Beats News

Third volume of our irregular split series. This time pairing two artists at the top of their collagist game, People Like Us and Porest.

Two A sides of parallel radio broadcasts, for beautiful and not so beautiful days.

The Parallel Broadcasts presents Porest's recordings from the covert sector of his archives. Culled from shortwave and FM broadcasts, these selections were intercepted via prepared radio - finely tuned to receive what is known in certain circles as parallel broadcasting. Content explores the trauma of emerging global consciousness, acute cultural antipology and the urgent placement of democratic music today. Recorded on location in Jan/Feb, 2016. Featuring contributions from Paul Staufenbiel and Michael Darr.

All On A Beautiful Day was recorded in Spring 2016 by People Like Us for "Optimized!" - a week-long online a/v radio station programmed by Vicki Bennett, housed on WFMU.org which experimented with ideas of what radio might be in the world of high speed internet broadcasting. The content included 26 new a/v artist works, including both this and Porest's Parallel Broadcasts, where people were invited to respond to the word "optimized".

Roberto Auser presents the second installment on his independent label. Auser and his team combine music, video, artwork and performance creating a mindbending experience. Disturbing, horrific and liberating at the same time ... touch your fear! A real Roberto Auser signature sound in a high quality. With previous releases on Viewlexx, Bearfunk and others, this one comes in a carefully designed, beautifully silkscreened and hand numbered artwork by the man himself. Check out the sickest blend of moog music and occultness!

Rote return to BleeD for a second EP release on the label, the first of 2016. Formed of Daniel Avery and label-head Volte-Face as an 'open-ended' side project, the duo tend to adost an esoteric and experimental approach to techno, expressed in this case with 5 diverse original tracks. As solo artists, Volte-Face has appeared on Svreca's Semantica imprint as well as releasing 3 solo EPs on BleeD thus far. Daniel Avery is a high-profile fixture on club and festival bills, and is soon to be found contributing to the legendary DJ Kicks series.

'EP2' builds on the sound of the duo's debut EP, which was well supported in the underground, and remixed by experimental techno doyens DJ Nobu and Svreca. Featuring two 'heads down eyes closed' club tracks, 'Rote 3 and Rote 4, two ambient excursions, 'Lifted' and 'Sun At Night' (the latter of which would be equally at home on a psychedelic rock LP!) and a lilting melodic closer, 'End Of The Sky'.

The Diabolical Liberties return with a new 5-track EP titled All Out For Love' touching on poetry, dissonance, dub, dance and Jazz wave. Nyasha (aka Nubya Garcia) guests on flute and sax and General Rubbish contributes additional words. Strictly limited edition 12' in a hand-stamped and hand-numbered sleeve. The preceding drops - Dancefloors Of England' and Omar's Deliverance' both sold out so don't sleep!!

Reissue of modern classic LP by Varg that inaugurated Northern Electronics. Gritty acidic/tribalistic definitions of black metal music on this new side project of Abdulla Rashims ARR records. Isolated in the coldest parts of northern Sweden, Varg's music is the outcome of a loners mind. Trying to interpret ancient life by machine experiments live recorded in single takes. No overdubs or editing are made.

Third chapter by HomeMadeZucchero very own Meze is a 4 dimension disengaged statement. Wide ambiances wrap mental bass lines and saturated dynamics in a minimalistic melodics drama. Tempered by icy harmonic pads and human shreds.

Japanese/French, girlish, mysterious, sensual, always longing, a bit out of this world, but in a way also open and frank

