Beats News

During the last three years a new name has been making waves at Ostgut Ton and Berghain: Berlin born, raised and based producer Kobosil made his debut with a remix of Barker & Baumecker's Silo' (Ostgut Ton, 2013), completely unknown at the time, he has quickly earned his stripes as a DJ on the club's main floor, eventually becoming a resident at Berghain. Following up on five subsequent 12" releases and Kobosil's first live sets, his debut album sees him covering yet new ground in the form of a full length release. Titled We Grow, You Decline the eleven new pieces dare you to readjust your perception of Kobosil's previous releases and invite you to listen carefully - in a more quiet environment than the usual dancefloor setting. We Grow, You Decline marks a swerve from club-contextual tracks towards a more musical, multilayered song format, but it's worth mentioning that the album is not a reinvention of Kobosil's past production efforts. There have always been distinct hints of his fondness for more abstract, non-dancefloor rhythms, discomforting sounds and mindful listening in his young discography - most notably Plant 5', Less' (RK3, 2013), Herschel' (Unterton 05, 2013), There' (MDR 10, 2014), Head' (RK1, 2014) and most recently Athtar' (O-TON 91, 2015).
With his debut album Kobosil delves even deeper into Ambient and Industrial soundscapes. Drawing influences from Musique Concrète via Electronic Body Music towards present-day Techno, the tracks combine gritty textures with melodic hints and contrasting bleak off-beat rhythms with Drone passages. This album doesn't cater for certain expectations and the opening title Telling The Truth' is already leading astray, its steadily increasing synth pulse and constant crackle don't culminate in a maximalist floor pleaser but segue into the field-recording-led Dub Techno cut To See Land' and the hissing melancholy of Reflection'.
"The Exploring Mountain' follows this vibe by asynchronously intertwining a hollow kick drum with organic percussion and distant bells. This piece serves as the album's first predetermined breaking point. Its final kicks anticipate Kobosil shifting his focus towards a more Techno led middle section in form of the hypnotic Aim For Target' with its slow but steady build-up and subtle, swirling melody.

Meandering, brittle harmonies first introduced to the Kobosil sound on his recent 91 EP ( Avernian', Ostgut Ton, 2015) also find their way into The Living Ritual', topped with his trademark kick drum, alienated percussion and a beguiling synth layer towards the end both tracks would suit Berghain's main room perfectly, but in the album's context they simply form one of many layers.

We Grow, You Decline adds new aesthetics to the Berliner's production style by conveying a certain darkness and distance while keeping some easy and gentle touch. Underneath the delicate, crackling surface of songs such as When I Speak' and the aforementioned To See Land' there are distant voices to be heard, while they're more prominently featured in the throbbing, atmospheric Eihwaz' and the robotic pulse of You Answered With Love', the human element is kept restrained and unfathomable inside some tense moods. With "They Looked On" Kobosil unchains the listener during the overright inute-spanning, culminating last track and the hovering suspense that is prevalent throughout the album is dispersed into a warm, hazy horizon.

We Grow, You Decline is a bold statement from Kobosil's growing musical repertoire and a reflection of his multi-faceted artistic development by expressing his own artistic voice without ingratiation in the form of conformity. Music, bright like a smile and dark as the soul.

Special follow up release to pole´s album "WALD" - limited to 300 copies. - remix by the international highly acclaimed swedish electronic music producer Peder Mannerfelt - removable 7 inch star, which allows to create the original big 7 inch hole.
A Limited 7" release by POLE including a remix by PEDER MANNERFELT! After his album "WALD" pole releases a version of his track "Lurch" which was available as bonus download track in Japan only. The flip side includes an exceptional stripped to the bones remix by Peder Mannerfelt (Roll The Dice, Subliminal Kid) Limited to 300 copies!

The Invariants are back with a new record in similar fashion. Synths to mess with the mind, hypnotising drums to stimulate the body. The A side features a jam in two parts supplemented by two acid filled cuts on the second side.

