Beats News

Music For Dreams continue their high profile string of releases with this double album of dark pop brilliance from Danish newcomers Silent Riders. Apart from their names - Lu, Gee and C - little is known about this mysterious trio who wear masks during live performances. Emerging from some unknown murky world, materialising from the shadows in the woods, they have created a mythical sphere accessible only through their music - a vision of electronica that is organic and alive with both warmth and danger. Led by the sultry voice of Lu, we are drawn into the dark imaginings of the Silent Riders with almost cinematic brilliance as Gee and C man the machines that weave the atmospheric dronings of their world - a world that could be easily mistaken for one created by David Lynch or Tim Burton. The rhythms that form the path to this domain remind us along the way of previous travellers such as Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire or Tolouse Lowtrax. With the opening track "I See You", Silent Riders offer up a brilliant pop diamond combining all elements of their distinctive sound palette. Lu's soulful voice bounces off almost funky drum machines, all drenched in layers of dark analog ambience. On the lush "Copenhagen Dream", Lu channels a sense of brit-pop nonchalance into a political song about the state of her city. In contrast, "Being Afraid" sees the band in their hardest grittiest mode - with Lu reminiscent of PJ Harvey at her most moody and the slow groove behind her like a factory machine beating and releasing steam.  Other highlights include the chilling "Static" and the ethereal beauty of closing track "Falling" which sees the Riders in their most relaxed and dreamy state, and echoes the works of Portishead and Massive Attack. A stunning debut - limited vinyl release - don't miss.

TyphOnian Highlife is the new moniker of Spencer Clark. Clark is the ultimate shape shifter, a trickster continuously mutating from a sci-fi hero, into a mystic guru or into a speculative
visionary. As Typhonian Highlife he assimilates juxtapositions of the natural world and fantastic technology to reanimate the manieristic tradition. His compositions envision possible futures and speculative pasts. They imagine a new vision upon mankind, as a mythical underwater creature who creates meaning through a prosaic mysticism.

His latest record, "The World Of Shells" works as an dream expedition that has overflowed itself into real time. Through continual material-world visualization a technological nature music unfolds as series of movements outlining the existence of Mythological African creature. Travelling through Hollywood, Hanging Rock, Australia, and The Ear of Dionysus in Sicily the creature was placed, and has enacted a music and art form that explores a sci-fi aquatic and wind-blown desert fusion to uncover the life and wanderings of this non-material being.

Wrriten, performed & produced by Spencer Clark
Mastered by Christophe Albertijn
500 copies
Artwork by Spencer Clark

In 2015, Jim Haynes accepted a residency at MoKS in the village of Mooste, Estonia to collaborate and contribute to Simon Whetham's Active Crossover series. For this particular incarnation of Active Crossover, well over a dozen international artists were invited to this region of Estonia to collect field recordings and engage in a cross-pollination of ideas, strategies, and concepts that spawned from those recordings. The refuse from Soviet-era industrial farming complexes, the droned blur of aeolian harps, massive oil tanks, and the torrent of noise from the Arctic wind ripping through an empty water tower -- these were some of the sites that this chapter of Active Crossover archived, with each participant encouraged to trawl through the archives in use of composition, performance, installation, etc.

Throttle and Calibration is the first in a series of albums that find Haynes digging through the Active Crossover archive and grotesquely exaggerating the details into exploded compositions of volatile dynamics, nerve-exposed dissonance, caustic shortwave signal abuse, and a considerable amount of scarred metal. Marked as one of the more discordant works to date in Haynes' career, Throttle and Calibration finds company near the Schimpfluch Gruppe's aktionist stains and the sour collages of 150 Murderous Passions (aka Nurse With Wound & Whitehouse).

Previously released digitally on Crónica, Throttle and Calibration is fleshed out with an additional 20 minutes of material. Haynes is a Bay Area artist, conducting research into the corrosion of sound, photography, and video. Previous recordings have been published by Editions Mego, Ghostly International, Intransitive, Hooker Vision, Elevator Bath, and the Helen Scarsdale Agency amongst others.

A. O Caminho - The Narrow Street
B. Fogos De Artifício - Sounds From The Valley
A portrait of the provinces. Recorded by Lieven Martens, in the hamlet of Teixeiró and the hills around Gestaço, north Portugal during a singeing August 2016. How exactly does the small group communicate ...

When Spacemen 3 - the seminal, drone-indulgent English psych duo comprised of Peter Kember and Jason Pierce - split in 1991, Pierce shuffled off to acclaim in Spiritualized. Meanwhile, Kember charted a less predictable course. As Sonic Boom, he released Spectrum in 1990, then, after taking a liking to that handle, released Soul Kill (Glide Divide) as Spectrum in 1992. Kemper alternated between those monikers and Experimental Audio Research (E.A.R.) throughout the 1990s, building a rich, probing catalog of synth and electronic explorations of which 1997's Forever Alien is an undeniable highpoint.

With theremin, vocoder, and an array of modular analog synthesizers (depicted lovingly in the cover art) Kemper, along with Alf Hardy and Pete Bassman, fused cosmische abstraction and the pulsation of minimalist composition to more traditional psych elements epitomized by early Pink Floyd. Landing between the unfettered experiments of E.A.R. and Spacemen 3's songcraft ( How Does it Feel' is scarily reimagined), Kemper crafts unnerving atmosphere on the title track and an enduring catalog high point on the consummate opener, Feels Like I'm Slipping Away.' Forever Alien leaves no doubts about the reasons for Kemper's sought-after production today (he played a vital role for Animal Collective and sculpted Panda Bear's most recent album) - nor the essential status of his post-Spacemen 3 output.