Once encountered, the exquisite, low key charms of Craig Tattersall, Andrew Johnson and Nicola Hodgkinson's band, The Remote Viewer, leave an impression that lingers long after their records stop playing. A decade since departing with I Can't Believe It's Not Better [2008], Other ideas recalls their lower case sound as you've never heard it, presenting ten previously unreleased songs drawn from minidiscs 'before the last functioning
MD player in Prestwich gave up the ghost', and pressed to vinyl.
Perhaps the greatest champions of drizzly, Lancastrian mood music ever known, The Remote Viewer formed as a splinter group from Leeds-based Hood with their eponymous 1999 debut, taking the opportunity to pursue a fragile, downbeat strain of electronic songcraft and experimentation that quietly held steady against the grain of much electronica during that era. Over the course of four albums and four EPs, they addressed ambient pop music's barest essentials with a succinct blend of miserablism and refined, adroit technicality that they could safely call their own, and more or less sprang a whole scene of copycats in their wake.Us. In happier times is The Remote Viewer's typically ambiguous title for this collection; ten grainy and richly evocative pieces of haptic scrabble and jaded gestures as inviting as a warm brew and a 2-bar heater on a p*ss wet night. It's the sound of glacial english valleys after-hours, finding them animating ambient embers and wilting pop hooks with clipped, Teutonic glitches and subby pulses. The results form a curious and emotionally intelligent adjunct to then-contemporary dance or pop musics, a sound best received on punctured sofas in small coffee shops and living rooms, one which will forever remind us of wet mornings back at the turn of the century.
With the flickering fizz of Tonight it feels like Spain we hear all three members in intimate dialogue, opening a session that variously takes in SND-like garage minimalism and what sounds like Muslimgauze fever-dreaming in 2-step on Complaining of feeling unwell, or a pre-echo of autonomic D&B in the Arovane-esque nerve pinch of The Sound of old Helmshore, whereas This old face dates me is like a prickly Arran to the suave, cashmere gentility of To Rococo Rot, and the crackling group harmonies of lullaby closer When it was over forms possibly the loveliest finale to any record you'll find this year.

Sub Rosa presents two rare tracks by Coil, originally commitioned by Sub Rosa in the late 80s / early 90s and now finally released on vinyl!

"Another Brown World" (12:09 min) was written by John Balance and Peter Christopherson, produced and mixed by Coil, and recorded by Danny Hyde at Threshold House, London in the Summer of 1989. The vocals were recorded at the Animist Monastery situated at the Summit of Mount Popa in Pagan, Burma.

"Baby Food" (12:32 min) was written and performed by Coil: Danny Hyde (essentials) Peter Christopherson (fundamentals), and John Balance (vibrant rays of spiritual psychosis). This track is the first to utilize the recording process known as "Sidereal Sound", a continuation and advancement of the deep listening theories as demonstrated on the album Love's Secret Domain (1991). Recorded in a storm in London in the summer of 1993.

These two pieces were commissioned by Sub Rosa for these two specific projects: Myths 4 - Sinople Twilight In Çatal Hüyük (1989) and Chaos In Expansion (1993)

These rare recordings were recorded as part of the legendary prescription label
album series in the late 1990's that resulted in the album "Astral Disaster".
Coil were invited to record at sun dial's studios beneath the London Bridge Hop Exchange. This studio was originally know as Samurai studios that was originally built and owned by Iron Maiden. The premises in Victorian times was an old debtors prison which had three levels underground, and still had the original chains, manacles and wrought iron doors from the old prison. This caught the attention of John Balance and was very keen to record there.

At Gary Ramon's invitation, Coil spent a number of days recording at the studio during Halloween 1998 and they developed a number of tracks some of which resulted in the "Astral Disaster" album.
For various reasons, some of the unissued material and mixes released on this album were omitted from the original Astral Disaster album, and so now is the opportunity to listen to the "Astral Disaster" sessions.

The album includes previously unissued mixes, and the rare version of "I Don't Want To Be The One" that was only included on the very rare 1999 promo CD only Prescription sampler and the 14 minute track "Cosmic disaster" that was the original working title of the album.

Taken from the master tapes and remastered by Denis Blackham.

Spin your ears back to 1989 and enjoy the debut album of Coldcut once again! The bouncy good-time cut-up party people got started with What's That Noise, a particularly lively swirl of breaks, acid house and hip-hop. The guest vocalists on the album includes Lisa Stansfield, Queen Latifah and Mark E. Smith. Reissued by Sony.
11 track album on standard black vinyl with download code insert

One of the many characteristics of Italian avant-garde theatre, from the seventies through the eighties, was the overlap of acting with the physicality of movement - reality with fiction and the stage with real life, it was a new poetic language for a multimedia representation. In this new language, the music composed for the stage was an active part of the performances, and the soundtrack from 1985's IL CAVALIERE AZZURRO' is one of its most significant examples.

The musical project of the working group O.A.S.I. (Paolo Modugno, Massimo Terracini, Gino Castaldo and Ermano Ghisio Erba) blended industrial experimentation, ambient and concrete, with a strong ethnic element, both vocally and performed, then recorded and manipulated with the aid of tape recorders and samplers.

This was a work that identified a historical moment of fervid experimentation and inspiration, and though intended to be played during a theatrical performance, vividly stands out without the visual accompaniment.


