Beats News

East Wall was an Italian electronic dark wave band started by Fabrizio Chiari (ex keyboardist of Kirlian Camera) and Wilma Notari in 1982. After a series of demos and live performances, the duo recruited Angelo Bergamini of Kirlian Camera to help with arrangement and synthesizers. They released their debut single 'Eyes Of Glass' in 1985 which had huge success in Germany, leading to a deal with ZYX.

By 1991 the band consisted of Fabrizio Chiari (Synthesizer, Electronics, Keyboards), Tiziana Wells (Vocals, Synthesizer) and Angelo Bergamini (Synthesizer, Piano, Arrangement). At the beginning of the year, they recorded their next batch of songs at Prominence Studio in Cremona and A Love Sound Studio in Piacenza. "Silence" was self released by the band in 1991. The lead track 'Silence' was a left-over song by Kirlian Camera recorded in 1985 with vocals by Simona Buja under the alias Lorenza Larini. It was recorded largely using a variety of now-classic Roland, Yamaha, and Oberheim synthesizers. The album displays East Wall's maturity and unique aesthetics, with instrumental pieces reminiscent of Angelo Badalamenti' Twin Peaks score. Tiziana Wells sings with pure emotion, hypnotic at times, upbeat and carefree at others. Frankie Teardrop (of the Wierd party and the Systems of Romance blog) describes this album as "possibly the closest thing to darkwave freestyle that exists.' We decided to expand the album, releasing it as a deluxe double LP cut louder at 45 RPM. We have also included an unreleased extended version of 'Ice Of Fire' and the bonus track 'Intro', found on the DAT tapes Fabrizio Chiari sent us.

All songs are remastered for vinyl by George Horn at Fantasy Studios in Berkeley. It is housed in the original jacket, featuring a dramatically lit photograph of the band by Andrea Gambetta. Each copy includes an 11x11 double-sided insert with photos of the band, lyrics, and liner notes by Intergalactic Gary, who's Despair Mix turned us onto to this album

Local Action presents the long-awaited second album by Lil Jabba, Grotto. Jabba made his name producing hypnotic juke and footwork records, back when he was based in Baltimore, quickly catching the attention of footwork figureheads like the late DJ Rashad. His early music was self-released or issued via small-run cassettes, but built Jabba a cult following online. In 2013, Local Action released Scales, a critically-acclaimed collection of Jabba's key material to date, described by Dummy as one of the year's most singular albums.' Jabba is not just a musician, he's a painter whose work has been featured in the likes of Vogue and has been commissioned for album covers. Since moving to Brooklyn, he's operated out of a loft studio called the Grotto that doubles as both a literal and imagined world for his creations - his music, his giant paintings and murals and the creatures and figures that orbit his work. Later Jabba EPs on Local Action and True Panther focused on bringing the Grotto to life, both through a larger, more expansive sound palette (often featuring samples from the Grotto itself, such as echoes from pipes and room tones) and glimpses of the studio in the EPs' artwork. These EPs also saw him find new supporters in artists like Hudson Mohawke, Sbtrkt, S-Type, Mumdance and Gilles Peterson, who had 'Waila' up for Track of the Year at his Worldwide Awards. Jabba's second album Grotto is the encapsulation of his story so far. It's a genre-less record that draws from dub, Southern hip-hop, jungle and more without ever conforming to stereotypes, driven by the moonlit melodies and dynamic shifts that have always been present in his work. This is one of electronic music's most individual voices in its most realised form yet.

Portuguese electronic production duo MUTUAL emerged in a shroud of mystery in March 2015 with A1017, a stunning 3-track debut EP released on Hush Hush Records. The shadowy outfit returns to the Seattle-based label for another confident and expansive 3-track EP that showcases their rough and rugged fusion of deconstructed breaks, distorted jungle, immersive house/techno, and atmospheric ambient styles. After Finitude kicks off with evocative lead single Archê,' a nearly 7-minute journey through unexpected samples, invigorating breaks, nostalgic synths, skittering rhythms, and an exceptionally dynamic arrangement. Contingency pt. I' and Contingency pt. II' fill the B-side, a pair of interconnected tracks that place an enhanced focus on their rich compositional structures, deceptively delicate melodies, blistering percussive techniques, and magnificent flourishes into ambient, noise, and neo-classical terrain. Displaying another sharp and deep immersion into their distinctive sonic world, MUTUAL further proves their status as an exciting, evocative duo.

Wake in Fright, the second full-length by the New York City duo Uniform, is a harrowing exploration of self-medication, painted in the colors of war. Following the Ghosthouse 12", whose A-side Pitchfork called their most relentless track yet,' vocalist Michael Berdan and guitarist/producer Ben Greenberg return with a new batch of even more punishing songs that incorporate elements of industrial music, thrash metal, harsh noise, and power electronics.

This record is primarily about psychic transition,' Berdan explained. The distress that these songs attempt to illustrate comes from a place of stagnation and monotony. This is what happens when old ways of thinking become exhausted and old ways of coping prove ineffective. Something must change or it will break.'

The characters Berdan brings to life in his lyrics quit using but have ruinous relapses ( Habit') or struggle as their resolve crumbles ( Bootlicker'), they use alcohol to ease their insomnia but and are helpless when they get sober and stop sleeping again ( Night of Fear'), they're existential misanthropes trapped in dead-end lives ( The Lost').

Greenberg sets these stories to menacing guitar and samples of literal sounds of war — the kick drums are bombs going off, the snares are gunshots. He drew the record's immense sample library from action movies, Foley sound packs, field recordings, and more, and the result is devastating. The guitar is also as crucial as ever, and now as indebted Slayeras it is to Big Black. Greenberg conjures up massive riffs and shredding solos, pushing the band deeper into the metal world whose borderlands they've long stalked.

