of the acoustics always binding the listener tightly to the risk. Pastoral and meditative, the electronics don't tamper with the delicate fabric being woven. They always register as supportive and understated. The synthetic hum, occasionally yielding a doleful melody as it does, manages to imbue a naiveté to this contemporary and subtly idiosyncratic chamber music. Though the track titles lead us on, in time the examination the album provokes is that of the tension in transparency. The album's secret, barely kept through the minimalism, is its distinct folk noir quality in holding it. "boli group creating new chamber folklore embracing the playing of instruments, not the played, but that which is playing for the sake of future focus and edit into the very minerals of instrument, intuition, emotion, fragility underlying, the warning, always pulsating acts of drama, wet leaves, asphalt, pan to right, agriculture and electricity poles a container ship, lonely in horizon hoping for a clear thought, but everything existing as conspiracy the sound of a search, uncertain and always asking, for certainty is false, showing sceneries changing permanently and forever narrating, like a panorama of grey clouds, keeping humidity levels high, heating up before the release of water and lightning investigation for folk instruments. What are their songs and where will they go, over time, woven together like a piece of fabric created to stand against the lethal winds'

Putting the foot to the floor French duo Haydee's "No Gouvernance" revs and rumbles like a cantankerous, clapped out engine. Rust breaks clean in huge chunks as screams and shouts punch through the thick drum fumes. Industrial legends Hunting Lodge follow in a similarly smog spitting motor, the drunken mechanical tirade that is "De Omnibus Dubitandum." Bass and beats crack and leak in this scarred proto-acid work from 1983. Newcomer Catriel drowns "nbdymksmefeellow" in a sludge of static, indecipherable words gurgle as percussion attempts to save this doomed victim. Giant Swan (Timedance) then take a piece of pipe to "Dare", pounding it with heavy blows, forcing confessions through verbal assault before leaving it more bloody pulp than track. Finally Gotshell (Blueprint) closes with a rumbling double brewed remix of "De Omnibus Dubitandum. A 12" that'll leave speakers blown and listeners in need of a tetanus shot.

Beautiful collection of location and field recordings incorporating music made by Stephen O'Malley and others for a sublime, highly evocative collage-based audio journal designed for deep
mmersion...
Pali Meursault engrossingly plays with conventions in this abstracted collage of location recordings making great use of the Échos festival's unique alpine environment and acoustics as
well as performances captured from varying vantage points around and outside the valley site. It forms a collaged survey of music made by Stephen O'Malley, Clara De Asís & Laura Vasquez, and Bear Bones, Lay Low, among many others, seamlessly incorporating traces of natural sound sphere knit with and around the artists' gestures.
Despite being impressionistic in nature, the recordings create a duet with the landscape and its uniquely reverberant dimensions of mountain sides and steep valleys, where sounds leave the
players only to return mutated, taking on a life of their own.
The result is at times a gentle, at others steeply psychedelic journey; a sonic topographical reading where wildlife bleeds into the same soundfield as the artists, adding into a variegated space of reception and perception in flux between earthly and unearthly delights, conjuring an illlusive metaphysical matrix that's a total pleasure to wander and become enmeshed in and enchanted by.

Re-issue with new sleeve, photographed by photo editor of Thrasher magazine Bryce Kanights when Tommy was 13 years old

97 debut album from renowned skateboard rider Guerrero takes off on a fusionistic ride of acid jazz, trip hop, rock and downtempo groove.

This is one of the lesser known titles by Tommy Guerrero, instead of the more indie Rock or Post/Experimental-Rock sounds that made "A little Bit of Something" or "Hoy Yen Ass'n", such accomplished albums have largely been abandoned, in favour of something a little more subtle, studied and more akin to his Puerto Rican roots.
This is, by and large, a vastly stripped back affair compared to his later albums, with the acoustic guitar featuring prominently in virtually all the songs, with subtlety, and refinement, this feels like a improvised session between him and his group of musician friends that has been beautifully recorded and keep for prosperity. This is (apart from a couple of vocal tracks) a most instrumental album, with a super-laid back feel, that mixes simply devised melodies with hints of Blues/Funk, yet the prominence of a strong Cuban/Latin artistic approach run strong throughout the album.

Highly recommended.

Singular avant garde voice Ashley Paul commits a bewitching début to Slip with Lost In Shadows; a tender yet discordant suite inspired by her new role as mother to a young child. Few would call Ashley's music 'easy', but it is also heavily rewarding in its own, uncompromising way and now finds its audience on the acclaimed Slip imprint amid a roster of boundary-morphing composers including Chaines, Mica Levi & Oliver Coates, Yeah You, and Laurie Tompkins.