Paolo Modugno: Ac. & El. Guitar, Sanza, Bendir, Tapes, Sampler

Massimo Terracini: Piano, Sampler, Tapes

Gino Castaldo: Tapes, Samplers

Ermanno Ghisio Erba: Drums, Percussions

LINER NOTES FOR BEAVER & KRAUSE'S THE NONESUCH GUIDE TO ELECTRONIC MUSIC - By Richie Unterberger

Among the very first to master and popularize the sounds of the Moog synthesizer were Paul Beaver and Bernie Krause. Their debut album, The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music, was something of a primer for the sounds the instrument could make. Though largely devoted to demonstrations of specific sounds, it ended up making far more of an impact than the usual instructional record did, enjoying healthy sales and helping to spread the use of the synthesizer within the music industry.

Beaver and Krause were introduced to each other by Elektra records founder and president Jac Holzman, who was looking to use the synthesizer in an astrological concept album the company was producing, The Zodiac -- Cosmic Sounds. They were in some respects an unlikely pair. It was while sitting together with Krause on a plane ride to the Monterey Pop Festival, in fact, that Holzman conceived of the idea for The Nonesuch Guide to Electronic Music.

"We felt that any number of companies represented possibilities," responds Krause today when asked whether Elektra was felt to be a natural home for the duo's first album. "But Jac, at the time, seemed to express the levels of creative energy, imagination, and interest unmatched at that moment by any of the other A&R reps."

Adds Bernie, "Neither Jac or us had a clue what we were doing and what the potential market was, although Jac apparently had a gut instinct about it. Paul or I certainly weren't thinking in those terms. Our objective was to get the information out there about synthesis of sound and new definitions of music that resulted from its introduction (i. e. music = control of sound)." The information wasn't solely contained on the vinyl. The double LP was accompanied by a scrupulously notated 16-page booklet, described as a "syllabus" in the introduction, that Krause wrote to detail signal generators, voltage control, modulating, filtering, synthesis of sound, and studio equipment's role in the recording and live performance of electronic music.

As for how the sounds on the album were selected and recorded, "We went through each module on the Moog, one by one, and explained the functions inherent in each. The sounds themselves were selected from the four possible outputs of the oscillators (sine, triangular, continuously variable rectangular, and sawtooth). From these, either individually or in combination, we selected and used the sounds as examples. The only challenge of Moog synthesizers at the time was the relative instability of the oscillators, which tended to drift in pitch. So we constantly had to retune the machine. Otherwise, no problem."

Most of the two-disc set's four sides were brief, less-than-a-minute tracks sonically illustrating numerous examples of electronic sound, subdivided into sections documenting "signal generators," "control generators, "frequency modulation," "amplitude modulation," "ring modulation," "amplitude modulation," "ring modulation," "filtering," and "tape delay." Even with the numerous individual tracks, and the many bands of silence separating them, the album's running time is on the short side for a double LP. Krause confirms this was done to help ensure that the sonic range of the sound was as full as possible, as longer vinyl LP sides tended to cut down on that quality when they were mastered. "We and the mastering folks were not sure how the more robust signals of the synthesizer would affect the limits of track width and depth, so we purposely kept it on the short side," he elaborates. "Also, this was the first release to use Dolby noise reduction during the recording process. And finally, it wasn't a 'listening' type of album."

As recording artists, Beaver and Krause would continue to develop their pioneering sounds in unexpected ways over the next few years.

Richie

Mysterious, charming, and wavering, Scoprire Le Orme (Discover The Footsteps) represents a unique musical experience, a kind of Minimal Folk with far Eastern baroque influences. The work is a living entity, yet with a calm atmosphere interweaved with tension - the tradition here being redefined and transfigured in a very personal way with a touch of esotericism. Roberto Mazza (formerly a member of TELAIO MAGNETICO, along with Franco Battiato, Lino Capra' Vaccina, and Juri Camisasca) has since the early seventies devoted himself to the study of both British and Scottish traditional music, with closer attention to the Hebrides archipelago. This work, originally published only on audiotape, has been recorded in complete autonomy with Mazza himself playing the compositions and utilizing instruments such as Oboe, Bardic Harp, and synthesizers.