We are surrounded by war and the whole world is burning and it doesn't seem like there are any appropriate reactions or responses left anymore,' Greenberg elaborated. This music is our response to and our reflection of the overwhelming violence, chaos, hate, and destruction that confronts us and everyone else in the world every day of our lives. When we play, I don't feel powerless anymore. I hope this record can help others transcend their anger and frustration.'

Touring North America and Europe beginning in February Members of The Men, Drunkdriver, Pygymy Shrews, York Factory Complaint, and more

Ghosthouse received excellent coverage on Pitchfork, Thump, CLRVYNT, Stereogum, and more

Wake in Fright, the second full-length by the New York City duo Uniform, is a harrowing exploration of self-medication, painted in the colors of war. Following the Ghosthouse 12", whose A-side Pitchfork called their most relentless track yet,' vocalist Michael Berdan and guitarist/producer Ben Greenberg return with a new batch of even more punishing songs that incorporate elements of industrial music, thrash metal, harsh noise, and power electronics.

This record is primarily about psychic transition,' Berdan explained. The distress that these songs attempt to illustrate comes from a place of stagnation and monotony. This is what happens when old ways of thinking become exhausted and old ways of coping prove ineffective. Something must change or it will break.'

The characters Berdan brings to life in his lyrics quit using but have ruinous relapses ( Habit') or struggle as their resolve crumbles ( Bootlicker'), they use alcohol to ease their insomnia but and are helpless when they get sober and stop sleeping again ( Night of Fear'), they're existential misanthropes trapped in dead-end lives ( The Lost').

Greenberg sets these stories to menacing guitar and samples of literal sounds of war — the kick drums are bombs going off, the snares are gunshots. He drew the record's immense sample library from action movies, Foley sound packs, field recordings, and more, and the result is devastating. The guitar is also as crucial as ever, and now as indebted Slayeras it is to Big Black. Greenberg conjures up massive riffs and shredding solos, pushing the band deeper into the metal world whose borderlands they've long stalked.

We are surrounded by war and the whole world is burning and it doesn't seem like there are any appropriate reactions or responses left anymore,' Greenberg elaborated. This music is our response to and our reflection of the overwhelming violence, chaos, hate, and destruction that confronts us and everyone else in the world every day of our lives. When we play, I don't feel powerless anymore. I hope this record can help others transcend their anger and frustration.'

Touring North America and Europe beginning in February Members of The Men, Drunkdriver, Pygymy Shrews, York Factory Complaint, and more

Ghosthouse received excellent coverage on Pitchfork, Thump, CLRVYNT, Stereogum, and more

Wake in Fright, the second full-length by the New York City duo Uniform, is a harrowing exploration of self-medication, painted in the colors of war. Following the Ghosthouse 12", whose A-side Pitchfork called their most relentless track yet,' vocalist Michael Berdan and guitarist/producer Ben Greenberg return with a new batch of even more punishing songs that incorporate elements of industrial music, thrash metal, harsh noise, and power electronics.

This record is primarily about psychic transition,' Berdan explained. The distress that these songs attempt to illustrate comes from a place of stagnation and monotony. This is what happens when old ways of thinking become exhausted and old ways of coping prove ineffective. Something must change or it will break.'

The characters Berdan brings to life in his lyrics quit using but have ruinous relapses ( Habit') or struggle as their resolve crumbles ( Bootlicker'), they use alcohol to ease their insomnia but and are helpless when they get sober and stop sleeping again ( Night of Fear'), they're existential misanthropes trapped in dead-end lives ( The Lost').

Greenberg sets these stories to menacing guitar and samples of literal sounds of war — the kick drums are bombs going off, the snares are gunshots. He drew the record's immense sample library from action movies, Foley sound packs, field recordings, and more, and the result is devastating. The guitar is also as crucial as ever, and now as indebted Slayeras it is to Big Black. Greenberg conjures up massive riffs and shredding solos, pushing the band deeper into the metal world whose borderlands they've long stalked.

We are surrounded by war and the whole world is burning and it doesn't seem like there are any appropriate reactions or responses left anymore,' Greenberg elaborated. This music is our response to and our reflection of the overwhelming violence, chaos, hate, and destruction that confronts us and everyone else in the world every day of our lives. When we play, I don't feel powerless anymore. I hope this record can help others transcend their anger and frustration.'

Touring North America and Europe beginning in February Members of The Men, Drunkdriver, Pygymy Shrews, York Factory Complaint, and more

Ghosthouse received excellent coverage on Pitchfork, Thump, CLRVYNT, Stereogum, and more

"Random Soundtrack" is a kind of extended field recording or sonic Écriture automatique. It's another attempt to search the point where music and found sounds intersect. "Random Soundtrack" is a sort of sister album to last year's "Vanishing Land". Similarly to its predecessor, it is a series of interfusing recordings, compositions, scraps of field recordings, ordinary connectors. However, while "Vanishing Land" was the result of laborious shuffling a well-known material, "Random Soundtrack" is an album created in its own right, almost unconsciously. Its framework was created by some forgotten compositions and improvisations found in the memory of the recorder which coincidentally shaped a whole by themselves. Several elements that were added later only developed this sketch in a similar manner to the idea of André Breton. The album that was created this way is in fact more a synthesis of real images than a surreal vision. Quasifilm aesthetics and seemingly hypnotic sound hide a worrying thought about capturing the image of the last quiet days of the chaotic world.