These are ambiences from Australian landscapes, recorded by Spencer Clark (Monopoly Child Star Searchers, Typhonian Highlife, The Skaters, et al). Forced by undersigned into the genus of the field recordist. Natural sounds are mirrored to a world of fabricated aquarium music. Where lorikeets and ocean waves serve as a counterpoint for beautiful, light background airs. The recorder cunningly observes a building where the tourist forages, and fascinates the sounds of lands that are forever spiritual to the native. Captured on handheld cassette recorder as both being a study, and a recorded keepsake. Resulting in a document that is a particular addition to Clark's catalogue, where the sacred, the mirth and the mundane forever morph.

Recorded by Spencer Clark. Edited by Lieven Martens. Mastered by Christophe Albertijn. Typography by Jeroen Wille. Offset / Full Color artwork.

A real masterpiece! This incredible double album recorded in 1974 truly is an astounding experimental mystical trip to the desert and comes with the original longer uncut tunes from the master tapes. The rarest avant-garde music library by Egisto Macchi (founding member of GRUPPO DI IMPROVVISAZIONE NUOVA CONSONANZA) and surely one of the most interesting and intriguing experimental albums.

Hypnagogia is a word that describes the experience of transitioning from wakefulness into deep sleep. Mental phenomena that occur during this "threshold consciousness phase' include lucid thought, lucid dreaming, hallucinations, and sleep paralysis.

Shibuya Hypnagogia' is a 61-minute generative-music composition designed to induce the shift from full awareness into a state of deep delta. An alien transmission from the threshold of perception. A tool for introducing shifting gradients of consciousness. Trans-dimensional voices drift in and out over an ocean of gentle sonic-cascades. Sonic lifeforms hover weightlessly in your listening space. Sounds of ghosts in the wires. Nocturnal field recordings from Tokyo (Shibuya / Shinjuku) combine with prototype generative-music composition software to form this otherworldly audio landscape.

Mastering curves optimized for low-level playback. Tokyo recordings captured via Sound Devices 702 + Core Sound High End Binaural Microphones (DPA 4060 capsules). Mixed in real-time to a Tandberg TD20A recorder.

Recorded in 2006 and shelved until today -All Over Thereorbits the outer leftfield regions of known hip-hop galaxies. MC A's double, triple, quadruple tracked vocals are thrown around the mic like a nipponDanny Brownriding Aquadab's "Jan JelinekmeetsTimbaland" productions (his words).

Composed and resampled entirely on MPC 1000 and Kaoss pad - Aquadab claims most tracks were made in sub-2 hour improvised sessions. MC A's vox exist to us only as texture and punctuation -we're assured the lyrics are too abstract to translate(English titles have been provided for iTunes purposes).

The results are as unique as the artists involved are generally unknown. Aquadab has scored a lone remix on Japanese imprintAun Muteand MC A can be found on a few tracks by local hip-hop acts likeDJ Motive. Aquadab lives in Osaka - home to Bokeh alumni DJ Ground and Kabamix. MC A hails from Gifu, widely known as the home of Japan's master cormorant fishermen.

BKV008 is the final release from Bokeh Versions' first year of operations. 6 releases are confirmed for 2017: one cosmic dub reissue LP, one streetwear meets library tracks hookup, one 90s steppas remix 12", one Japanese exotica 7", one future roots dancefloor set and the next genesis of glacial dancehall.

150 copies, strictly limited c45 and digital.

We've spent years now going through the analog tapes from the cv313 project archives and we're excited to have the long sold out, "Dimensional Space" (LP Edition) from cv313 finally available on CD. We had to pay tribute to the brilliant artwork from Lindsay Todd @ Firecracker/House Of Traps and the superbly mastered recordings from Bazza @ Alchemy Mastering, London. This edition features selected content from the LP set and unreleased versions of, "Isis", a killer new cut from the "Beyond The Clouds" sessions titled, "Beyond Dreams", this edition also features 2 unreleased cuts which were scheduled to come out on the LP edition of the album but were omitted due to budgetary concerns, never to be heard - until now. This might be the soundtrack to the other side of the galaxy, a place where space meets bass. Epic in every sense of the word!

The newest record produced by the group of three - Ghedalia Tazartes, Pawel Romanczuk, and Andrzej Zaleski - is the result of only a few meet ups and a shared passion for music that shapes their perspective. The long play was recorded at the Rogalów Analogowy studio in the eastern part of Poland. It's worth noting that the space and surrounding countryside did not influence the sound itself as the record drifts away from the traditions of chamber music.

The musicians, together as well as separately, avoid any mainstream influences. Thus, the acoustic record is peaceful, spiritual and presents a wide variety of notions and emotions. The diversified vocal articulation and tone of Tazartes intertwines well with Zaleski's percussive play and Romanczuk's multi-instrumental skills. The rhythmic pulsation is constantly taking new directions, eventually turning into noise at some point. The voice, somehow dramatic, traps the listeners and sends them on a journey through non-existent quasi-stories. Here we are, facing an elusive romantic magician personified by a carp-headed cat.

French cult artist Ghédalia Tazartès is an uncompromising character who defies categorization. He recorded alone a dozen of albums, calling his way of working Impromuz' for lack of a better term. Before the years 2000s, his public appearances remained exceptional events. Ghédalia Tazartès' music has always been a mystery. It switches from musique concrète to - existing or invented - ethnic music, from poetry to noise, or from loops and collages to sad and extremely beautiful tunes in a second, but it constantly is in flux and coherent.
In 2004, Ghedalia finally decided to do live performances again. He first worked with other musicians (Les Reines d'Angleterre, David Fenech & Jac Berrocal, Norscq & Black Sifichi, Nicolas Lelièvre) and is now a solo performing artist (although his very young son sometimes joins him on stage!).
Since 2009 Tazartes played many shows across Europe. After performing a cinemix to the strange Haxan' film in 2008, he presented in February 2013 a new solo show at CTM in Berlin Festival to a packed HAU2. The new show is based around the music of Tazartes' lattest album 'Coda Lunga.' Says Tazartes: 'I thought I had only played for 5 minutes in Berlin... then I realised I had been going on for more than one hour!'