«Prelude» EP is the inceptive release of Oxmose, which marks the first entry in an ongoing catalogue, and the beginning of a journey with various artists. At its heart, the «Prelude» EP is a dialogue between two composers, a conversation that traces the line between abstract, electronic experimentalism and gliterring interpretive jazz. Parisian producer Shcaa takes control of Side A with 'Core', a near 20 minutes exploration into sound, which skirts the fringes of avant-garde minimalism and experimental rhythms. The song's acute cadence lays a dense and atmospheric foundation for the EP. - Side B sees Romanian artist Traian - Chereches offer-up an absorbing - counterpoint to Shcaa's opener on 'Cage'. The energy of Chereches' rebuttal fuses organic and interpretive sounds into a deft jazz reinterpretation, revealing a wide and surprising cinematic ambience. Mastered by Rashad Becker from Dubplates & Mastering Berlin, « Prelude » will be released on limited edition 12'', 180g heavyweight vinyl - with an outer sleeve featuring handmade artwork created by graphic designer Alice Voinea. The organic materials used in her work, emphasizing the interchange of the record, adding a further layer of continuity, one that streches between the artist, the music and the listener. - Written by Tom Fenwick

''During one long winter's night in a neon-lit Paris, a restless young man wanders around to let himself be found by something that most people otherwise try to avoid: ghosts. And the night is full of unexpected encounters in this ultra-chic film, which is neither documentary nor fiction, but rather an adaptation of the idea that Jacques Derrida defines in a guest star appearance on the cinema screen: that film plus psychoanalysis is equal to the science of ghosts - ie. a form of 'spectrography', which the French artist SMITH in her self-ironic, self-conscious, science-fiction essay of a film, conjures up with thermal infrared and in the dialogue's mosaic of quotes of rambling French philosophy, from Breton and Barthes to Merleau-Ponty and Derrida himself. Hyper-modern and rich in (retro) references â and above all its own ideas, for there are other ways to answer the question of how far you believe in ghosts, than yes or no. And it is this range of possibilities that 'Spectrographies' charts with great ingenuity.'' 'Spectrographies' is the debut movie of interdisciplinary artist SMITH. SMITH â artist, photographer and filmmaker â their work can be seen as an observation of the constructions, deconstructions, relocations and moults of the identity. Through the hybridization of techniques, mediums, the use of new technologies and collaborations with scientists and philosophers, SMITH develops a poetics of metamorphosis. Through the representation of ghostly and fantasmatic figures, as well as post-traumatic transformations, they capture negative and hollow subjectivation processes intertwined with self-effacement and self-image issues. Accounting for creative destruction, SMITH's works invite viewers to be immersed in a dark and diffuse atmosphere, which is characteristic of their auratic and ethereal style, and conducive to daydream and meditation. Preceding a meticulous production process, the movie enjoyed screenings at various locations around Paris including the famous Centre Pompidou, Gaité Lyrique, Musée du Jeu de Paume and David Lynch's famous Silencio Club. Additional screenings also took place in Berlin and Copenhagen. The composer for the sound score to 'Spectrographies', Victoria Lukas, also writes and records under various pseudonyms including Vita, Inkamera and Zerkalo; with the cream of Victoria's work having been released via Last Known Trajectory, Clone and Frustrated Funk. SMITH and Lukas, who have been collaborating for the past ten years, worked both separately and together for almost one year on the directions the music should take to accompany and highlight the film's intentions. Within 'Spectrographies' is unleashed what we wholeheartedly recognize to be Victoria's most intimate, intriguing, ambitious, and challenging work to date â representing what we at LKT feel to be her bravest and most- marked departure from many of the often restrictive barriers and constraints that the world of dance music predicates. This release is the first in a sequence of concept releases. The series entitled... Vita. We invite you into the world that is 'Spectrographies'⦠Do you believe in ghostsâ¦

Cauldron is the legendary psychedelic jazzy rock & electronic album by Californian band Fifty Foot Hose. First-time official vinyl reissue since its release in 1967 on the Limelight label.

Fifty Foot Hose formed in San Francisco in 1967. Like few other acts of their time they consciously tried to combine the contemporary sounds of rock with electronic instruments and avant-garde compositional ideas. They were one of the most radical groups of the psychedelic era, and their experimentalism still has the power to shock and surprise even now.

What set them apart were the pioneering experiments in electronic music, like the band they are often compared to, The United States of America. Incorporating theremin, siren, audio generators, and other various electronic effects as Cork Marcheschi, the band's original bass player had developed an acute interest in the dadaist/futurist experiments of composers like John Cage and Edgar Varese. David and Nancy Blossom brought both psychedelic and jazz influences to the band. Cauldron, their only album, was released in December 1967, including "Fantasy', Red the Sign Post' and God Bless the Child', a Billie Holiday cover. An intriguing mix of jazzy psychedelic rock tunes with fierce and advanced electronic sound effects. These sound experiments differentiated them from their contemporaries and most audiences didn't quite know what to make of them.