Next installment of Rex Ilusivi archive uncoverings - This time a live concert from SNP (srpsko narodno pozoriste / serbian national theatre) in Novi Sad, Serbia. Again it's a sublime masterclass in layering and mixing from the much revered King Of Illusion. TIP!
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'To this day Rex Ilusivii remains an enigma of the global music culture, caught between late cold war electronic spheres, classic and the power of found sound. A musician from the Southeast European counterculture, whose art today seems to be the worldly intelligence of the modern age. Listening to the early music of Mitar Subotic sounds like catching the future even tough you know here sounds the past. How can somebody be light years ahead of most of his contemporaries in terms of individuality and uncompromising vision, creating such musical narratives with a feeling for outernational space' It must have been the signs of his time in Yugoslavia, that lead him to compositions in which two or more antithetic forces fight each other for the cause of an unheard harmony that melts industrial, sample art, Musique concr'te and ambient. His 'Koncert SNP' from 1983 demonstrates his ingeniousness to the core ' about 38 minutes of experiment and appeal that move playful between demonstrative frankness and seductive sensuality. You hear pulsating synthesizer bliss, widescreen sample art full of Bosch-like images and elusively drama catchiness that absorbs deep. So deep that words can't express their meaning. Only notes can spell out the score. Listening to his live recording several times without a break reveals also a story arc of literary transcendence. And as transcendence is something beyond speech, the music of Rex Ilusivii can't be narrowed down in phrases. Only one thing must be recommended: surrender to it and it will surrender to you.
Michael Leuffen in June 2016

This collection of demos and live recordings from Amsterdam/Dutch post-punk bands capture the early 80s sound and offer a unique insight into the spontaneous, DIY music style of the time. Wide representation of styles on here - from driving guitar punk to weird minimal synth .. deluxe 180 grams vinyl edition w/ two page insert with info & pics of the bands. ... BIG TIP for the NL punk collectors and beyond!

This is the stunning debut album from Laraaji. 'Celestial Vibration' was originally released in 1978 under the name Edward Larry Gordon, and then first issued by Soul Jazz Records/Universal Sound in 2010. Soul Jazz Records are now issuing this hypnotic piece newly re-mastered album once again in a very limited vinyl edition of 1000 and new CD as a full Laraaji
release. 'Celestial Vibration' is a cosmic journey sounding unlike anything else when it was first released in 1978.
Laraaji's album was first issued in New York as a private-pressing record with only very minimal distribution. His distinctive use of the harp-like open-stringed zither and kalimba creates a hypnotic trance like musical landscape. Laraaji first came to fame in the 1980s as a worldwide ambient artist working with Brian Eno on EG Records. At this time Laraaji worked with a wide range of
experimental musicians - Jon Hassell, Harold Budd, Michael Brook, Bill Nelson, Roger Eno, Nana Vasconcelos and Bill Laswell. Since Soul Jazz Records/Universal Sound first released 'Celestial Vibration' seven years ago (now long deleted), Laraaji's career has had a renaissance, releasing a string of new albums including a fascinating collaboration with Blues Control for the FRKYWS label, as well as reissues of earlier albums including a three-album cassette only release last year.
Today Gordon continues his unique musical and spiritual path - performing his music mainly for meditation at yoga global retreats. He runs his own 'Therapeutic Laughter Workshop' where he coaches people in the mindful use of laughing for its health benefits. The album is issued as a limited-edition deluxe vinyl and CD edition (previously released as Edward Larry Gordon 'Celestial Vibration').

Blackest Ever Black presents To Make A Fool Ask, And You Are The First, the latest - and, for us, greatest - full-length entry in Ashtray Navigations' uniquely important, uniquely sprawling - possibly sentient and self-multiplying - discography. It picks up where the nerve-damaged exotica of 2015's A Shimmering Replica left off...acerbic surf' guitar and synthetic salt-breeze fit for the Tropic of Yorkshire. Instant immersion in a potent, pungent psychedelia that feels equal parts cosmic and aquatic. What Todd wrenches out of his instrument these days is a language unto itself (perhaps it always was)... a helical, ecstatic, grieving howl...a (super)natural efflorescence, beyond earthly description or transcription...ur-rock and post-everything. But equal emphasis is given here to pulsating machine rhythms and lush keyboard textures, with killer contributions from longtime fellow traveller Mel O'Dubhshlaine. There were pre-echoes of all this in the recent(ish) Fluctuants and Aero Infinite: but To Make A Fool feels like the culmination, or the fullest expression, of something which was only glimpsed in those earlier works. The side-long 'Spray Two' - gently eddying string-pads gradually slashed to all f***k with fraught piano improvisations - is a masterpiece in its own right. At its delirious peak, the whole thing boils over into brooding, arpeggiated noir-techno - Michael Mann's steadicam roaming Leeds' B-roads, some kind of tangerine nightmare - before finally cooling into a bleary starfield of pure and sumptuous hypno-tone. This LP is a trip, in the most skull-splitting, soul-crinkling sense of the word, but it soothes and heals as well. A circular and transformative journey to the other side of the underneath and a landmark recording from one of the most adept and visionary nodes in Britain's freakout underground.

Back in stock 1st week of october (records are aside at the label)

Raving hard dark and experimental deep technoid sound ... The flip brings an ambient space bass music mixes...

1x each customer!

Ace four-tracker.
Caves was created in the aftermath of a devastating set by DJ Stingray, and sounds like it: storming but funky, infused with the spirit of classic Detroit techno. Spacetown marries Arpanet and John Carpenter, with a saturnine melody which sticks in the mind.
Flip it for a deadly Caves remix by man-of-the-year Convextion, inimitably sci-fi but banging, and the elemental, ambient accomplishment of The Strips, consolidating the promise on show throughout.

It seems somehow fitting that Frank Dommert's first solo album, Kiefermusik, was first released in 1990, just a moment after the new decade had ticked over. During the late 1980s, Dommert had been quietly working away at his own art in Cologne, while developing connections with other sub-rosa operatives: in 1987, he took part in a collaborative single with Christoph Heemann and Achim P Li Khan's outfit, Hirsch Nicht Aus Sofa (H.N.A.S.), Hunsrück', he was also part of H.N.A.S. for their side of Face To Face Vol. 2, a split LP with Vox Populi. Dommert was also releasing cassettes in limited editions on his Entenpfuhl imprint, including an early collaboration with Marcus Schmickler, early tapes by PFN and C-Schulz, along with a number of solo cassettes and chapbooks.