Pawel Romanczuk - musician, composer. Since 2006, he works within the field of unusual sounds sources. Romanczuk is a founder of the Polish artistic group Male Instrumenty with whom he recorded 10 albums. He composed several film soundtracks and collaborated with significant theatre houses. He's also famous for the various instruments, sound and audio installations he builds on his own.
In 2010, he published the first study on the history of the instrument toy piano.
In 2013, he wrote the book "Domowe eksperymenty z instrumentami muzycznymi" that was published together with his band's album Samorobka'. The publication became a guide to the process of creating hand-made and experimental musical instruments. He collaborated with Pierre Bastien, Margaret Leng Tan, Piotr Kurek, Nao Nishihara, Ksiezyc and Za Siódma Góra, Cezary Duchnowski, Andrzej Bauer.
He conducts workshops, lectures and develops exhibitions on the role of instruments and sound experiments. His music collaboration with Andrzej Zaleski and Ghedalia Tazartes started back in 2014, however, he was familiar with their music for quite a time.

Andrzej Zaleski - musician, filmmaker, curator.
He collaborated with: Ghedalia Tazartes, Aspec(t), Joe Giardullo, Eugene Chadbourne, Charles Hayward, John Hegre, Tatsuya Yoshida, Pavel Fajt, Sylvie Courvoisier, Vinz Vonlanthen, Male Instrumenty, Johannes Bergmark, Ralf Wehovsky, Jerzy Mazzoll, Andrzej Przybielski, Komora A, Jacek Staniszewski, Robert Nizinski (Ksiezyc) among many others.
He also played in bands like: Multicide, Mitch and Mitch, 3 Metry, Za Siódma Góra.
Cofounder of the theater group Komuna Otwock, collaborated with the Gardzienice Theater and Akademia Ruchu Theater.
Filmmaker ( The nature documentary series for Animal Planet and TVP2 ), experimental films.
Since 1993 he works as music curator of the Program Strefa', at the Center for Contemporary Art, Ujazdowski Castle in Warsaw.

* New from Danse Noire (co-founded by Aisha Devi), also the home of Vaghe Stelle, El Mahdy Jr. and IVVVO, comes a blistering debut EP from GIL, 'Orchids & Wasps'. Drawing inspiration equally from emerging post-human theories and the surreal collage culture of underground circles, GIL's deft compositions conjure a multitude of somatic convulsions that transcends not just genre but the club environment itself. In keeping with Danse Noire's preceding releases, GIL invites interpretations of 'Onset' by global-minded producers J. G. Biberkopf (Knives) and Imaabs (NAAFI).

* It should come as no surprise that the Berlin-based producer's background includes training in modern dance, entering club circles while studying composition in Bern. 'Orchids & Wasps' begins as a statement of intent, laying down the gauntlet to the dancefloor but concludes as a fine example of chaos and harmony fighting over the same territory. As soon as rhythms settle they fall under their own weight; club music tropes gasp for air amongst the rubble of rapid-fire percussion; sampled melodies are chewed up and spat out in a vortex of tempo changes. The onslaught of body shocks
delivered by GIL becomes so intense that immediacy and timelessness become one, subsuming the listener into an abyss of swarming fevers.

Johann Malfatti is a composer and sound designer based in Berlin. He composes music for film & theatre as well as art projects. Over the years he has contributed to numerous music releases ranging from electronic music, noise to chamber pop on labels such as Deco, Klangkrieg, Fat Cat Records, Planet Mu, WMF Records, Subrosa and Polydor. Most notably, he is part of Ensemble (Fat Cat Records) that has collaborated with Björk, The Twighlight Sad and Cat Power. In his solo work he composes for solo piano, drawing inspiration from computer-based processes like granular synthesis and time stretching algorithms.

Surge (Glacial Movements) marks his first solo release and is an ambient album of sonic landscapes dealing with the perception of time.

Surge was written in the winter of 02016 in the Austrian alps. The music is based on textural developments that evolve very slowly over time. The composition tries to evoke a sensation of experiencing a slower, deeper layer of time. It draws inspiration from concepts like geological time and pace layers, that describe the idea of different scales of time. Most processes in nature are too slow to be perceived by the human senses. We merely experience the ripples on the surface, like the passing of hours, days, of changing weather or trends in fashion. The all underlying stream of geological change, like the flow of glaciers or the drifting of continents, is outside our field of experience. However, some events bring these streams closer to the surface. In a glacial surge, the flow velocity of a glacier suddenly increases up to tens of meters per day, making the otherwise imperceptibly slow movement tangible. As in earthquakes, the geological dimension of the process at hand is transposed into the realm of human experience. In that same sense the composition acts as a window into the vastness beyond it's sonic surface. The music has the viscosity of a slowly moving mass of ice. Like a glacier, that contains thousands of layers of snow, the vertical structures of the sonic layers are infinitely complex and ever changing. From minimal textures of white noise grow massive swells of sound. From floating fields of color rise mirages of melodies. Inspired by the music of Morton Feldman, John Cage, John Luther Adams and Radu Malfatti, Surge is an abstract state of non-time and non-space in which the listener is kept suspended in a sonic haze. The music stays intangible and abstract, yet vidid and full of details. Static, yet transient. It is neither now nor past nor future.