So fans of flowery, psychedelic 60's music must beware of this odd gem, Fifty Foot Hose's music leans more towards White Noise, Silver Apples and specially United States of America than to the whole flower power movement. After only one album, the proto-cyber psych outfit passed as quickly as they came. Their only mention would be a name-check in Ralph J. Gleason's 1969 book, The Jefferson Airplane And The San Francisco Sound' published over a year after their demise. Ralph J. Gleason wrote: I don't know if they're immature or premature.' History has proven them to be the latter. Today the original album is very collectable and considered a touchstone of avant garde rock music.

"The concept was to expand what contemporary popular music was. I thought the avant-garde could have had a home with this new group of listeners but they turned out to be pretty conservative - intellectually . Drugs were fine - sex was fine - stop the wars was good but when challenged with abstract art., they reacted like conservative people look at a Jackson Pollock painting." (Cork Marcheschi).

Kanker Kommando can be defined as a 'whatever-kind-of-band' formed in the 80's by Hendrik Laevens and Jaak Perquy. This fine compilation by the Knotwilg label illustrates the 'Low-tech' approach of Kanker Kommando: transforming the limitations (musical, technical) into an opportunity to do something completely different.

Heavyweight (180gr.) gatefold LP, including a download code.
The first-ever reissue of Jon Hassell's "Fourth World" masterpiece originally released in 1981.

Collaborators include Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (U2, Peter Gabriel) and Michael Brook (Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan).

Beautifully re-mastered, with a bonus track ("Ordinary Mind") and liner notes written by Hassell himself.

Turkish free jazzers KONSTRUKT and the Japanese avant-garde / noise icon KEIJI HAINO present their first collaborational album.
Formed early 2008 in Istanbul, KONSTRUKT have since been gaining high reputation and an ever-growing audience within European improvised music circles. Over the past decade, the Turkish free jazzers not only released a couple of superb albums under their own name - they also regularly invite significant musicians like PETER BRÖTZMANN, JOE MCPHEE, WILLIAM PARKER, AKIRA SAKATA, MARSHALL ALLEN, EVAN PARKER, THURSTON MOORE, MICHAEL ZERANG, ALFRED HARTH or ALEXANDER HAWKINS for recording sessions and/or concerts (a.o. at festivals like A L'ARME, .KONFRONTATIONEN NICKELS-DORF, KRAKOW JAZZ AUTUMN). Their latest work "A Philosophy Warping ..." sees KON-STRUKT team up with the Japanese avant-garde / noise icon KEIJI HAINO - and besides all the elements you may well expect from such a musical meeting like KONSTRUKT's "acerbic razor-edged sound" (MARK CORROTO, ALLABOUTJAZZ) and HAINO's unmistakable voice / guitar explosions, there's also some real surprises ...

Recorded and mixed by Ozan Öner at Pür Recording Studio, Istanbul..
Mastered by Rashad Becker at D&M, Berlin.
Cover painting "Escape" by Artur Trojanowski.

Begun on a whim in 2010 by Enablers vocalist Pete Simonelli (words, vocals) and Lynn Wright of And the Wiremen (guitar), Molecular has seen a broad cast of musicians come and go in its highly rotational flux of instrumentation and musicianship in performances around New York City, England and Spain. It is a "feel" oriented collection of players whose ideas evoke a steady yet shape-shifting spirit of improvisation.

Warmest Regards is the culmination of a short week-long tour throughout England. This live recording is taken from a very lively, intimate set on a wintry Sunday night at New River Studios in London. The line-up includes Simon Goff (And the Wiremen) on violin, Algis Kizys (ex-Swans, Of Cabbages and Kings) on bass, and Sam Ospovat (Enablers, Ava Mendoza) on drums. It documents the progressive cohesion of the band after six straight nights of entirely improvised music. Over the course of these six shows, the poems, rants, and music were never delivered the same way twice. On that basis alone, we just took the thing and let it kick us each and every way possible until the egg timer chimed and the set would then conclude. There were no foundations, no arrangements, and there was never any solid plan. The only rule we followed, as is ever the case with improvisation, was listening to each other.