Kiefermusik saw in the new decade by repurposing and recontextualising material from one of those cassettes, Early Loops & Tapes, which consisted of material recorded between 1984 and 1987. Discussing the album in 2015, Dommert confided that he heavily processed these recordings in the studio, with the open studio window integrated. The record is pretty much a (LSD) trip, intentional and a large portion unconscious.' It's certainly full of hallucinatory visions, sidereal moments where loops knock you off-kilter and waves of surrealist and Art Brut noise tactics stop you in your tracks. It's simultaneously a rough-as-guts album of collapsing architectures and an intelligent, sensitively sculpted masterpiece of editing, with Dommert winding a psychedelic spool around loops that could spin out into eternity.

Kiefermusik may well have had more impact in international tape- and record-trading circles than in Dommert's hometown. Dommert had already made connections with fellow travellers like ADN, RRR, Recommended and Odd Size, and the album slowly found its way around the world, connecting with like-minded listeners who were on the look-out for new voices in the heterogeneous, nebulous field of underground, low-tech avant-garde.

Yet Kiefermusik, along with the electro-acoustic improvisation collective of Kontakta (featuring Dommert alongside C-Schulz, Georg Odijk, Hajsch, Marcus Schmickler and Monika Westphal), the fantastic series of LPs released on Quiet Artworks (PFN, Hajsch, Ios Smolders), and the strange electro satellites from labels like Erfolg (C-Schulz, Marcus Schmickler), seemed somehow to set things up for the next wave to come through, the brilliant explosion of electronic music to come out of Cologne in the mid-late 1990s. And beyond all that, even, Kiefermusik is still a fantastically strange, beautiful, and compelling album, a good twenty-six years later. Don't miss it this time around.

Japanese legend Keiji Haino meets two of Belgium's most active and valued musicians: Jozef Dumoulin- keyboards (Lilly Joel) and Teun Verbruggen - drums (Othin Spake).

'The Miracles Of Only One Thing' is a deep and intense testimony of this meeting. Keiji Haino - without any doubt one of the most important musicians from the Japanese underground scene, is at his best !

Teun Verbruggen (drums & electronics) and Jozef Dumoulin(keyboards & electronics) did a 3-week tour in Japan in Sept 2015 playing concerts in duo, but also solo and with local musicians. One of those musicians was hero Keiji Haino, whose work has included rock, free improvisation, noise, percussion, psychedelic music, minimalism and drones. Besides his legendary bands Fushitsusha and Lost Aaraaff, he has worked with artists and bands like Boris, The Melvins, Jim O'Rourke, Oren Ambarchi, Peter Brötzmann and Steve Noble.

As for Dumoulin and Verbruggen, they are both known for their always refreshing and groundbreaking work that breaks up the barriers between free improvisation, electro, jazz and more. Jozef Dumoulin is part of the duo Lilly Joel appearing recently on Sub Rosa (SR416).

The three teamed up for a studio recording and a recorded live-show. Out of all the material, they distilled an album that reflects both the excitement of the new bond as well as the deep and vast sonic landscapes that their joined forces laid bare.

Two brothers from the outskirts of London. Model Man set about on a journey of enlightenment through minimalism. Dissecting the piano, replacing its parts with nuts and bolts and turning conventional instrument into something unpredictable and unique. They say Before releasing anything we were lucky enough to play and record with some great artists such as Damon Albarn and Squarepusher on various projects. They taight us things about minimalizing our toolset and using space to create new textures in our arrangements'
They have enjoyed the support of the likes of Gold Panda. For fans of Nils Frahm, Four Tet, Caribou etc

UK electronic & ambient experimentalist Specimens presents his debut album 'Sculptures'. Featuring artwork by the award winning Australian artist Kieran Ingram and mastered by Room 40 label boss and cornerstone of the Drone/Ambient music world Lawrence English. 'Sculptures' is a delicately and painstaking put together debut album, it follows up from releases on A Giant Fern, Amsterdam based Shimmering Moods Records & the collaborative Specimens x Daniel Wiesmayr release 'Water & Concrete' on London's Tenderly Surrender, the title track of which soundtracked a short from film maker & director Sophie Littman & went on to get over 20,000 views in it's Nowness premiere.
Wearing his influences on his sleeve & with a nod to past and present noise pioneers such as Throbbing Gristle, Leyland Kirby, K.Leimer and Ben Frost, the record pans between a dream-like fog on the tracks "Cerulean Forest' & French Morning' and cold industrial chops on A Marble Hallway'.
Specimens said of this release I didn't want to make a record intentionally difficult to listen to, but I wanted uncomfortable moments, It was important for me to try and make the record sound as human as possible and in some places distinclty live"The lighter more gentle moments hold together the records more jagged edges, occasionally leaning towards a more classical feel, in a way the likes of William Basinski & Sean McCann display with regular expertise, this is best illustrated in the tracks Piano Loops' & VI.VI.MMXV'. Samples of Sudanese wrestling & Tuvan Throat Singing give the record the human' feel Specimens describes and adds a charm which prevents the record from ever feeling too slick.