Finally a new record of the London / Berlin based sophisticated lo-fi pop duo whose debut was described by Boomkat as "a killer amalgam of squashed beats, lo-fi pop & narcotic, slo-jams". "Ko Yo" is the last track Antony and Birch have written for the new album "If I Come Along, If I come Alone" which will see the light of day in 2017. The six tracks of "Ko Yo" are dealing with how the female soul travels by means of the voice, Haitian Voodoo, passive vegetarianism, lost chances, lost memories, The Tibetan Book Of The Dead & mantras of lifespan reduction, social dissonance & a sense of home.

"fragmented, distorted pop music, and its melted concoction of influences - from 80s no-wave to contemporary R&B - is transformed into an inebriated haze of synthesizer and vocals" - FACT

Following on from 2015's praised "Foray" LP, berlin-based SUBHEIM releases his new "Trails" EP on Denovali Records. As with any Subheim release, it is important to consider your frame of mind when listening to his music. "Trails" takes the listener on a very personal journey with intent, riding upon an undercurrent of impending necessity. There is simplicity in its design, though the further you delve the more complex it becomes.

"Trails" opens with the sounds of slow-building, wavering and breathy strings. Soon you, the subject to this music, are guided onwards with the support of confident tribal drums, haunting vocals, otherworldly metallic sounds and muted guitars that ring across the plains.

Having arrived at a place of calm, we are next transported in an altogether more sinister direction through the soundscape of Ego. Desert winds and affected vocal samples provide the backdrop for disconcerting harmonies and long sustains, and through the expectant ticking of a regular clock-like beat we are reminded that we have only made it part-way along our journey.

Forsaken Pt.II is an altogether more minimal territory to inhabit. With the instantly recognisable return of its guitar melody and a lilting, dry kick there is, at first, less sense of urgency as we sift through the murkiness of this familiar territory. And so it makes way for John Lemke's remix of Trails. With a subtle yet noticeable increase in tempo and set to an irregular yet constant techno kick, it wears a furrowed brow, pushing itself forward with confidence and conviction.

UnicaZürn (David Knight and Stephen Thrower). UnicaZürn build their long, ceaselessly evolving musical compositions through a process of improvisation followed by careful editing and processing. Their music, drawn from subconscious associations while recording, is frequently aquatic or oceanic in overall mood and texture. Knight has spent most of his life living on the banks of the Thames while Thrower resides on the East Sussex coast, and their musical flights of imagination tend toward rolling river dynamics and the open seas of synthesised sound. For UnicaZürn, tidal imagery, oceanic forms and the slow rhythms of coastal water are a recurring structural presence, with strong associations of rootlessness, of being far away from home, a stranger in a strange land. The inability of human lungs to breathe water endows rivers and seas with a special poetics: a boundary between two different but inter-related states. On the one hand, solidity, clarity, definition, on the other, fluidity, uncertainty, dissolution. The sense of a threshold between opposites gives rise to an elusive otherness, suggesting a portal through which the everyday world can be escaped. Death under the water, the survivors of a lost kingdom clinging to the rocks of an unfamiliar island, a coastal boat ride into deepest abstraction, a deserted beach expressing a world outside reality. A sexual frisson too: a hovering at the brink, poised at the turbulent edge of pleasure, swept away into oblivion. Do we head toward the sea when we want to escape And at the coastline, do we walk to the edge because we want to jump, or be swept away by an unexpected wave There's a darkness in the sea, even if illuminated by the most dazzling sunshine. Open horizons shows the clutter of our lives to be transient, and as we look to the sea we feel a dizzying sense of the eternal. Aquatic sensibility, oceanic timescales: the action of the salt sea beating on the shore. Each grain of sand a rock smashed to dust. Beaches are cosmic, elemental. They are images of time. UnicaZürn's core instrumentation blends analogue synthesiser, mellotron and electric piano with electric guitar and clarinet. Both Thrower and Knight draw upon their love and wide experience of of electronic music, from the outer shores of Stockhausen to the outer spaceways of Tangerine Dream. In addition, Knight is reknowned for his pioneering multi-textured fretwork with Danielle Dax and his ambient guitar settings for Lydia Lunch, while Thrower's reed playing provided a distinctive melancholy in Coil and emerged as electro-acoustic texture in Cyclobe. The title "Pale Salt Seam" is drawn from the poem "Night-Song of the Andalusian Sailors" by Federico García Lorca. Parts of "Pale Salt Seam" were recorded live at the Ironmongers Row Baths on 2nd March 2013.




[D] B1 | Pale Salt Seam 1 (feat. Stephen Thrower & David Knight)

12" clear marbled 180g vinyl, recycled grey sleeve

"Eigenleben" was written and produced by Holger Flinsch & Martin Müller from March '05 till June '06 in Hochtaunus, Ohmgebirge and Humboldthain. After 10 years it is the first time available as limited clear marbled 180g vinyl.

Creating something selfexistent might be the most difficult part of doing arts - something that isn't just a rigid thing but an entity of itself. Our goal is to bear something upon our technical possibilities without involving any other entity's energy.

Our selfexistent entity should be made up of dead matter and brought to life by technical components which interact with their surrounding and make decisions based on observations which are being analyzed and torn through programs to calculate potential procedures. It should not be limited to its current level of experience. To remain state-of-the-art, apprehension and intelligence are indispensable capabilities our entity should be able to make use of.

The needed technology is basically built on coincidental scientific observations which have been analyzed, processed and at best industrialized. This only works on repetitive or - even better - repeatable processes, because otherwise an industrialization would make no sense. As a result nature is being squeezed into our own pattern of predictability.

But there is a fundamental problem: intelligence cannot be satisfied with predictability. Entities bound to programs are always waiting for known and already categorized input. They cannot handle yet unknown impressions or re-categorize them. Intelligence is beyond predictability - it deals with the unknown and tries to integrate it into the limited and predictable world, of which itself is - and will always be - part.