Discrepant is proud and excited to present a magical live recording from the legend that is Pierre Bastien, showcasing his mecanoid orchestra at its intricate best during a performance at Studio M, the historical studio-concert hall of Radio-Television of Vojvodina, Serbia.Around 1986, French composer and multi-instrumentalist Pierre Bastien started creating and building his own orchestra called Mecanium: an ensemble of musical automatons constructed from meccano parts and activated by electro-motors, that "play" on acoustic instruments from all over the world. On this record the Mecanium plays amplified Meccano parts, drums, reeds, rubber bands, paper, nails and flutes whilst Pierre plays kundi, rubber band, prepared trumpet, video loops, nail violin and râbab. Recorded live at Studio M, Novi Sad, October 8, 2016.

winter, or a time which represents that season, in a metropole that appears to be moscow.
the visitor is taking metro no. 6 at leninsky prospect as he is on his way to the ballroom close to gorky
park. the air is icy, the sky is grey. a cat, previously hidden among the dirty snow, is crossing his way.
the closer he gets to his destination, the clearer he can hear music, music that reminds him of future
days.
the dimly lit room is only sparsely filled. on stage a graceful singer, capturing the room
with her presence. captive voices merge with chords played on yet unknown instruments - machine rhythms cycle in 3/4 time. the vigorous peasant dancers, following an instinctive knowledge of the weight of fall, utilize their surplus energy to press all their strength into the proper beat of the measure, thus intensifying their personal enjoyment in dancing. here, in the transhuman ballroom, time stands still and values are being dissolved by numeric progressions. spiritually allied, the visitor, the singer and the peasant dancers short-circuit the present moment while the last falling snow slowly turns into rain.with »walzerzyklus«, atom™ returns to raster to complete his series that has once begun with
»liedgut« and continued with »winterreise«. the 7 tracks, created in collaboration with russian singer lisokot, are subdivided into 3 pieces of 2 minutes each and 4 pieces of 3 minutes each, intentionally reflecting the 3/4 time of a classic waltz.

throughout the release, lisokot's delicate vocals are put into different relations to atom™'s rather cool machine music, either complementing or contrasting each other. in the same line, the 3
shorter leitmotifs' provide the main theme that is taken up repeatedly in the course of the release. the EP will be released on CD and as special vinyl edition limited to 300 copies.

The first release on Palto Flats' PFF series for contemporary electronic / experimental / dance releases in limited format. Conga Square - Secada Mondatta treads similar musical territories as Toulouse Low Trax, Burnt Friedman & Holger Czukay.
.
Featuring Jimy Seitang, Brian Close (Georgia) Andrew Felix & Ross Menuez. First track, 'Fifth Season' spends its 9'+ duration locked in a downtempo groove, 'Raiders' is cavernous electronic jazz, and 'Secada Mondatta' is minimal dubby electro with propulsive rhythmic patterns.

Conga Square was recorded and mixed by Davey Jewell in NYC & LA, and mastered/cut by Helmut Erler at Dubplates & Mastering. Artwork & design by Brian Close.

Bologna's Yerevan Tapes project vivid sci-fi sound designs from producer/signer Marie Davidson and sound designer Invisible Church, making up the duo's first collaborative work, recorded during September 2016 - January 2017, and notably starring Theo Parrish playing cymbal on the 10 minute submission, Ten Years.
Spawned from a meeting at RBMA's Montreal '16 festival, Whatever Makes You Feel Safe locates her signature vocals far removed from the structural synth-pop comforts of her roundly acclaimed debut side, Perte D'Identité, and the Adieux Au Dancefloor LP for Cititrax, and elusively diffused into chasmic frameworks of field recordings and depth charge percussion deployed by Invisible Church.
In all three parts they feel out chasmic, void-like dimensions with a microscopic attention to textural and spatial qualities. Marie's vocals signify a ghost in the machine presence on Collage, rendered as silvery streaks and cluster-formed cloud of ferric harmonics perfusing drizzly street or industrial scenes worthy of a Bladerunner scene.
Never Release The Tension meanwhile isolates and focuses in on a blunted, atonal sort of post-industrial sound design recalling Mika Vainio in its brooding pressure, or even the elegiac glossolalia of Liz Fraser via Tropic of Cancer in its lamenting keen.
But the best is definitely saved for last with Ten Years, where speaker-drooping subs underline sheets of steely grey, phantasmic dissonance, punctuated by the patter and splash of Theo Parrish's cymbal work, and possibly betraying a hint of influence from first nation musical traditions as much as kosmische or avant BM.