Emotional Response returns to the music of the Diskant label to look more closely at a band of forefathers for the resurgent Dusseldorf music scene, The Durian Brothers. A collaboration between artists Florian Meyer, Marc Matter and Stefan Schwander has seen a trilogy of EPs on their own Diskant label - itself initially created as a means to release the band's music - a split release (with Konono Nº1) on Fat Cat, a live cassette, last years mini-LP on Kontra Musik and the most recent split with High Wolf. Although often based in different cities across the Continent, recording is centered around Dusseldorf's Salon des Amateurs. While some tracks were directly recorded there, all of them were developed and rehearsed at the groundbreaking arts/bar/club space. The distinctive polyrhythms come from modified turntables - without using records - along with effects and sequencing, thereby creating a unique, experimental, dense and warm dance music - oft described a wooden trance muzik. Ausgewahlte Durian Stucke ('Selected Durian Pieces') takes the music from the early EPs that did not feature on the Diskanted (ERS022) album and presents them as one stand-alone. As the solo projects of Don't DJ and Harmonious Thelonious become more distinct and known, what the future holds for the Brother's collaborations is uncertain, but together their music has little to compare.

Burgeoning club label Nervous Horizon follow up label boss TSVI's recent 'Sacred Drums' EP with a new EP from Houndstooth, AUS and R&S signee, Second Storey.

'Spin Cycle', comprised of three tracks written in the same warehouse space Storey shared with TSVI and fellow NH boss, Wallwork, earlier this year, details a micro-world of new ideas that Storey manifests within a sprawling, hyper-specific web of weird and wonderful bass abstraction. It's not often you go to a viewing and your potential house-mate actively wants you to make noise with no restrictions', he says reflecting on first meeting TSVI while looking for a new place to live in London.

Energised by this new sense of creative freedom and boosted by a support network pro-vided by the extended NH crew ( Gugli (TSVI) and Tommy (Wallwork) were buzzing off these tracks when I played them'), Storey is at the top of his game across the EP.

From the fuzzy, looping programming on the title-track, written as if in a 'spin cycle', to the swinging, crunchy pressure on 'Critters' and the muffled, industrial-tech tones to 'Sludge 3D', 'Spin Cycle' plays right into the NH ethos — making music that sounds like nothing you've heard before.

Analog synth techno unit by Lena, formed in 2013 by Hisashi Saito as a producer. ''galcid'' performs in improvisational style with their policy ''No PC ! No Preset !!'' The memorable 1st album''hertz''in digital format, released upon in worldwide from Detroit Underground, attracted Karl Hyde (Underworld), Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle) and other well-known musician all over the world. The sound going by in the margin between functional dance music and electronic music as sound art is, so to speak, the digital funk-ness. Recorded 9 tracks, sustaining the variable and rhythm of inorganic electronic sound in search for the elemental parts in techno music. The album jacket artwork is designed by The Designers Republic.

Analog synth techno unit by Lena, formed in 2013 by Hisashi Saito as a producer. "galcid" performs in improvisational style with their policy "No PC ! No Preset !!" The memorable 1st album"hertz"in digital format, released upon in worldwide from Detroit Underground, attracted Karl Hyde (Underworld), Chris Carter (Throbbing Gristle) and other well-known musician all over the world. The sound going by in the margin between functional dance music and electronic music as sound art is, so to speak, the digital funk-ness. Recorded 9 tracks, sustaining the variable and rhythm of inorganic electronic sound in search for the elemental parts in techno music. The album jacket artwork is designed by The Designers Republic.

Ecstatic present a companion piece to their retrospective of Paper Eyes material from Gavin Russom with this limited tape featuring two live shows from 96/97 and a fake radio show also
from '97 with a live studio appearance in which he interviews himself...
Previously restricted to a series of self-released tapes, Gavin Russom's early Paper Eyes project was given a much-needed reappraisal by Ecstatic who dropped the warped delights of Source
Cognitive Drive - Transmissions 1996-1998 back in May. Providing an intriguing snapshot of Russom's state of mind in the months following his arrival in NYC from Providence, the 16-track
Source Cognitive Drive channelled a harsh and abrasive spirit that was comparable to Container, Wolf Eyes and Carlos Giffoni.
In contrast to the previous Paper Eyes record on Ecstatic, this cassette presents the project in a different light. Two uncredited performances recorded sometime between 1996 and 1997 sit on
the B side, the gritty quality of the recording only enhancing the shredding nature of Russom's sets! Complementing these, Ecstatic have scored a fake radio show from '97 in which Russom spoofs it up as Jonny Stardust, interviewing himself before delivering another scorching Paper Eyes meltdown.

* 'The Fuselage EP' is by Idris, the alternate persona of Mosam Howieson.
* The two-sided EP is dark but inviting and perfect for post-midnight exploration.

* Dark realities and crossings of bass music and techno are explored in Idris work, with the 'Fuselage EP' strong percussive influences from drum and bass.

* 'Those Who Can't' cuts relentless machinery and low fi kicks against, slick snares, evoking images of post-industrial war fare - propeller engines against black dust clouds and grey smog.

* 'Driftwood' also draws on broken beat influence, however its softer, hypnotic kicks are easy to surrender to.

Roman noise omnivore Toni Cutrone aka Mai Mai Mai names his poisonous, punishing electronic miasmas after characters of the Greek alphabet, beginning with Theta in 2013 and followed by Delta in 2014. Phi is the third and final installment in his Mediterranean trilogy, pushing the project deeper into a vivid interzone of digital synthesis and scorched ritual.

The album opens with a searing collaboration with avant-folk instrumentalist Luca Venitucca, locked into a lofty duel of distorted drones, before pivoting to a throbbing oblivion of jackhammer bass, seething feedback, and combat samples. Later passages ooze through industrial spoken word, technoid voodoo hallucination, seasick prayer loops, and nightmare exotica, assisted in places by Italian experimental percussion legend Lino Capra Vaccina (of 1970's golden age' groups Aktuala and Telaio Magnetico). Cutrone ascribes a degree of his maximalist tendencies to a rootless youth packed with parents through Europe and the Near East, absorbing fragments of sensation and sound, but his own decade-plus experience in the Italian underground has doubtless played a role as well. Intensity accrues, patience decays. Closure is its own reward.

Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Hombrelobo Studio by V. Fisik. Artwork and design by LEGNO, photography by Ilaria Doimo.

Floridian fantasy island ethnographer Wave Temples is responsible for a unique flow of opaque tropical hallucinations since 2013, issued via a variety of noted tape boutiques. His latest, Isle Enchanted, maps a mirage coastline of salt haze, cerulean water, and smeared, siren keys. Both sides were tracked across three summer days, inspired by notions of Polynesian paradise and the Maori underworld. Blank blue waves swell and crash, tones dance and zone, textures phase and fade - Isolation Exotica, for castaways abandoned on utopian shores. As personal and poetic an encapsulation of palm tree minimalism as any we've heard since ...On Sea-Faring Isolation (2009). The more hidden the temple the more sacred the space: This place to me is what it must have been like to discover the island of Capri or Malta uninhabited since beyond ancient days.'

Recorded live at Hawaiki, June 20-22, 2016. Images sourced by WT. Design by Britt Brown. Mastered by Alter Echo.

All tracks written and produced by Peter Van Hoesen & Yves De Mey

Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci at EnissLab Studio, Rome

Cover image: The Wind has Ears - Mt Maurice, South Australia, 44 hours 1992 Wind Drawing by Cameron Robbins

Editions Mego is proud to publish the third release by Sendai. Comprised of Peter van Hoesen and Yves de Mey, Ground and Figure presents the duo reside in a more economic framework which allows the sound and rhythm they produce more room to shift, swirl and swim the circumference of the audio spectrum. Moving away from the twitchiness and anxiety of the earlier output Ground and Figure is a vast spacious journey from a duo in full control of their chosen path.

Throughout Ground and Figure abstraction and rhythm weave amongst each other in such a sly manner that the resulting tension in the conflicting elements presents the listener with a hypothetical high-tech elastic percussive grid. A thudding, pulsating, shapeshifting ambient beast is summoned by these two creators working as one.

This is machine music. This is hypnotic disorientation. This is an immense ambitious and refined world of sound and rhythm. This is the work of two producers who continuously try to top up their skills.

Shapes Of Rhythm launches its new south London-based label with a collaborative EP release from its two founders, Tom Central and BodyMoves. Dual Thought is a collection of beats and syncopations, weaving a dustypatchwork of samples around contemporary beats.Gilles Peterson gave the EP its radio debut, playing Himba on BBC Radio 6 Music. As well as this, Wish has been premiered on Gilles' Worldwide FM station. DJ support comes from Dom Servini (Wah Wah 45s), DJ Gilla (First Word) and Pete On The Corner (Worldwide FM, On The Corner Records).Starting with a pile of LPs and a classic home studio set-up, the EP was created by a handful of jam sessions between the two artists. Textura opens the EP with a swinging hip hop beat, afro atmospheres and rhythms with a sprinkle of the LA beat sound. One For Crates is also hip hop oriented but is groove-based, melodic and instrumental also featuring afro texures. BodyMoves flies solo for Wish, with a 90 bpm beat-driven soul cut with its feet firmly in Brasil. It's the spiritual follow up to This Is Gabor's House from his well received 2015 debut North Spaulding EP on Keep Up! Records. Himba closes the EP with more Afro-centric grooves and chanting with plenty of percussion and bass.

City of All Times is a sound collage of field recordings and songs, recorded at various locations across Norway, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Spain and the UK. The album documents, among other things, climbing Gardnos Crater, catching the Viking Line from Stockholm to Turku, commuting in Neukoln, cycling across Hardangervidda plateau, meandering in Gracia and pallbearing in Beaulieu.

The result is a web of chance impressions - overheard conversations, rural ambience and eavesdropped rehearsals captured on the fly yet weirdly interlocking, like a dizzying expanse of avenues and streets, country lanes and subways. A city where there is no homogenisation - just total existence, total cacophony, a total flowing of human ethnicities and tribes and beings and gradations of awareness and consciousness and cruising.

Devonanon is John B McKenna and Richard Greenan. Additional production by Best Available Technology.

City of All Times is a joint Kit Records / Lost Map release.

* Vogue, energetic, prepossessed, new...that's you. Bonaface give me ingenue. Trill, lithe, that's what you do...baby how strong are we What would you say, what wouldn't you do for the crew

* 'Pure, Beyond Reproach' is the new studio album from vibrational club artist Egyptrixx. New sensations + new energy, jeep music for a Saturn moon. An exercise in physical sound and granular symbolism, this record suggests a parallel between the total impact of human tendency towards absolute loyalty and an imagined, sub-threshold percussion of collisions among all the oceanic micro-plastics. Bap emotion >> this and that.

* The aesthetic is pacific litter clank, chill torrents and artificial triumphalism...actual glow. Repetition apes tidal energy, a reminder of the revolutionary capability of sound. splashing, pounding, dripping, phasing. Glinted piles of shatter swept back and forth - crystal ammunition // liquid contemplation. Anodyne ammo mimics the erasure of ethics via dispersion, backlit by the low key petroleum tangle of bffs/oblivion.

Inaugurating a new chapter for Horo, Liam Blackburn continues his journey as Ancestral Voices. Following on from the 'Night Of Visions' LP for Samurai Horo and his recent 'Old Earth Voodoo' EP for Samurai Music, 'Yantra' is 4 soaring creations that further develop his caustic ambience. Euphoric touches that hint at his work as Indigo are added into the mix, but the hazy sonic atmosphere initiated with 'Night Of Visions' dominates throughout, refined here into a meditative form that whispers renewal and rediscovery.