We have to ask ourself: will it ever be possible And is it worth it all

'After what seems countless collaborative releases, Killawatt & Ipman start work under their new guise, Send. This first release on Ruffcut, albeit just one track, sees them progress their lack of respect for genre boundaries and conventional structures into a wonky, polyrhythmic, head-spinning salute to jungle, dub & grime.
The b-side brings one of the brightest young sparks in the scene, Gantz, on board for the remix. He works the original into a rolling,
dark side steamroller, like something from an 80's horror b-movie. Off centre rhythms, repetitive sequences and psychedelia pin this
track together providing an excellent contrast to Send's original.'

Shipwrec are opening a new style chapter with Coco Bryce. Dub, jungle, skwee and breakbeat come together to form the signature sound of the Myor label boss. From laid back Caribbean rhythms to sweat dripping bedlam, Coco Bryce comes with melting pot bubbling over with influences and styles. Mesak and FFF have been drafted in on remix duties, each adding their own flavour to this heady brew. A 12" brimming with exotic spices and sounds from an artist who dares with his musical ingredients.

Over the last 12 months Lee Bannon's transition into Dedekind Cut has yielded some of the most curious, immersive electronic music from the USA. His transformation now appears to be complete with the strikingly spacious and absorbing ambient sound designs of $uccessor, the NYC-based artist's debut album in this guise.

It feels as though Bannon's previous releases, American Zen for Hospital Productions, and the scything torque of R&D with Rabit, were cleverly planned stepping stones into this brave new world, where he establishes a dream-like topography of diaphanous ambient pads pitted with the shrapnel of grime and trap, ultimately revealing a simulated, otherworldly environment deeply personal to the artist.

His amalgamation of layered ambient dimensions with haunting harmonic figures nods to early '90s AI and electronica from FSOL to Coil via the antecedent spheres of modern sci-fi and computer game soundtracks, whilst also existing in a history of North American computer music and noise that connects to the spirits of Prurient and Carl Stone.

We're parachuted in like an avatar in No Mans Sky to the lush levels of Descend From Now, streaking across the iced out sino-eski zones of Instinct to the heart-rending eight minutes of Conversations with Angels and the perpetually elusive rhythms of Fear In Reverse, before he reaches to more optimistic new age planes on the aching chamber figure, 46:50.

It's telling that the album is brought to you via two highly individual labels such as Non and Hospital Productions - this meeting of worlds provides a context for the music itself, making for an album that we'd recommend as much to those of you who have enjoyed recent outings by Chino Amobi, Rabit or Arca, as much as followers of Prurient or, indeed, Dominick Fernow's Rainforest Spiritual Enslavement project. It's easily one of the most absorbing, sometimes disturbing Ambient albums you'll hear in 2016.

Graciously welcoming the second full-length lp from Philadelphia's Jesse Dewlow, recording under the moniker People Skills. The follow-up to 2014's Siltbreeze set Tricephalic Head. Ten sunken songs, derisively adorned with rhythm and rudimentary dub effects. Bedroom elegies for the lost and irretrievable, last-ditch spells for transformation and renewal. Thurston Moore and Byron Coley likened the previous record to South Island NZ pop played inside of an armored car', and that description holds here: underneath the hoods of these wracked and weather-beaten recordings are melodies of disarming beauty and optimism, bordering on the (wilfully) mawkish, bubblegum ground underfoot. Each piece as time-stopping and evocative as an old photograph of someone who used to mean something. Whether speaking through stately keyboard pastorals ('Mint Julep'), rat-arsed rock 'n roll slur ('89¢ Public Render') or sulphurous aggro-electronics (the two-part title track),Gunshots At Crestridge exposes, then seeks to redeem, all our tiny acts of self-sabotage, all our sins against time. When to stay, when to go...you never got it right, not once.

For more than a decade now Ryan Teague has walked an unpredictable musical path, treading and blurring the lines between classical, electronic, acoustic and soundtrack influences. His latest album Site Specific is yet another twist and turn on this intriguing journey. Still present are the minimalist polyrhythms, electro-acoustic instrumentation and cinematic ambience that have come to define his style, but this time - incorporating a full band - the themes are framed through a lens which also takes in improvisation and minimal jazz.

Key collaborators include Gareth Davis (Bass Clarinet) and Dan Nicholls (Rhodes Piano), who weave subtle melodies and textures throughout. The resulting soundscapes echo the timeless feel of In a Silent Way era Miles channelled through a contemporary palette. The music is at once expressive, dynamic and exciting whilst demonstrating sensitive restraint appropriate to its minimalist objectives.

Glitchy ambient opener Wide Angle sets the tone perfectly and makes way for the likes of Second Scene with it's brooding bass, dark drums and minimal melodies. Elsewhere Surface Tension takes a fragmented string loop on an epic cinematic journey, whilst title track Site Specific sets agitated drum rhythms and cutting bass against freeform Rhodes and echoing horns in an intense showdown.

Ryan has demonstrated time and again that he is unafraid to try something new and Site Specific is no exception. But there's a newfound sense of focus and energy here and something genuinely fresh and exciting seems to have emerged.

First full-length album by Sean McCann since 2013's Music for Private Ensemble (R5). Three years in the making, Public Ensemble employs the talents of many Recital allies, a mélange of voices and instruments: violin, viola, cello, contrabass, piano, bass clarinet, tenor saxophone, flute, trumpet, pedal steel, electronic keyboards (organ, farfisa, harpsichord), percussion, other sounds, tape, and a lamp. Many of the pieces include recited text, reflections stemming from McCann's book Pacifics (R14). The narrative is meaningless or meaningful.