Recorded over three weeks at FUGA in Zaragoza, Spain and premiered at Counterflows 2017, on Lost In Shadows the multi-instrumentalist plays guitar, sax, clarinet, voice and percussion. In a mark of distance travelled since her last album, however, she draws on recent collaborations and work with pre-eminent composers such as Rashad Becker, Lucy Railton and Rhys Chatham to also delegate roles to a new ensemble of players on tuba, baritone sax, cello and percussion, who serve to render the dynamics of her music with stronger attention to bass rhythms and intricate, iridescent dissonance.
The expanded personnel lend new flesh to Ashley's work, hingeing around her tremulous vocals and bringing her ideas to life in 11 parts that hold to a perceptive knife edge between lullaby-like and restlessly tooth-achy: mixing the off-key filigree of her vocals at asymmetric tonal angles to the instrumentals - a solution of jazz, chamber music, modern composition and folk craft expressing a complexity of ideas that may well have fallen apart if handled by composers unable to hold their nerve quite as well as Ashley.
As with all her works, a sense of intuitive, instinctive alchemy is at the core of Lost In Shadows, as Ashley's jarring tonal juxtapositions and her own elusive vocals act out a metaphor for the challenge of nurturing new relationships in testing circumstances, an experience she describes as 'many hours spent awake at night in a dream like state of half consciousness, darkness and solitude; an overwhelming feeling of loneliness and exhaustion made light by a profound new love.'
Ultimately, the results are cranky as much as delirious, uncannily relaying a state of mind and sensations which will only ever be felt by some of its potential listeners, yet offers myriad possibilities for interpretation to all.

Time Exercises is a complex study in amorphous polymetric rhythms by UK artist Cam Deas for The Death of Rave. His first LP composed solely for modular synths and computer, Cam's follow-up to the acclaimed String Studies (2014) marks a headlong tilt from acoustic to electronic spheres with a staggering effect resulting from meticulous research and process. It sounds as advanced as Xenakis or Roland Kayn superstructures, with the rhythmic displacement of FIS or Autechre, and with a grasp of slippery, mind-bending timbral dissonance comparable to Coil and Rashad Becker records.
Cam's six Time Exercises form both a bold break with - and an extension of - the avant, folk, blues and outernational traditions that he's worked to deconstruct and fluidly syncretise over the past decade. In the past four years he's stepped away from the guitar as a compositional tool, turning to electronic hardware in a focussed effort to consolidate myriad tunings and meters with a
precision that had previously eluded him in the acoustic sphere.
Severed from the tactility and sentimentality of instrumental inflection, Cam's disembodied music plays out a thrilling dramaturgy and syntax of alien dissonance and disorienting rhythmic resolution. Harmonic shapes as densely widescreen as those in Roland Kayn's Cybernetic Music roil in unfathomable fever dream space, where massed batteries of synthetic percussion swarm like an orchestra of Cut Hands in viscous formation, and where polychromatic mentasm figures converge like cenobites laying siege to Rashad Becker's utopia.
On Time Exercises Cam articulates a synthetic musical language that speaks to the listener in myriad, quantum tongues awaiting to be deciphered by keen ears everywhere. It's an outstanding
record for lovers of forward-looking but deeply rooted electronic music.

First time on white vinyl for David Sylvian's album from 1999. Now expanded with the addition of 4 non-album tracks, "The Scent of Magnolia

Mutant troubadour Laurent Gérard a.k.a. Èlg makes an ideal addition to the misfits at Editions Gravats with Vu Du Dôme, a patently strange record resembling a sort of cryptic opera or the
dramaturgy of a waking dream. Leading listeners up the garden path after the Mauve Zone (Nashazphone, 2016) album, the French-Belgian artist's latest album feels like a stroll around a
topiary maze at twilight on a warm night, with Èlg acting as a spectral protagonist narrating/ranting in first person while a supporting cast including Catherine Hershey, Borja Flames and
Ernest Bergez only make the trip more unfathomable.
Forming a bridge between improbable dimensions of musique concrète and chanson, or electro-acoustic and literary spheres, on Vu Du Dôme Èlg riddles his music to life with literal and metaphorical take on sound poetry; blending French language vocals with glossolalic babble against quietly enigmatic backdrops whose low, shifting lighting and mid-fi resolution lends them to comparison with illusive theatre stage designs as much as the overgrown niches of the imagination explored by Luc Ferrari or Èlg's Reines D'Angleterre bandmate Ghédalia Tazartès
before him.
A dusty revenant, an epileptic bard, a peaceful messenger: Èlg plays all those roles simultaneously.
Combining pointedly purposed production and cryptic incantation, he acts as a souterrain psychopomp relaying energies from one reality to another, taking care not to stray too far
explicitly in either direction and hold his ground ambiguously with the nous of an ancient Greek play or the kind of pathos and logic likely to baffle a computer. Taken in context of Roope Eronen's
artwork - a naif illustration of smiling cone faces on a bouncy castle - each listener's perception of Vu Du Dôme is bound to differ from the next in an all too rare and precious way that's testament to the genius avant-garde vision of its mercurial creator.

Der aus Oxford (UK) stammende Emseatee ist ein wenig besonders. Wie ein Forscher, in einem versteckten Labor, beginnt er mit der aufziehenden Nacht, Atmosphären, Stile und Rhythmen zu kombinieren. Er ist immer auf der Suche nach einer neuen Formel und bindet auch natürliche Sounds in seinen organischen Mix. Emseatees Experimente brauchen Zeit und gehen zurück auf den 21.06.2014. An diesem Tag bekam er Besuch von Minerva und zusammen legten sie den Grundstein für dieses Release. Die Veröffentlichung via Modularfield erfolgt am 27. April als 12'' weißes Vinyl und Digital.