London-based duo Jamka return with Inter Alia, the latest evidence of their patient, intimate
relationship with their analogue machines. From the start there's a sense of event - we encounter
clear, interlaced electronic textures, powerful analogue drones and well-placed beats.
The tracks aren't soundscapes so much as fertile electronic soundfields. Patemp continuously
expands in an incredibly subtle but powerful way and shows that Jamka's technical skills don't
preclude an emotional touch. On the tight and minimal Anazmo, the coiled energy bears traces of
minimal techno and radical electronica, but it's beyond either of these. While the album passes
quickly, it's full of detail and the thoughtfulness and craft that have gone into it are evident. Dwa
offers the chance to appreciate the flow and the sheen of its analogue textures - the modernist
romance of the power line hum and its promise of technological-cultural progress. Jamka are
known for their dynamic live performances and this energy is almost tangible on Derazor. The
stately Igora is a strong, bold close to the album, offering surprises right till the end. The sharp,
metallic details ripple through the mix and an anthemic sequence shines through.
Inter Alia makes clear that Jamka are worthy inheritors of Slovakia's proud late modernist
traditions of radical architecture and electronic music. This is a work of craft that demands respect
and repeated listening.

Nested Structure is the first Great Circles release from artists outside of Philadelphia. THRIVE are Tetsuya Yoshida and Hitoshi Kojima. They both grew up in the North Kanto area of Japan. They first met at the club run by Tetsuya Yoshida called SOUND A BASE NEST, which is known as having the best sound system in the North Kanto area. In 2007, the duo started their DJ / Producing unit THRIVE. Previous releases have included a split 12" with

Keia Yano for Japanese label Struct, and recent solo releases by Hitoshi for Always Human Tapes and for his own label Ambivalent Deviation.

This record almost didn't happen! --- Tetsuya and Hitoshi were picking up Great Circles records in Japan and, having periodically communicated with each other about music, they sent us the Struct 12" to check out. While cleaning out the back of the car a few months later, the presumably empty record mailer was about to land in the recycle bin when we fortunately discovered a demo CD of unreleased THRIVE material inside. We drove around listening to it and week later we agreed to release a 12".

The music on the Nested Structure 12" is dark, foreboding, even outwardly threatening. It's hypnotic, textural and rhythmically complex.

New 2 Track 12" release from Chunky for Swamp 81 sublabel, 81. Mastered at Metropolis

Chunky returns to Swamp 81 sublabel 81 with two fresh tracks of dubbed out weight. Tolk to Meh keeps things purely low-end with a minimal vibe and that signature 81 bass. Track two Who Is That continues in a similar vein but takes things up a level and is primed to destroy any club soundsystem.

Killer punkrockdub album from 1983 finally reissued via the consistent Light In The Attic label. HUGE tip!!
Political post-punk trio This Heat dissolved at a turbulent time in the UK. Margaret The Iron Lady' Thatcher was in power, and her budget-cutting, ultra-conservative influence was felt strongly in-among many other places-the cultural melting pot of Brixton, South London, where This Heat had their origins. Dusting himself off after the collapse of the band in 1982, guitarist/vocalist Charles Bullen united with Julius Samuel to form Lifetones and embraced the sounds of the local West Indian community to fuse reggae flavor to the kind of propulsive, rhythmic, and experimental music made by This Heat.

Deceit, This Heat's 1981 album, had seen them work with David Cunningham, who had already helped mesh dub reggae with new wave pop on The Flying Lizards' 1979 single, Money (That's What I Want Want).' Even so, For A Reason was a great leap, one that created a strange, unsettling mood as Bullen's multi-tracked, chant-like vocals met dub beats and Krautrock-informed repetition. Where Deceit dealt with the nuclear threat, For A Reason was less reactionary, even quoting Bob Marley in its lyrics: you love the life you live, you live the life you love.'

Just six tracks and half an hour long, the album was recorded at Cold Storage studio and released on Bullen's own Tone Of Life Records. It has become a sought-after collector's item that changes hands for hundreds of dollars a time. As a solo artist, Bullen was not prolific-it was 15 years until, in 1998, he released Internal Clock under the name Circadian Rhythms-but like the rest of his band, he has enjoyed a long, enriching career in unending pursuit of new sounds.

Even though This Heat had no commercial success to follow up on, For A Reason was an album created with no intention of hitting the charts. Reissued on Light In The Attic, Lifetones' single album retains a timeless quality and perhaps-on tracks such as Good Side'-a futuristic sound that nobody else ever caught up to.

After the blunted murk of their previous self-titled mini-album on Idle Hands, Amos 'Jabu' Childs and Sam 'Neek' Barrett return to the place where their most fragmented ideas manifest in fleeting glimpses of tracks. Theirs is a teasing approach, where all the facets of a fully formed track are condensed down to one or two minutes of distilled excellence.Things have moved on since that previous eight-track skirmish (and indeed the excellentMemoryz Ov Ucassette on No Corner), as though someone has cracked the blinds in the cutting room where Childs and Barrett sit splicing together their bittersweet vignettes. "Oasis Weir" is an especially hopeful opening gambit with its sunkissed melodic inflections, but of course you can sense the disquiet behind the daydream. "I won't be long", the disembodied voice assures, but once you enter a record such as this time becomes something of an abstract. Even if it only lasts 20 minutes, listening toIDLE038 yields as much depth as any long-form LP.The point here is that the duo have left no room for fat. Every second of sonics counts for something, helping realise compositional perfection in a place free of arrangement, chasing the ultimate loop. From bruising darkness to heartbreaking beauty, the breadth and impact achieved in such a short space of time is testament to the continued development of this most precocious of Bristolian projects. It's another step on for O$MVM$M, and a further achievement for Idle Hands in the quest for ever more interesting sounds from the local area and beyond.