Novo Line reprises the meter-messing genius of his Movements album with the Dyad mini LP - a brilliantly uncompromising follow-up for Ecstatic. Exclusively using the tools of '88/'89 professional recording set-ups - namely the Atari ST, but with a slight algorithmic alteration.
While it's increasingly hard to find new tricks in old gear, especially with the resurgence of hardware fetishism and the ubiquity of DAWs, that's exactly what Nat Fowler has been doing for the best part of a decade as Novo Line. By, in his own words, 'misusing one algorithmic composition program (not, by a longshot, a professional music production tool of any epoch) contained in 208kb of data on a 3.5' floppy disk',
He generates and explores new permutations of old music which, ironically enough, sound fresher or at least more innovative than a lot of new music in circulation right now.
Inputting ever-changing parameters of melody, and 29 year old algorithms, the machine's voice is live-mixed and presented un-rendered as maxed-out waveforms via 1MB RAM, resulting in a severely compressed and combusting effect that leave mastering and sound engineers the world over scratching their heads in puzzlement. However, the effect is equally enthralling to anyone whose ears have become overly accustomed to contemporary emulations of 'space' in electronic music, and genuinely sound unique in relief of the contemporary field.
The release poses a playful question: can a record be ambivalent as to which speed it should be played
Celebrating vinyl and futhermore physical media, the listener is encouraged to find their exact speed of preference with the RPM toggle and pitch slider, that nearly forgotten joy in modifying speed in real time without a CPU mediating between the listener and sound; some tracks stumble heavily at 33rpm like boulders in the tumble dry, while others flash by at 45. In the taut, recoiling thud of Monad, thru the frenetic pop edit of Ennead to the 'floor-curdling prong of Dyad Marcia on the front, to the forceful New Beat mutation Tetrad, and the mind bending Melpomenean Dyad which closes the LP, its some heavily challenging but deeply satisfying gear that seriously yet playfully messes with convention.
Essentially Novo Line is revelling in the pure spirit of computer music and the sonification of dance music as we know it - born in the '88/'89 phenomenon of techno-house music, including its Industrial/EBM precedents, and its New Beat/Euro House offshoots. And like John McCusker's delectable artwork of a beige room and monitors interwoven with tubular, computer generated follies, Novo Line provides a captivating perspective that shortcircuits nostalgia's illness to result in a killer vaccine against/for convention.

Listening to Unknown Path's Pathfinder for the first time is a claustrophobic experience. It's as if the tracks had been recorded to tape and left to decompose for 10 or so years, then dug up and re-recorded. A thick layer of grunge and an overall murky feel sets the tone for Path 0.1 and continues throughout the EP. Paths 0.2 and 0.3 add a more upbeat feel to proceedings, as the beats get scattered around like they were in a pinball machine. Path 0.4 finishes off the experience by bringing the tempo back down, while all the time keeping the uneasy atmospherics that make this EP a unique and rewarding listen.

repressed !

The 1980s. Neo-liberal excess. Crumbling communism. Military juntas ruling with an iron fist. And of course, freaked out music. Contort Yourself are turning back the clock and returning to an unholy fount of inspiration with "80s Underground Cassette Culture Volume 1." A buffet of beaten up and brutalised tracks are on offer from unknown outfits and respected experimenters. Across two LPs expect to find noise reductions, post punk bitterness, no wave grunts, distortion soaked strings and vocals lost in a hail of pain. A road map into the weird and wild world of DIY back alley artists who, armed with only a tape and an idea, gave the established music norms a sharp fist to the throat..

The Limiñanas is guitarist, bassist, organist and main songwriter Lionel Limiñana and drummer and sometime vocalist Marie Limiñana, and is based in the southern French border city of Perpignan. After having released a series of singles, on which the duo used several guest vocalists, The Limiñanas released their self-titled debut album in 2010 on US label Trouble In Mind. The music of the Limiñanas finds its inspiration in the French psychedelic pop music from the 1960s - think Serge Gainsbourg and the yé yé sound. The Velvet Underground and psychedelic garage rock were also important influences in the band's sound. This all leads to music that incorporates a lot of 60s elements, but still sounds modern and different from most of the other music around. The duo continued to put out singles and albums over the next few years, slowly incorperating new influences in their music, like European '60s and early 70s soundtracks and library music. On their third album, The Liminañas worked for the first time with French avantgarde composer, guitarist and multi-instrumentalist Pascal Comenade, a cooperation that led one year later to the album 'Traité de Guitarres Triolectiques' on Because Music, re-released in 2016 as 'The Nothing Twist' on Trouble In Mind. Comenade, who became known for using toy instruments an an important component of his music, has released more than a dozen albums since the early 1980s and has worked with artists as diverse as Robert Wyatt, Faust and PJ Harvey. For their Snowflakes Christmas single, The Liminañas and Pascal Comenade again join forces and have recorded two songs together: original 'The Curse Of Santa Claus' and a version of 'Silent Night'. 'The Curse Of Santa Claus' has usual Christmas ingedrients like sleigh bells and church bells, and revolves around a story read by Odliz Bemer, but adds several vintage sounding organs, pounding drums and a fuzz guitar. The instrumental version of 'Silent Night' gives the much covered traditional a complete new perspective, with the melody being played by a glockenspiel, Herb Albert-style trumpets, violins and funky wah-wah guitars, all held together by a steady drumbeat.