For This Great 1971 Soundtrack Of Enzo Castellari's gli Occhi Freddi Della Paura' Morricone Called On The
Services The Gruppo D'improvvisazione Nuova Consonanza, The Legendary Avant-garde And Improvisational
Combo Of Which He Was A Founding Member. Not Only A Classy Soundtrack But Also A Classic Of The Experimental
And Free Jazz Genre.

This man is well known as one of the pioneers of electronic music in the late 60s and some may have heard of his contributions to quite a few pop hits back in the day when he wrote and conducted orchestral arrangements for the one or another really popular artist. During the second half of the 1960s Mort Garson and his sidekicks Paul Beaver and Jacques Wilson among others discovered the newly invented synthesizer courtesy of Robert Moog and made it an integral part of the future pop music even before Walter (now Wendy) Carlos released his famous and fabulous Switched on Bach' album in 1968. All this is for sure another story, so we concentrate on an album by Mort Garson recorded and released a few years past his monumental works The Zodiac - Cosmic Sounds' (1967), The Wozard Of Iz' (1968) and Lucifer - Black Mass' (1971). Every fan of unique psychedelic (The Zodiac) and mind-bending electronic music (the two others) should certainly lend an ear to these three masterpieces but there was more to come. Plantasia', originally released in 1976, has been labeled warm earth music for plants and the people who love them'. So you as the listener can imagine that what you get to listen to here is rather a bright affair far from the dark and seething atmosphere of the earlier electronic pieces. A shining diversity of stylistic devices have been used as fundament for the dreamy and colorful compositions that work like a soundtrack for a non existing movie actually. The warm yet haunting moog melodies can still create a rather sinister vibe in their most playful and surreal moments you would expect to experience while watching some early to mid seventies horror flicks from Italy. It is a feeling that despite everything seems peaceful and relaxed on the surface something utterly dire is about to rise up. These are certainly just a few passages and when Mort Garson and his mates move on from lush orchestral soul arrangements to something white men always consider to be tribal music of the North American natives, you will drift with them from one scene of your inner mind movie to the next. At this point in the seventies the technical requirements have already been a bit better with new inventions such as electronic percussion which gets used here and there conjuring memories of records by German electronic pioneers from the same era such as Cluster, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream. And despite the twinkle-toed harmonies and big arrangements which point at the big band music and orchestral pop Mort Garson originated from, the whole work is futuristic and intriguing. So it rather feels like an old science fiction movie and not a horror film, but we leave the interpretation to you alone. The best way to enjoy this masterpiece of synthesizer music is to lay back and close your eyes while drifting away into a territory still unknown to man.

Red Brut is the moniker of Marijn Verbiesen (part of Sweat Tongue and JSCA). As Red Brut she is isolated, displaying a highly talented ear for day-to-day sounds, musique concréte composition and spontaneous sound collage.

The KRAAK record series — documenting off-stream's currents — presents her self-titled debut, recorded at home and re-arranged in the come-down of an immersive tour in Japan. The 7 chapters document an intuitive and reflective journey through sensitive amateurism and hi-end musique concréte. The main instruments are cassettes, but unlike the continuous strain of post-noise releases, Verbiesen's music is highly personal, subtile and displays an ever curious and astonished mind. Sounds of gaming interwave with brutal synth oscillations, melancholic melodies and sensual-absent poetry from the aether. Although rooted in the sinister absurdism of early 2000 experimentalism, her music embraces and redefines the concept of 'music of the universe', coined by John Cage, Daphne Oram and a-likes.

This stand-out record is a sketchbook documenting a wide array of obscured emotions, unveiling the inner soul of a highly talented and unique voice in avant-garde tape music.

"There are few locations more emblematic of contemplative modern aesthetic than Philip Johnson's 1949 residence, a transparent box stripped of much beyond its focused proportions and structure. And that seems a fitting location for the exposed materials of Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto." CDM

GLASS is a recording of an inspired live improvisation by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Alva Noto at the architect Philip Johnson's hallowed Glass House, in the bucolic setting of New Canaan, Connecticut. The structure's transparency and seamless continuity with nature was given another dimension by the addition of this performance, whereby the building, location and audio coalesced into one perfect, harmonious whole.

Stylish, stunning and elegantly minimal, the duo's architectural sound design evokes and synergizes with the space creatively, acoustically and literally - by using the building's fabric as an instrument. This is the sound of glass and of glistening condensation. Pristinely fresh audio stratus float amorphously by, unfurling from a meditative calm into an evocation of sparkling wonder, like a baby observing raindrops on a nocturnal window for the first time.

Although the work is largely tonal, textural and spatial, fleeting moments of melody appear towards the end, which despite their scarceness, achieve a profoundly moving effect.

Built between 1949 and 1995 by feted architect Philip Johnson and exemplifying modern architecture and the International Style, The Glass House hosted this site-specific event. It was commissioned by Curator and Collections Manager Irene Shum, who recalls the experience:

"The emotional drama of the forty-five minute performance was echoed in the natural environment. A sudden rain storm forced the evening's guests into The Glass House at the start. During the performance, the storm cleared into a dramatic red and pink sunset and concluded in nightfall."

This intimate evening brought Ryuichi and Carsten back together for their first live collaboration since Sakamoto's cancer diagnosis and treatment in 2014. Prior to that, Nicolai and Sakamoto had worked together on and off since 2002, releasing 6 albums as a duo.