Following on from the acclaimed Talk From Home', Suzanne Kraft returns to Melody As Truth with a second full release, What You Get For Being Young'. Recorded in Amsterdam over the course of May 2016, What You Get For Being Young' offers a full immersion into Kraft's ever-evolving world. A Milky TIP!
.
Lush, digital manipulated synths spread across cold surfaces, metallic drums dance around skeletal song structures. Whilst echoes of Talk From Home' remain, they are but faint echoes, as Kraft's recent exploration into sound-design and digital manipulation confidently posits What You Get For Being Young'
as an entirely new chapter in the artist's growing narrative.

Artwork & layout by Michael Willis

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Reverse Tree, the new LP from the acclaimed duo of Eyvind Kang and Jessika Kenney, two musicians who have established themselves as powerful voices working at a unique intersection of contemporary composition, improvisation, and Asian traditional music forms. Either individually or as a pair, they have worked in contexts ranging from performances of traditional Persian and Javanese music to collaborations with Sunn O))), but their work together as a duo (documented on The face of the earth and Aestuarium, both released on Ideological Organ/Editions Mego) most clearly represents the central concerns of their diverse practices: a music of the inner life of sound, demanding ritualistic focus and promising heightened sensations.
On Reverse Tree, the duo expand their work together into the realm of the chamber ensemble, presenting two side-long works that feature Kenney's voice and Kang's viola alongside a multitude of other instrumentalists. Kang's Thoughts on Being Exiled to the Frontier, for Lord Wei, inspired by a text by the Tang dynasty poet Hsueh T'ao, features an all-star international ensemble: Kang, Kenney, maverick Israeli conductor Ilan Volkov on violin, Icelandic cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, and guitarists Oren Ambarchi and Stephen O'Malley. The piece is primarily composed of irregular patterns of pizzicato notes and guitar harmonics, gently falling in and out of sync and providing a subtly unstable support for Kenney's voice, which sings long, wavering tones, at times reminiscent of Michiko Hirayama's classic performances of Scelsi. Drawing on 20th century instrumental techniques, alternate tuning systems, non-western music and the experience of nature (the irregular rhythms of the piece calling to mind nothing so much as drops of rain), the piece opens a space both serene and subtly uneasy.
Kenney's 'Elm features Kenney and vocalist Nova Ruth (of Filastine & Twin Sista) alongside an ensemble of strings and Seattle's Gamelan Pacifica, performing on Javanese instruments tuned to the slendro scale. An uncanny timbre created by bowing the keys of the Gamelan's instruments, supported by bowed harmonics from the strings, is heard consistently throughout the piece. After a long introductory section in which this harmonic cloud slowly descends from shimmering high notes to rumbling bass, the vocalists enter, singing a slow and stately setting of a 19th century Surakarta poem (attributed to Mangkunegara the IV). The melody is sung as a rich and wavering heterophony, with the ensemble sometimes rising up to support individual notes. The poem deals with the idea of a form of knowledge achieved through deeds, as a practice and state of the heart. This is music in slow motion, in which, in Kenney's words,

Philip Corner (b. 1933) is an American composer, musician and visual artist. His teachers include Henry Cowell and Olivier Messiaen. While on military duty in Korea in 1960-1961 he studied calligraphy with Ki-sung Kim and many of his works have calligraphic scores. A founder member of Fluxus, Corner has performed with George Maciunas, Dick Higgins, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. From 1967 to 1970 he taught the course in Experimental Composition at the New School for Social Research, which John Cage initiated in 1956. He was a member of Judson Dance Theater as both dancer and composer and has written scores for dance pieces by James Waring, Yvonne Rainer, Lucinda Childs and Elaine Summers among many others. He lives in Reggio nell'Emilia with his wife and performing partner, the dancer and choreographer Phoebe Neville. His wide-ranging output includes numerous works for gongs, bells, metal percussion and gamelan orchestra.

Philip Corner writes..., 'Hiah Park - new age shaman, then living in California (where else). My Korea connexion interest led me to a workshop she gave in New York, more sessions continued until the opportunity of really working together at the proposed seminar 'Art and the Invisible Reality' to be held in Bavaria. I revisited my old practice of 'metal meditations' specially reinterpreted to go with performance/dance derived from traditional shamanic practices (of which she a certified practitioner). Then done in Trento in front of the cathedral where we joked about when they burnd witches. After the two performances in Europe our association came to an end.

Sin Cha Hong, a great friend in New York and a fabulous dancer and choreographer. Truly profound and intense body-incorporated physicality serving a spiritual content in no need of official status. Her Korean-American company she called Laughing Stone (with its implicit antipod-olarity so seeming compatible with my own expression thru music), she used my anklung (Javanese bamboo rattles) quartet gamelan Adagio onstage for one of her solos.

For many years now she has been back in the Orient. We did reconnect in 1993, performing together in the festival 'The Seoul of Fluxus'. This recording I made alone in the New York loft with my 'familiar' - the large Paiste tam-tam: while holding her in my mind.

The dancer/shamans are, as their names show, from Korea - the country par excellence for this ancient form of religion incarnate. I have had a long a long continuing and most appreciative relationship to that country's culture, from 1960 when shipped as a trombonesman to the American occupying forces there and and turned on each afternoon listening to 'National (Kuk Ahk) Music Hour' their theme song 'Su Je Chun' - the most ancient piece from the court repertoire which I have never stopped hearing as the most beautiful music ever made. That, and the breakthrough composition 'Sang-Teh/Situations' which written and performed in Seoul in 1961, made this meeting and working with a genuine Korean shaman a spectacular amplification of my rapport.

It was the beginning of the years-long improvisation-meditation practice shared with many other dancers, including most notably Phœbe Neville, soon to become my wife, and still is.' - Philip Corner, Reggio nell'Emilia, 1st September, 2016.