Players: Ben Baker Billington, Andrew Chalk, Kayla Cohen, Ian William Craig, Maxwell August Croy, Sarah Davachi, Hank Doyle, Matthew Erickson, Scott Foust, Rob Frye, Celia Hollander, Seth Kasselman, Graham Lambkin, Gabi Losoncy, Rob Magill, Sean McCann, Erica McLachlin, Dave McPeters, Nour Mobarak, Allen Mozek, Tom James Scott, Zachary Paul Schwartz, Troy Schafer, Cameron Stallones, Nick Storring, Matthew Sullivan, Lillian Paige Walton

Rose-Paste Chorale: Kayla Cohen, Maxwell August Croy, Morgan Fox, Spencer Grady, Ursula Grady, Benjamin Lovell, Greg Manata, Erica McLachlin, Crystal Myslajek, Matthew Sage, Paula Schanes, Zachary Paul Schwartz, Alex Twomey

Limited Edition of 500 copies includes a 12-page pamphlet with texts, program notes, & artwork.

Two sidelong excursions by Erik K Skodvin aka Svarte Greiner. Side A is a moving piece, it features a disorientating bassline in slow motion, creeping underneath some delicate work of strings. There's a certain flirtation with the sublime here, but then the track enters some strange landscape, "a desolate wasteland filled with electric organisms." Side B is an epic drone piece called 'Garden'. A Garden, which is dark and comforting at the same time. Recommended!

label info:
Erik K Skodvin returns with a focused new album under his Svarte Greiner moniker by releasing two side-long cinematic compositions, continuing where he left off three years ago with the album Black Tie.

The Marble patiently sets the tone with a slow moving wall of strings underlaid by a warped bass line. A feeling of weightlessness covers the ground while empty space surrounds you in an embracing yet uneasy way. It's a gloomy territory with an unexpected extent of grace to encounter. Time gradually illuminates several stages of light and dark before revealing a desolate wasteland filled with electric organisms.

Garden strikes heavily with rattling string hits and low bass waves quivering through your skull, transforming the scenery into a fallow that is staring right back at you. This could easily be the soundtrack to a nightmarish sleeplessness if it wasn't for carefully scattered comfort zones to be found in unknown territory: What appears to be violent at first soon reveals sheer reflective beauty. However, it is patience and repeated listening that liberate the aspired altered state of consciousness. Originally composed for Marit Følstad´s installation art, Moss Garden more than ever consolidates Erik Skodvin's individual idea of soundscape. You can interpret his approach as an embodiment of the word Terrific's amelioration: Developing from Terrifying over Intense to its modern understanding in a little more than two centuries. Svarte Greiner reenacts this metamorphosis within a single recording.

Available as 3LP set for the first time, incl. 6 pages poster featuring extensive critical and biographical notes!

This 3rd volume continues to show all the aspects of electronic music from the early beginning until now - including 2 pieces of historical concrete music (of the 70's), several piece of American tape music (Columbia University) with a special focus on all the electronic music from Germany - WDR early works - krautrock - electronic from 90's... Also featuring some recent work of the greatest noise artists + several unsung electronic pioneers ...

Black Truffle is thrilled to present the first vinyl issue of Keiji Haino's Milky Way. Originally released as a limited CD in Japan by the short lived Mom 'n' Dad Productions in 1993, this release documents a blistering live performance recorded in Kyoto in 1973, five years before the formation of the first line-up of Fushitsusha, and eight years before Haino's first solo album. Working with a mysterious set-up including primitive electronics, homemade acoustic instruments, piano and voice, Haino lets loose a single 48-minute psychedelic maelstrom, marrying the immersive echo-fields of kosmische music to the rough and ready hands-on feel of classic 1960s live electronics à la MEV or Ashley's Wolfman. Despite the absence of guitar, this recording clearly lays the groundwork for the epic blowouts which were to make Haino's name in years to come, building up to a point of almost unbearable intensity in its final minutes as Haino's voice wails over a wall of distorted DIY electronics. At times presaging the psychedelic noise of C.C.C.C., Milky Way shows Haino's singular intensity and ritualistic performance style already in full flower at this early date in his long career. Presented in raw and immediate room fidelity (complete with dramatic tape drop-out), this is both an essential historical document and a classic performance in its own right.
key selling points:
- First vinyl issue of Keiji Haino's Milky Way documenting a blistering live performance recorded in Kyoto in 1973,
- Historical document recorded five years before the formation of the first line-up of Fushitsusha, and eight years before Haino's first solo album.
- A single 48-minute psychedelic maelstrom, marrying the immersive echo-fields of kosmische music to the rough and ready hands-on feel of classic 1960s live electronics à la MEV or Ashley's Wolfman..
- Presented in raw and immediate room fidelity this is both an essential historical document and a classic performance in its own right.
- Instrumentation includes piano, tape echo, voice, Electro Harmonix ring modulator, 'Psychedelic Machine', junk oscillator, handmade reed instrument, rhythm box
- Presented in a deluxe heavyweight sleeve with an inner sleeve featuring Haino's poetry in Japanese, with English translation by Alan Cummings Original design by Keiji Haino & Yasunori Arai
LP reissue design via Stephen O'Malley

Peripheral Minimal is proud to announce the forthcoming album, 'Aus Den Anti-Imperialistischen Tagebu¨chern', by In Namen Des Volkes.

INDV is the brainchild of Hamburg resident Matthias Schuster (also of Bal Pare, Das Institut,Geisterfahrer and others), and creates a more heavy-weight style of Minimal Synth in the spirit of D.A.F., or even early Front 242. The tracks were taken directly off cassettes and reworked with added vocals, whilst maintaining the original 80s recording techniques of 4-track and purely analogue instrumentation, strictly no plug-ins or digitalism here!