Whities 014 is by Londoner and master digger, Jules Venturini. It's a 3 track 12" of discordant choral euphoria with artwork designed by Alex McCullough.

"Melbourne Industrial/EBM scene representative, master mind behind Power Station/Power Cuts Kris Baha, contributes to Berlin based imprint Cocktail d'Amore with Autora.
Intensely disturbed, sleazy and dirty, the title track follows the lead of the most traditional EBM beats. Autora barks with distorted oddities perfectly mashed to an involving balance.
A factory ambiance out in the forest under a starry sky is Brink Reality. A slower paced gem for cosmic, stomping dance floors. While the beat-less A3 Happiness Disaster could open a scene of Twin Peaks 2999.
10Ways settles with a thundering bolt of crushing steel, bouncing percussions and a vocal worth of Front 242's legacy.
Closing the EP on a romantic and sweet note, Start Over is an italo/wave hybrid ballad tinged with hope and brightness.
Arp2600, Dave Smith Poly Evolver/Pro 2, Oberheim Obxa are few of Kris's partners responsible for this outstanding expression of contemporary music.

Restless Breed 3.0 is the next issue of the various artists compilation on STONEDWAVE providing you with a new bunch of material showcasing the labels 2 sides.
This package brings you :
A1
We start with SANE - The Hangover. This tune is made for quirkier techno sets. It is a funky wonky techno tune mocking around with a whistling lead synth on top of a tripped out Beat.

A2
Next one is Chordata - Silent Singer. Electrobeats mark the rhythm for this progressive adventure into space. Electro in the good old Detroit or dutch fashion.

A3
Jochen Heym is also featured twice on it. After his ep "Sononaut" this time he brings a mellow braindance electro tune: Floating Soul

B1
In Addition B1 contains a remix of the cling clang ambient tune of the Stonedwave005 => Chip Tronic transforms the ambient piece into a hectical electro tune.

B2
B2 is the final tune. Chip Tronic - Frequency modulated metallic wide hypnotic screaming leads are being carved into the listeners brain while being distrted and modulated by any means available. The number 18 implies => dark techno rhythms for wonky minds who love it more distorted.

Here Appear is an invocation, a salutation, and a celebration — of past and perfect lives, forgotten and remembered, exchanged and borrowed. Eve Essex's solo debut is a multi-instrumental fea(s)t combining synthesizer, drum machine, alto saxophone, piccolo, electric organ/harpsichord, harmonica, slide whistle, bells, guitar pedals, and voice— composed, arranged, and performed by Essex herself. What began as an improv set at Berlin's Harlekin bar, developed over the past two years into a complete body of work evoking multiple time periods, genres, characters, and sonic landscapes. The seven tracks that make up Here Appear harness elements of classical, drone, avant-jazz, and distorted pop, coupled with an ambitious vocal delivery that draws on the phrasing and articulations of Essex's own woodwind playing, to create a quasi-narrative me´lange retaining the vulnerability of live performance. On the opening track Grind Away,' otherworldly harmonica strains set the stage for lyrics citing Chinese sci-fi novel The Third Body Problem as source material. Saxophone and piccolo interludes Immediate Communicator' and Colorless Stone' move between medieval-tinged melodic inventions and textural noise, recalling a Pharoah Sanders-influenced fever dream, while the linguistic abstractions of Russian conceptual poet Lev Rubinstein guide the looped, layered, and textured vocals of title track Here Appear.' The album closes with a languid take on Jacqueline Humbert & David Rosenboom's 1978 composition Clear Light' from My New Music, recently reissued by Unseen Worlds. Here Appear owes its minimal production to the conditions of its genesis, evidencing the restrained process of the solo artist, instrumentation is confined to what can be played simultaneously. True to the album's avant-garde roots, each song involves an element of improvisation, often taking the form of prompts or variations on a melody rather than explicit compositions. Even its most structured pieces make use of live-sampled loops, which inject a spirited unpredictability into the songwriting process and subsequent performance. Classically trained in bassoon at New England Conservatory before receiving a BFA in sculpture from RISD, Eve Essex has performed as a solo artist at Artists Space, Commend, Safe Gallery, Signal, Trans Pecos, and U.S. Blues, in New York, Harlekin/Mathew Gallery and StudioAcht in Berlin, and the PUFFERSS Festival in Providence, RI. In addition to her solo practice, Essex regularly performs as one half of Das Audit (with Craig Kalpakjian), as well as in trios Hesper (with James K and Via App) and HEVM (with MV Carbon and Hunter Hunt-Hendrix), and has collaborated extensively with Juan Antonio Olivares as installation/performance-art duo Essex Olivares. Prior to the LP release on Sky Walking (April, 20), Here Appear arrives via New York City-based label Soap Library on March 9, 2018 in both cassette and digital format, mastered by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin and recorded by Al Carlson at Gary's Electric, Brooklyn.

Berlin based Japanese industrial synth duo group A make their debut on Mannequin Records with a killer 3-tracks self titled EP.
.
Tommi Tokyo (synth, drum machine, vocals) and Sayaka Botanic (violin, tapes and sampler) released 2 studio albums and 1 live album in Tokyo, before to move in Berlin in 2016. With their mixture of dark minimal synth, avant-noise, striking visuals and performance art, the duo still carries on the very breath of early industrial pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle, Die Form, Klinik, Cabaret Voltaire.