The third Eye, as per — intrepid, ecstatic, off-grid wandering, one-sided, etched discs resplendent in hand-painted sleeves. Epic, this time... drenched, dazed, debauched... with Sly, Prince and Marvin amongst its guiding stars. Refreshing, very limited. Support from Benji B, Gilles Peterson and NTS.

The new PERIHEL series on Karlrecords kicks off with previously unreleased material by GRM member GUY REIBEL, one of the most enigmatic figures of 20th century's electronic avant-garde. Limited edition 180gr LP (500 items) incl. DL code and liner notes by REINHOLD FRIEDL (ZEITKRATZER).

GUY REIBEL (born 1936) is one of the most enigmatic figures in the post-war electronic music scene. He started out with a double qualification: he first became an engineer and then studied composition with OLIVIER MESSIAEN in Paris, the teacher of KARLHEINZ STOCKHAUSEN, IANNIS XENAKIS, FRANCOIS BAYLE, to name just a few...,

PIERRE SCHAEFFER, the director of the GRM (GROUPE DE RECHERCHES MUSICALES at Radio France), very soon offered him to edit and work out the famous Solfège-3LP-Box that was the practical part of his theoretical manifest "Traite des objets musicaux" and to codirect the class for electroacoustic music at the National Music Conservatory.

During that period REIBEL worked intensively in the studios of the GRM. He did not only compose some milestones of electronic music, he also developed a very music-based theory of electronic music: he included his ideas of musical gesture and game theory already in the sixties long before anybody else discussed those issues.

Conflicts with other members of the GRM made REIBEL leave the group (though he was for long time considered to be SCHAEFFER's successor as the director of GRM) - instead, REIBEL toured the world as conductor of his newly founded GROUPE VOCALE DE FRANCE (who realized the first complete recordings of LIGETI's choir-work) and also took over a director's position at Radio France. Meanwhile his electronic music almost disappeared (there were only two or three LPs available on the early GRM series, later just one CD) and in some ways he became the Trotzki of the GRM who was removed from the acoustic photos of the group.

"Douze Inventions ..., " has been digitised at the GRM studios in december 2014 and is now finally being released for the very first time - a milestone in electronic music and a perfect example for REIBEL's musical austerity: very defined and limited musical material results in concentrated and dense forms. The unusually vital character of the music is also due to his use of hybrid sound production: he very often combined amplitude envelopes of acoustic sounds and noises (especially and very often of polysteron) on synthetic electronic sounds. A few of the pieces are even played at least partly live: TM+, the legendary first live-electronic French group, was founded in 1977 by three of REIBEL's students: DENIS DEFOUR, LAURENT CUNIOT and YANN GESLIN. They were almost the first purely electronic group that also toured Europe extensively with their analogue synthesizers.

This album documents how GUY REIBEL succeeded to compose a music that combines the density and purity of electronic music with an unbelievable sound sensuousness. A real listening experience, here released for the very first time as LP and DL!