Matthias has been actively producing complex synthetic sounds since the late 1970s, having released seminal albums and singles on respected labels such as, Plastic Frog, Minimal Wave and Medical Records. His passion for all things analogue seems to be irrepressible, devoting a considerable amount of time to myriad projects each with their own unique qualities and sonics. He musically switches from Neue Deutsche Welle stylings, to Minimal Synth and proto-EBM with great dexterity and a rare continuing dedication.

The album is presented in a luxurious digipak and limited to 300 copies. Recorded between 1980 - 2015. Artwork by Kilgore Trout.

Datashock from Saarlouis, a collective of multi-instrumentalists. Founded in 2003, they've been losing themselves in the wardrobes of their subconcious ever since and have never been frightened to play around with whatever they can find in there, trying out colourful sound-costumes and sending out psychedelic-experimental sounds, with a huge discography counting more than 30 between albums, eps and miscellaneous.
Their latest work "Keine Oase in Sicht" released on Dekorder in May2014 has collected some great feedbacks from the like of The Wire, Pitchfork and more.With "HD Trailer EP" they find in Gang of Ducks a new sympathetic home where going ahead with their unique psychedelic sound.The cosmic caravan takes its journey in 4 different original tracks, exploring the psycho acoustic sound with echoes of far and never existed worlds together with an irreverent vision of our world today, with its new mania and obsessions.Printed in 180gr vinyl, matt laminated cover plus free digital download

Debut solo release from Midnight Circuitry, showing a dark, polished amethyst with aromatic notes of white pepper, tobacco, and black currant; silky with a palate of dark plums, black raspberry, and hints of French vanilla. Closes with subtle tart black cherry and a lengthy, structural finish.

'Versus' flows from the innovative and inspiring collaborators that have run with the label's energy during our first two years out On the Corner. The A-side 'South of the River' is a diverse collection of versions that all riff loosely from Collocutor's 'Instead'. The flip gives 'the door to the cosmos' a firm knocking with experimental vibe and outer-national electronica. Radio Play has come from Radio 1 (Benji B), 6Music (Gilles Peterson), Radio 3 (Nick Luscomb) and hyped digital services such as KCRW, NTS, Radar, BCR, La Mellotron, Rinse and 22Tracks.

The 12" begins with The Expansions (London's primal funk 4-piece, gettin' up-and-into the time of 'Gozo', squaring it 'up' and pushing-on with a smoked groove. The psyche elements land it in the territories of Karl Hector's cinematic desert ambling.

If FYI Chris doesn't urge you to move with 'Loop Thriller' then go grab a Doctor.

Al Dobson Jr's, indica haze envelops the low-slung groove of 'Agama'. This beat has been lauded as an 'Underground Smash' and has garnered international support on scenes far and wide.

BodyMoves' stripped-back approach reveals the percussive textures behind 'Archaic Morning' and nimbly amplifies the hip rhythm with subtle ear-warping techno frequencies.

The FLIP continues with collaborations from our first two years whilst taking the sound further-out, across-borders and up-through the 'spheres.

Black Classical - this elusive internet otherkin is renowned for his epic spiritual jazz and Sun Ra radio shows makes a wax debut for OtC with 'Running the Voodoo Down', "a blistering percussive thunder cascades over heady carnival vibes to raise even the recently departed".

Petwo Evans take on the experimental Fiium Shaark's devastating 'Bogan Sunrise' and plunge the depths with their formaldehyde remix grinding out a subterranean boom.

Group As Salaam. 'L'burgh l'burgh' - a traditional Saharan folk number urging action by 'rolling up your sleeves'. Label Boss and curator Pete OntheCorner shared his Group as Salaam desert sessions with drummer/producer Rich Thair (Auntie Flo / Red Snapper) who is the first to vibe with this hypnotic desert band.

Emanative under the Antoine Abayomi guise provides a grime-laden tropical-bass banger that was the first remix from 'Instead' to be championed by Gilles Peterson. The Emanative, Collocutor and Earl Zinger combo that cast the label into being in 2013 have just warmed-up the earthly sprites that stepped-out to see the hyped Kamasi Washington in Berlin.c

Paul Bley, synthesizer, electric piano, Annette Peacock electric bass and vocals, Han Bennink, drums, Mario Pavone, bass, and Laurence Cook, also on drums.

Originally released in the same year as her recently reissued solo debut, I'm The One. Peacock's liberated vocal style sits well alongside her husband Paul Bley's early jazz Moog synthesizer experimentation. Dual Unity was recorded in 1971 in Rotterdam and Paris. Professionally re-mastered original sound recording with expansive liners, interviews and rare archival photos.