The EP was recorded in Tommi's bedroom and later mixed together with Mannequin Records head Alessandro Adriani in his own studio in Berlin. The first two tracks of the EP, 'T.O.P.' and 'Ketabali' represents the duo personal reaction against the current economy, an up yours to capitalism, news and politics, all permeated by industrial rhytmic-noises and words with no meaning.
The B2 'Alibi' instead was inspired by an autobiography of Hi-Red Centre(Japanese avant-grade art group in the 60-70's) written by one of the members, Genpei Akasegawa. Tommi found the word "Alibi" in the book and she just started singing about the group. As she never wrote lyrics for that, during their live performances they are always improvised, so changing and mutating every time.

Dominick Fernow Meets Patrick O'neal (skin Crime) In Hanged Mans Orgasm Mode For A Vocal Companion To The Epic 7lp Prurient Opus, Rainbow Mirror. Fernow Shares Vocal Narration With Dc Comics Story-writer Scott Bryan Wilson (who's Also Credited With Writing On Frozen Niagara Falls) Set To Bleak Backdrops Of Atomic Radiation Textures And Field Recordings Of Hanged Man's Orgasm, The Début '90s Project Of Patrick O'neal From Cult Death Electronics Unit Skin Crime.
The Label Compare Unknowns With 'the American Counterpart To Nurse With Wound Set In The Decaying Rural Fields Of New England' And, For Us, The Combination Of Low Key Vocals And Textural Attrition Could Also Be Compared With John Duncan's Efforts In That Arena, As The Density Of Atmospheric Pressure Inside Better Recalls Duncan's Esoteric Experiments With Shortwave Radio On Riot, But, In The Case Of This A-side, Mixed With The Kind Of Vocal Delivery Heard On Duncan's
Surreal Bitter Earth Songbook.
The Notorious Kris Lapke A.k.a. Alberich Lends His Haggard Touch In Production To Bring Both Sides To Life With Unflinchingly Stoic And Visceral Force, Most Powerfully In The B-side's Burial By Rubble In A Shallow Grave.

Repress

Boomkat Editions are dead happy to present a (slightly reshuffled) vinyl version for one of our favourite Mika Vainio (Pan Sonic) albums; originally recorded between 1999-2004 and issued on CD only under his revered Ø alias for Finland's Sähkö Recordings in 2005. Kantamoinen is perhaps the most intimately beautiful yet little known LP in the Ø canon, bridging the gap between his classic '90s minimal techno productions - compiled in the vital Metri and Olento collections - and the project's subsequent turn to more ambient, kosmic and dub wise dimensions in the coolly brilliant Oleva and Konstellaatio albums.
Upon original release it was an immediate favourite of ours - a go-to disc for hazy daydreaming and post-club head salvage alike, drifting between iced out instrumental rhythms and chasmic spaces interspersed with moments of indelibly heart-rending
melody that have clearly lodged in the memory ever since.
Taking in 16 tracks in just under 50 minutes, it's notable for including a number of exquisitely succinct - or tantalisingly short - glimpses of Vainio at his sweetest,
even sentimental, especially with the breathtaking Tuulessa / In Wind and the frosted harmonies of Talven Henki / Winter Spirit, as well as the rare appearance of vocals (the voice of Oskar Sala recorded by Hans Ulrich Obrist) in the armchair transportation of
Äänikuva / Sound Picture.
Vacillating poignant emotive clarity with forlorn abstraction, this expansion and contraction between deep, wide and relatively longer-form pieces, and a high frequency of shorter, starry-eyed passages, lends the album a more broken, strangely resolved flow
than many other Mika Vainio records, and with a twinkling lustre that refocuses the ear with an ancient yet timeless sort of depth perception and atemporal appeal.
It's an often sublime and necessary addition to any collection of classic ambient electronica and a firm reminder of Mika Vainio's full spectrum electronic dominance and purity.

After the last years widely appreciated 12 with two extraterrestrial dancefloor cuts on Jon Rust's Levels imprint and a handful of now hard-to-find 7 releases, the estonian musician/producer Ruutu Poiss returns to his minimal funk and leftfield synth-pop roots releasing a debut EP on International Major Label. The six selected homerecordings from 2011-2016 reflect almost a chronological and kaleidoscopic journey through the authors musical explorations, instrumental storytelling and unique sound design, imaginatively non-locking to existing genres. From subtle vocals to vicious toms; celestial soundscapes over restless rubbery bass; shimmering synths over polyrhythmic structures - an environment of romantic futurism and organic transformation appears, surrounded by a warm psychedelic sound palette. Previous releases played and supported by Secretsundaze, Benji B, James Blake, Mary-Anne Hobbs, Call Super, Omar-S and many others.

After a not-so-unusual quiet period, we're back with our first proper full-length LP. Plasmas by Prefix Moniker is an experimental electronic release that sets the stage for future Great Circles releases oriented more toward home listening than the dancefloor.

Prefix Moniker is comprised of Great Circles mainstay Jason Carr (_moonraker) and Johnny DeBlase (bassist in Zevious, Sabbath Assembly & Desertion Trio). The duo has a musical relationship that dates back almost 20 years.