For years now HANNO LEICHTMANN has been one of the most prolific protagonists of Berlin's electronic music scene and beyond: as experimental percussionist and electronic artist LEICHTMANN has released several albums under his real name, aliases such as STATIC and THE VULVA STRING QUARTET or in bands like GROUPSHOW (with JAN JELINEK and ANDREW PEKLER) or DENSELAND (with DAVID MOSS and HANNES STROBL) on labels like CCO, KARAOKE KALK, M=MINIMAL, DEKORDER and STAUBGOLD. LEICHTMANN also composed and produced the soundtrack to CHRISTOPH SCHLINGENSIEF's "The African Twintowers" (the DVD will finally be released this summer , 5 years after SCHLINGENSIEF's tragic death). Besides his musical work, LEICHTMANN also curates conceptual music festivals, like "My Favourite Thing" in 2008 and "Letra/Tone" in 2014. In 2013 he released "Minimal Studies" where he started building tracks mainly by using super short loops from various sample sources. When asked to contribute to TAPEWORM's ongoing tape series, he browsed the remaining 30+ remaining cassettes of his once huge collection, took little snippets of favourite songs, ran them through a modular synthesizer system and created about 40 short pieces, all about 1m30s long. LEICHTMANN: "They are highly influenced by and, at the same time, a hommage to: JOHN OSWALD's "Plunderphonics", STOCK, HAUSEN & WALKMAN's "Me" 7inch and above all YASUAKI SHIMIZU's "Music for Commercials"." Originally released in a limited tape edition (200 items), "Unfinished Portrait Of Youth Today" is now available on LP for the first time - including 6 bonus tracks that were previously unreleased. The artwork was provided by STEPHAN MATHIEU and CARO MIKALEF, the tracks especially mastered for vinyl by KASSIAN TROYER.

Bristol-based sound artist and producer Sophia Loizou blew us away in 2014 with the release of Chrysalis, a staggering release exploring the conflict between nature and technology & the space between natural and synthetic sounds, themes very much close to our heart here. We're happy to present Sophia's sterling follow up Singulacra where she builds on that framework and presents her most ambitious offering to date.

Ghostly remnants of hardcore & early jungle percolate throughout, fragments of radio transmissions seep in and out through tape based processes & spectral processing leaving us in a hauntingly beautiful landscape filled with both solidity & disintegration made up of transformative and accelerated changing states.

Bringing back the times of pirate radio, seemingly like lost transmissions from beyond the grave, providing a sense of intimacy and familiarity during our full speed acceleration towards unknown futures.

Singulacra explores our anxieties surrounding technological utopias while retaining an emphasis on nurturing human value when facing inhuman forces, our presently debated potential loss of human 'essence' amidst technological progress towards artificial intelligence.

New York City's experimental duo TALIBAM! team up with fluxus artist / electronic avant-gardist YASUNAO TONE and trombonist SAM KULIK for a confrontational sonic attack, fired by an array of analog synths and other electronic devices.

About the album:

"Bringing together the most calamitous materials from their home planets of Noise, glitch, and free improvisation, TONE and TALIBAM! are at once the likeliest and unlikeliest of conspirators. Despite making his home in New York since 1971, TONE's foundational electronic work harkens back to his early days in revolutionary Japanese avant-garde collectives Group ONGAKU and HI RED CENTER, and resonates with his groundbreaking deconstructions of digital CD sound in the 1980s. Meanwhile in the post-art worlds of millennial Brooklyn, TALIBAM! have cranked out their own absurd, profane and unclassifiable improvisational style, bringing their provocations around the world, and proficiently mediating jazz, rock, and hip-hop along the way, trombonist SAM KULIK brings an acoustic element to the mix that invokes the live sonic mixes of MUSICA ELETTRONICA VIVA. In their collaboration "Double Automatism", they forge a confrontational new alliance in the transnational history of experimental sound, with the noisiest consequences imaginable."

(David Novak, author of "Japanoise: Music at the Edge of Circulation")

The idea for "Double Automatism" was born in 2012 when TALIBAM! and SAM KULIK were invited to interpret YASUNAO TONE's graphic scores and game pieces as part of the Japan 1955-70 avantgarde exhibition at the Museum Of Modern Art in NYC where they met the fluxus / electronic artist and immediately developed a mutual affinity for each other. Six months later the trio invited TONE (born 1935) for a recording session - KULIK on trombone, MATT MOTTEL on hisRoland Alpha Juno 1 analogue synth, KEVIN SHEA (also drummer in MOSTLY OTHER PEOPLE DO THE KILLING) on electronic MIDI mallet percussion and TONE using his self-developed MP3 Deviations on his notebook. The 2 epic pieces on "Double Automatism" not only continue TALIBAM!'s enduring explorations of new musical territory beyond genre-limitations, the album is also a forceful testimony of TONE's unique artistry that was documented by recent collaborations with RUSSELL HASWELL or FLORIAN HECKER (all on EDITIONS MEGO) and solo works on TZADIK or ASPHODEL.