The first live incarnation of Naples' infamous Mystic Jungle collective.
Analogue improv captured live in front of an audience of around 100 people in an art-space in the city.
Sprawling across 2 sides of wax uninterrupted and encapsulating the tribe's cosmic drenched machine funk 'Live In Napoli' is a fascinating document of a crew formulating something that touches equally on Boogie, New Age, House and Esoterica with ease while oozing the sophistication and singular style the MJT have become known for in recent years.

Basil Kirchin was a pioneering British composer who blurred the lines between musical genres. While his career began in the '40s as a professional jazz drummer, in the '60s he started to make field-recordings, painstakingly splicing tapes and slowing-down sounds until the source material would be virtually unrecognizable.Originally released on Island Records in 1974, Worlds Within Worlds juxtaposes Kirchin's various tape manipulations - amplified insects, animals, engines, glossolalia of children - with traditional musical instruments to form an organic totality that has the overall effect of otherworldly, ambient soundscapes.As Brian Eno writes in the liner notes on the original release, "Within the first couple of minutes it became obvious to me that Basil had not only discovered a whole new area of sound, but had exploited it with extreme skill and sensitivity, producing beautiful and evocative music as well.... So Basil Kirchin has made a double contribution: he has not only built the instrument, but has written and played the first successful works for it."

Worlds Within Worlds remains a lost classic in sonic abstraction. This first-time reissue is recommended for fans of Broadcast, Aphex Twin and Nurse With Wound.

What is music Is it some warped set or a never before heard radio station, or two televisions being broadcast and received simultaneously

Beat Detectives 'Heavy Traffic' album is a composition that deals with ideas of cut and paste, duration, loose comedy, sharing, like shuffling through cards or flipping through folders. The original seed of the composition was a selection of recordings more or less randomly tracked to tape in a series, along with many warped and fragmented rhythms from the 56 bog beat lab. Always an investigation, scattered to find a pattern or hook or groove or better a beat. What does a frustrated version of the world feel like This is cartoon music. Is it This is a rhythm.

One headphone seems to be louder than the other but it might be the mix, the odd acoustics of the train platform or the reality of the situation is that your hearing is probably busted Now the panning in the track is totally different anyway. U know Thats the vibe.

Burn it down. Don't argue with the wrong people. acab.love poetry, end hate. earth is for all people.
the tracks should speak for themselves.

Istanbul's drone-pop producer Ekin Fil turns her sites to the big screen for the first soundtrack in her impressive catalogue of recordings. Inflame (2017) is a psychological thriller laced with paranoia and nightmares, directed by Ceylan Özgün Özçelik and was showcased at the Berlin International Film Festival and the SXSW Film Festival, amongst others.

In making her cinematic debut, Ekil Fil turns synths and electronics, in building the score that in part is brimming with tension and claustrophobia through out all the blank spaces. Always known for her restrained compositions that float amidst ethereal pools of drone and whorl, Ekin Fil sets forth haunting minor-key melodies, monotone arppegiations and plenty of seance-fiction dread. Scattered bits of the film's sound design flicker at the edges of these tracks, as an aural hallucination that dissolves as quickly as it becomes evident. Dubbed electro rhythms creep through the recursive leitmotifs and variations on themes always cast in a dim, crepuscular light.

Less informed by the retro-garde aesthetics of Carpenter and Argento, the spectral electronics of Inflame's soundtack finds its neighbors in the skeletal sprawl of Raime and the darker ambient propositions sponsored by Posh Isolation.

Edition of 200 LPs, black vinyl, 88 page artist's book, Softbound 8.5" x 11"

Eric as Alain.
Philosophical trimmings as unabashed art.
Satire isn't mean, it's about being funny.
Get in on the joke.
Eric as Homer Simpson.