The remote composition of Plasmas began in 2013 with Carr residing in Berkeley, CA at the time, and DeBlase in Queens, NY. Each piece consists of arrangements of Csound instruments (DeBlase) with layered synthesizer (Carr). The curious product of this collaboration suggested to Carr and DeBlase the fourth state of matter, plasma. All of the track titles were then contributed by Jason's physicist brother, Dr. Jerry Carr.

Pre-release response to Plasmas from musicians and label friends has been overwhelmingly positive and enthusiastic, including Karen Gwyer's inclusion of two tracks (Inductively Coupled and Helicons) on her recent FACT mix (FACT mix 610).

Stellarator first appeared on the Great Circles compilation, Mid-Atlantic Death (GRCR-010).

collecting for repress!

The ever enigmatic RAMZi graces 12th Isle with 'Pèze-Piton' - a 9 track visitation of the familiarly disjointed melodies and rhythms that make up our favourite sonic-nymph's unique musical language. Driven by the self-appointed task of encouraging interspecies harmony (to which we gladly lend a helping hand), each song stands as an anthem for this unified global biota; trudging considerations and skittish proclamations offering up something that shows once again just how exciting RAMZi's sound is. Limited edition LP comes housed in screenprinted sleeve

- Beautiful 1 LP Edition with heavy 350g Sleeve, Poster Inlay with Liner Notes and Photo, includes CD with incl Bonus Tracks - 33 rpm LP mastercut by Emil Berliner - Midori Takada and Masahiko Satoh's 1990 masterpiece LUNAR CRUISE LP available on vinyl for the first time ever, as well as on CD, sourced from the original studio masters, with all new liner notes. - Featuring Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono (bass) and Kazutoki Umezu (saxophone, clarinet). *** TERRITORY RESTRICTION - NO SALES TO JAPAN *** Following the successful reissue of Midori Takada's Through The Looking Glass, WRWTFWW Records is delighted to announce another release from the legendary Japanese percussionist: 1990's LUNAR CRUISE, her superb collaboration with jazz pianist, synth master, composer and arranger Masahiko Satoh. Arguably the best kept secret in Midori Takada's fascinating discography, LUNAR CRUISE is an under the radar masterpiece that captures Takada (on marimba and minimal percussion set-up) and Satoh (on Korg M1 and Yamaha DX7II synths, Ensoniq EPS sampler, and acoustic piano) vibrantly fusing traditional African and Asian percussion with jazz, ambient, and minimalism. The album also features the great Haruomi Hosono (Yellow Magic Orchestra, Happy End...) and Kazutoki Umezu. LUNAR CRUISE is available in two versions: a first-time-ever vinyl LP cut at Emil Berliner Studios, housed in a 350g sleeve and including a bonus CD of the album with 2 extra tracks, and a standalone digipak CD version. Both versions are sourced from the original studio masters (DATs) and come with new liner notes. Tracklisting Vinyl LP

PICTUREDISC

Finnish band Jesse makes unsentimental and innovative music. What you hear on 'Fluids', released as a 12inch picture disc album on Hoga Nord Rekords, is the sounds of four creative brains' journey into the music universe of the future. Their music is influenced by earth and space - Jesse's astral and cosmic disco is prospective, totally boundless, and vibrant of life and blood. The production sounds luxurious and helps the psychedelic qualities to shine through the sound.

Jesse, who with their first releases some ten years ago played fast and arrogant synth based music, now picks up influences from afro beat, funk and ambient but they've kept the electronic core of their sound - simple chord structures rest upon cool synthesized waves of sound, like a glider carried upwards on the thermals between the summits of the Andes. Soft, pliable and mighty!

Jesses music is dreamy but not unworldly and one thing that makes them special is their ability to place the listener on the edge of their safety zone. There, in the frontier, they explore the possibilities of cross over music.

Running Back welcomes Andreas Grosser for the start of it's non-dancefloor series 'Running Back Incantations'. Think Tornado Wallace's 'Lonely Planet' or Suzanne Kraft's 'Missum' who both would have been good and early contenders for a series like that, and you are half way there. Andres Grosser though, was 'there' and that way before. Probably best-known for his 1987 collaboration 'Babel' with Klaus Schulze, Grosser is a bit of a dark horse in the universe whose big bang was krautrock and that went on to be called cosmic, space music or simply new age.

A native East-Berliner, Grosser crossed the Wall in 1981 and next to studying piano, his day job was to advise, sell, maintain and invent electronic music instruments. Naturally, Grosser had a good connection to and support from local Berlin musicians and groups, while working at night in his own studio and in those of others. Fast forward 37 years and Andreas is now one the worlds leading microphone technicians specialising in German and Austrian vintage types.

'Venite Visum' is an anthology of recordings made between 1976 and1980. Released in 1981 on UK's York House Recordings as a cassette tape only, it features some of the most out there, hypnotic and still state-of-the art space music ever to be known to man. For the first time transferred onto vinyl, compact disc and available as a digital download, it was perhaps best described by one reviewer at the time as; "powerfully relentless, repetitive themes which are constantly embellished and subjected to variations in tone colour and instrumentations. The music surges, coming in waves that approach and recede, but with each surge the waves seem to be higher up the shore.'