Hospital Productions collect some of the strongest coldwave pop dirges of a generation in Contrepoison's Discography 2010-2012 survey, wrapping up both his self-released tapes and releases for Dominick Fernow's cherished imprint.Since the late '90s, Québécois musician and noise artist Pierre Marc-Tremblay has been recognised as a vital force in nether musical realms with a palette ranging from hermetic black metal (Akitsa) to the bitterest rhythmic noise (Âmes Sanglantes), and, more recently, the nerve-bitingly melodic pop of Contrepoison, whose I Keep On Searching 12' - included here - is a dead firm fixture 'round these parts.Arriving at the vanguard of a new slew of coldwave revisionists and fetishists in 2010, his music stood, and still stands, head and shoulders above the rest thanks to an incessant drive and directness that can't be ignored by anyone into the original stuff, or who has arrived via the sound's prevailing, contemporary winds.Vacillating belting vocal pop arrangements with howling, stygian instrumentals of synth, guitar and enslaved drum machines, Discography 2010-2012 drags a perfectly malformed body of work, cycling chronologically from the pounding mix of industrial kicks and neofolk cadence of ...Until Next Morning's amazing title cut to the blank-eyed dirge of To Never, Forever, before taking in the stomping Deserted Story from his 2011 split with Vatican Shadow, and committing the frankly fucking addictive hits of I Keep On Searching, best summed up in that raging, glam title tune and sandwiched with aces from the compilation Around The Dragon's Broken Neck Hangs the Medal of Saint Lazarus.It only gets more wonderfully bombed out and crestfallen from therein, from the plangent siren call of Nectar of Destiny to the exclusive instrumental, The Moon Has Mad The Eclipse, and a grip of killers off The Thunders Which Collide tape, including the raging banger The Thunders Which Collide and another cut exclusive to this set in the T2-finale-esque instrumental, As The Blazing Sun Enters Scorpio.Basically, it's riddled with memorable hooks and rages like a wounded beast trapped down a well. You'll know within seconds whether you love it or not, and we definitely fall in the former category.
Hugely recommended.

Head-turning debut from classically-trained, Boston-based Kaan Erbay a.k.a Insha featuring ten tracks of pure tension/relief informed by reconstituted club music and video game scores, highly recommended if you're into Arca, Burial, Actress, RabitEmerging from right under Type's nose, Dysplazia by Boston, MA's Insha debuts a remarkably absorbing push-and-pull narration of sci fi sonics and collapsed R&B haunted by the ghosts of British dance music; forming a mid-air collision of sawn-off soundtrack noumena and tumultuous grooves that diffuse Burial's worn down soul by way of Arca's lacerating dynamics with a unique sleight of hand. At an aerially severed yet intimately involving perspective, the founder of Boston's DRAW collective subsumes himself with cybernetic assimilation into the ten tracks of Dysplazia, offering an oneiric representation of the physical body simulated thru decontextualised rap samples and a twisted backbone of encrypted 2-step rhythms.In a synaesthetic, metaphorical sense reflected in Dysplazia's cover art - which uncannily recalls the analogue-to-digital phase shift of Cybotron's Enter sleeve design - this record is about transcending physical and virtual spaces; about locating and inhabiting the ambiguous interzones which lie between and outside of taxonomic conventions. It models these processes of transformation with a keen sense of narrative, navigating mutable circuit boards of grey goo with a beguiling sense of melancholy and elusive glimmers of hope.Panicked intercom chatter and hyperprismic harmonies light up the gravelly torque of Breaking Point at the album's turbulent intro, giving way to a captivatingly tortuous series of flashpoints and perilous junctures that flare up as quickly as they move back into the ever-looming murk, most memorably in the tangled 3D coordinates of Ima, Physique, and the woodblock 'n scimitar punctuated dynamics of Coming Down, which perhaps most undeniably nod to Burial and Arca, whilst the amorphous, melancholic ending of Reason leaves the session perfectly unresolved and open to a sequel.Dysplazia is a startlingly astute debut record from Insha, providing Type's freshest insight since Clams Casino's Instrumentals back in 2011.

Melody As Truth is proud to announce this split 7" by Jonny Nash and Suzanne Kraft. The release features two tracks of melancholic ambience and kicks off a new string of releases for the label in the latter half of 2016....High Price On This Due To Large Production Costs - The Label Apologise. Limited to 350 Copies. TIPPED!

The original Environments album was conceived and written back in 1993. It became one of the great lost albums by The Future Sound Of London before the guys took in back to the studio to complete and issue in 2008. Since then has come the success of further instalments and following additional studio work during a period of extreme creativity comes two further volumes. Released separately but simultaneously, Environment 6 and accompanying Environment 6.5, when combined, create a two CDs of 46 tracks. Sweeping between luscious dreamscapes to delicately melodically compositions to intensely highly programmed electronics sculptures Environment 6 and Environment 6.5 continue the journey towards the boundaries of the future of sound. Silent Around Them' exclusive to LP vinyl (no CD/digital)

Since their eponymous arrival in 2010, L.A.'s DVA Damas have emerged as the most distinctive players on Downwards' new wave of techno mutants.
Clear Cut leads on from their sought-after Wet Vision (2015) 12' for Downwards America to farther stake out and crenellate their own grubby mound in the no-mans-land between post punk pop and industrial techno.
Tooled up with asphyxiating bass pressure and camouflaged in stringently minimal-yet-rudely physical electronics, the four songs on Clear Cut embody the spirit of all-night,
'phet-charged techno raving, keeping your heart rate high but your head ice cool with an unswerving intent matched by ascetically measured production levels.
The sullen, ætheric swagger of Clear Cut carves up from the front, placing Taylor Burch's gaunt vocal in acres of warehouse space for 10 minutes of surgically cut, bleedin' tech 'n roll marking up one of the strongest in their catalogue, whereas the panting, auto-erotic phyxations of Do I Dub sutures the wound with sheer bass pressure alone.In The Clear opens the B-side with a stylus troubling sub-bass (set your weights right and don't come crying) moulded into a dead-eyed, grinding come-on sounding like HTRK
in heat, and Clear Cut reappears in a truncated Radio Edit upping the techno canter and condensing the vox for closer, cocksure effect.

Anders Enges interest in modular synthesizers comes from a desire to shut down conscious decisions about form and to focus on rhythm and timbre. This does however not land in traditional techno but rather in a riff-oriented style, the riff being both rhythm and "melody" and also a morphing entity in the music. Drums and percussion attempt to follow this entity, while maintaining a link to the dance music pulse. The resulting style makes for a hybrid timewarped experience of travelling a parallell electronic music reality, a brooding technoid that grooves.