Now carefully transferred from an archived tape, remastered and compiled on a double album for the first time, it features the previously unreleased and not less mesmerizing 'The Quantum Leap'. Come and visit the hidden and almost forgotten

Spread across two 180g discs, spanning 24 cuts and served in a gatefold sleeve designed by members and affiliates, the Young Echo LP is a capsule intended for cementation through time.
It's been almost five years since their last album. As a group, extended radio submissions, prolonged studio sessions and notorious club nights make up the cogs of time. Over the course of these years, the network has grown continually, both as one, and with singular, multi-directional paths from each of the 11 artists that make up the Young Echo collective, counting Jabu, Vessel, Kahn, Neek, Ishan Sound, Ossia, Manonmars, Bogues, Rider Shafique, chester giles and Jasmine towards the crew, with projects such as Bandulu, FuckPunk, O$VMV$M, Gorgon Sound and ASDA adding to the table in their individual ways.However, this record aims not to be judged on any single producer or vocalist. It is most effective as a whole, simply titled Young Echo. Of course each of the artists has an important part to play, but it is very much about the act of balance, accepting individualism to form a greater whole.A good example is the welcome addition of new energy coming from Jasmine (1/3 of Jabu) who injects endless space with her vocals, perfectly answered by the cool-killin' wordplay of Manonmars - who makes his long awaited debut here - sharing stage with the immediate poetry of ASDA's very own chester giles, along the mighty sound of Rider Shafique, and Bogues' versatile style that can flit between rap & song within seconds. Five very different vocalists that could've tried to find a compromise, but instead choose to connect in different ways, finding their niche in the equal range of rhythms and sounds that sprawl in this shared space, the juxtaposition.
Detuned soundsystem stylings, love songs swaying in hacked up ambience, skeletal dancehall, microphone technique, dread electronics, outsider pop, this record manifests the outcome of the shapeshifting anarchy which rears it's head when no one idea can rule, embracing the diversities when one path must be made up of many.

Wave Stu might just be the Platonic ideal of icy, emotionally fraught synth-pop. On his debut release for Origin Peoples, Stockholm-based musician Michel Isorinne puts paragons of this style like Orchestral Manoeuvres In e Dark in his slipstream. Laced with spoken-word passages from films and television shows, Wave Stu weaves a loose tale about the nature of time, physics, and mortality that can be summarized by the key phrase, uttered by a woman scientist somewhere throughout the album, 'magic is in the molecules...'

Isorinne essentially creates introverted minimalist symphonies in which sprightly synth leads peacefully coexist with melancholy, drone-y undercurrents. Throughout the record, Isorinne's melodies bear a fruitful contrast between the morose and the jubilant. He repeatedly places exceptionally delicate and beautiful tunes amid subliminal waves of pensiveness. It truly is a masterly balancing act. e zenith of this approach is Side A's closing track, in which gorgeous countermelodies intertwine like lovers on a tropical beach while a pistoning rhythm pumps up the libido. It's instant paradisiacal bliss.

Side B contains Wave Stu 's most cheerful, uptempo track yet it never bursts into full-on euphoria. Elsewhere, Isorinne reverts back to more somber moods: an eerie, methodical chiller full of quiet wonderment and subdued sparkle reminiscent of Casino Versus Japan, Plone, and others of their gnomic ilk; a low-key anthem in which '70s Vangelis grandiosi meets the workmanlike bass-synth chug of Ulrich Schnauss; an elegiac piece that conjures an intimate majes ; a bass-heavy dirge festooned with forlorn wisps of melodiousness.

The complex, paradoxical happy/sad pendulum at the heart of Isorinne's music lends Wave Stu a tingly resonance that will reward repeat listens. Please welcome an extravagantly rich synth-pop classic.

Mouse on Mars' Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner return with their most
inventive album to date, Dimensional People. The electronic music pioneers
have been critically acclaimed for their playful and inventive sound and
production techniques on releases spanning from the early '90s to now. In
demand from a surprising array of artists their most recent contributions are
featured on the Grammy award winning album Sleep Well Beast by The
National.
The duo are joined on Dimensional People by an impressive list of guests
: Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National), Zach
Condon (Beirut), Spank Rock, Swamp Dogg, Eric D. Clarke, Lisa Hannigan,
Amanda Blank, Sam Amidon, Ensemble Musikfabrik, and about 20 more
musical collaborators. The cast of characters are as unique as they are vast,
clearly a rich quarry for the prodigious duo.
Dimensional People is by it's nature a collaborative album. Originally
premiering as a spatial composition using object-based mixing technology
playing with the possibilities of sonic design (4D Sound) and collective
musicianship, the recording expands upon these ideas. Dimensional People
expresses itself as a dynamic 50-piece orchestra, telling a story in sound.
Mouse on Mars offer sound as a means to encourage open-minded societies,
aided by cutting-edge technology including their own MoMinstruments
music software or a spatial mixing technique called object based mixing,
with which a spatial version of the work was created. It is a conceptual
puzzle composed around one harmonic spectrum within one rhythmic
scheme, mostly in the tempo of 145bpm (inspired by Chicago footwork,
so the dance oor is not entirely absent). Looking ahead, Dimensional
People will also be realized through installation, presenting the work as an
immersive listening experience, as well as performance.

What is the point of an artist in dark moral times Is art an impotent affectation or can artists use their work to reflect and magnify bigger concerns for the scrutiny of an audience
Over two sides of tape, two artists take very different approaches to how to respond to a fluid, uncertain time. Not political, but motivated instead by an existential moral absence at the heart of events, one reaches introspectively, the other at the broader canvas.
SPR's helplessness and frustration at reality being bent to the will of those with their hands on the controls of perception pushes outwards as an overwhelming, out-of-control amalgam of tiny layers, the truth being the sum of many untrue parts, a congruence of facets each being seen by others as a dark reflection of their own prejudices, a mirrored facade reflecting self-evident truths and withheld bias erupting in a tumult of uncertainty, lancing the boil of the unreliable narrators.
And on the flip, TVO literally tries to spin gold from the basest raw materials possible, in this case, a week's worth of output from the alt-right news website Breitbart with all the constituent parts of his piece emanating in one form or another from the site, be it the raw code, image files, hidden audio files or the text itself. Can something so irretrievably riddled with venom and falsehood be alchemically redeemed, and in doing so shine a penetrating light on the existence of such widely consumed falsehood
Whether dark mirror or golden light, to say nothing is to passively accept everything, to say something - to reflect something - is to be a voice, however small, in defianceo

In a scenario of overwhelming number of instruments, musicians often do not take the time to deepen and explore the creative possibilities of each gear they possess. One Instrument aims at counter-acting this tendency by challenging and limiting each artist in producing a composition by using only one instrument of their choice.

The LP opens with a composition by In Bloom, the new project of Martino Bertola, who drives us directly into a melodic ambience. To follow it is the dense, polyrhythmic experiment by Fabian Kempe's project 'Korridor'. Serena Butler's piece is built around spacey sounds and breezy rhythms.

Yhdessa, the newly born Dutch-Italian duo formed by Grand River (Aimee Portioli) and Enrica Falqui, leans towards ambient atmospherics and ominous sonorities with a refined Northern European touch. Yair Elazar Glotman ventures us across his contrabass player skills giving an acoustic touch to the record.

Swedish producer, Fjader (Ida Matsdotter), handles the flip with a moody techno cut filled with evasive analog acutes.

Claudio PRC delivers an electroacoustic soundscape created with a tiny, graceful drone machine.

The Dutch duo, Wanderwelle, closes the LP with a dreamy and delicate excursion evoking the mysterious sides of nature.

Présence Absente is Saåad's third release with Hands in the Dark, after Orbs & Channels back in 2013 and Deep/Float the following year.Based on the French duo's 2017 live setup and improvised sets, this new album is the quintessence of their music: raw, deep, murky, fascinating. The band's sound and experimental songwriting have matured over the course of their albums, and with this new offering we feel that they have truly blossomed both in form and in content.Their brand of experimental drone takes on a new, distinct shape and, in the space of 38 musical minutes, sends out a message in a bottle to our western world, a foreboding message of the communication breakdown and the effacement of our personal identities that we find ourselves living through as a generation. But it is also an ode to nature with tones of hope, a desire to share and to return to basics, before it's too late. It all makes for an arresting listening experience.Présence Absente is a delicate, personal album which marks a major turning point in the pair's substantial discography.

The 'Matière Obscure EP' is the first in a two-part series, whereby each composition was made using
only recordings from one specific material (metal, glass and wood). The process involved taking
everyday objects and making them resonate in every way possible, such as striking them with mallets
or using a violin bow, and building up a sample library. 'Weld (Metal_01)' kicks off the release with its
syncopated percussion and gritty groove before moving into the cavernous 'Molten (Glass_01)' that's
composed of rolling drums and sinister atmospherics. 'Carve (Wood_01)' is a lot bouncier by
comparison, with its fidgeting bassline and murky tones until the menacing 'Cast (Glass_02)'
concludes the package with machine inspired effects and a cacophony of stabs.

We have been waiting for Pele to crop up on a release from the footy mad Rothmans and what a time to play that hand card. Teaming up once more with his Aussie team mate Dawn Again and a first apperance from Leeds legends Clandestino. The first track from the EP 'Cobblejam' is nothing short of first class, a worthy italo, chuggy ,powerhouse that leaves absolutely nothing to the imagination. The b-side finds us with the slightly strangely named 'Woman For A Day' theres nothing strange about the track itself though . A deep and dark track that slowly drives forward into the abyss. Finishing off the record is an excellent remix from the lads over at Clandestino. Their Dessert Trance vibe brings the record together as sweetly as Pele brought together that 1970 World Cup Winning team.

From Riga via New York to Berlin on a one way ticket! There is no return now!

We are delighted to welcome Egyptology to the Hands in the Dark family. The Parisian duo, made up of Stéphane Laporte (Domotic) and Olivier Lamm have been active since the late 90's in the French post-electronica/avant-pop scene. Sur les autres mondes is inspired by a publication by French astronomer Lucien Rudaux (1937, Larousse) in which he imagined the landscapes of other planets in our solar system through scientific descriptions. Partly composed for a performance at the prestigious Louvre museum in Paris, the album is the band's first full length output since 2012, and we can assure you that it has been worth the wait. Their sharp ear for detail and the epic worlds evoked through the album make for an auditory voyage which is as graphic as the words inked by Rudaux.The duo is bringing the 70's kosmiche genre back to life in a very fresh, bold way, offering a strong shot of pure analogue sound and a fantastic, melodic approach to synth-based ambient music.