Third collaboration between KEIJI HAINO, one of the most prolific artists of the Japanese experimental / noise scene, and the critically acclaimed ensemble ZEITKRATZER who enthuse with stunning interpretations of STOCKHAUSEN compositions. 180gr-LP on KARLRECORDS.

When KEIJI HAINO heard ZEITKRATZER rehearse for their Stockhausen performance at the Ruhrtriennale festival he spontaneously decided to join the group for that part of the programm too (HAINO was initially invited for what was released as ZEITKRATZER + KEIJI HAINO: Live At Jahrhunderthalle Bochum). Here too HAINO, one of the most prolific artists of the Japanese experimental / noise scene, focuses on his voice while ZEITKRATZER create the instrumental environment applying their extended techniques of amplification and unique skills as musicians. Once again the ensemble proves its outstanding quality that has gained them high reputation with recordings of such diverse artists / composers like THROBBING GRISTLE, CARSTEN NICOLAI (ALVA NOTO), LOU REED's "Metal Machine Music" or JOHN CAGE and ALVIN LUCIER. "Aus Den Sieben Tagen" delivers 5 pieces of STOCKHAUSEN's collection of in total 15 text compositions that he had written in may 1968 in reaction to a personal crisis and which the great renovator of 20th century music characterized as "intuitive music" - music primarily played by intuition rather than the intellect of the performer(s) where not one single note is defined. Which gives the musicians much space for interpretation - ZEITKRATZER and KEIJI HAINO demonstrate impressively that they know how to use this freedom!

Zeitkratzer, directed by Reinhold Friedl

Frank Gratkowski / clarinet, Hild Sofie Tafjord / french horn, Hilary Jeffery / trombone,Reinhold Friedl / piano,Maurice de Martin / drums, percussion,Marc Weiser / acoustic noise,Burkhard Schlothauer / violin,Anton Lukoszevieze / violoncello,Ulrich Phillipp / doublebass

+ Keiji Haino / voice

After the path-setting METHOD OF DEFIANCE album INAMORATA where he brought together cutting-edge drum&bass producers (Paradox, Enduser, Submerged, Black Sun Empire a.o.) and avantgarde / jazz masters such as John Zorn, Craig Taborn, Herbie Hancock or Toshinori Kondo the visionary, versatile pioneer LASWELL picked out some of his combatants for an audacious follow-up. Young finnish FANU's syncopated rhythms and sharp breaks prove him the Art Blakey of drum&bass, his feverish beats are an ideal playground for Laswell's growling, hard-driven yet funky bass attacks. NowJazz trumpet players NILS PETTER MOLVAER and GRAHAM HAYNES accentuate the album's psychotic heat, while P-funk keyboard wizard BERNIE WORRELL takes care this meeting of musical masters called LOGDE is a solid weapon for the dance floor!

All titles and the ancient alchemist signs of the excellent artwork by John Brown refer to the fraternal organisations of freemasonry and their lodges.

Prayer has released music on Zomby's Cult Music records and on Warp Records as part of the Duo Kollaps. His music has been picked up by a wide spectrum of dj's from Benji B to Diplo. He is a classically trained musician who uses brooding melodies to drive his tumes forward. Prayer is founding member of Grade10 and he has recently done mixes for Ninja Tune's Solidsteel radio and he has appeared on RinseFM and RinseFrance as well as Radar Radio and NTS Radio. Prayer has also worked with the Tate with their mixtape series and recently he was asked to choose his top midnight hour tracks for Dummy magazine.

The Beneath EP has been well recieved in the music press and it got 9/10 in Mixmag, the highest mark they have given, it has been featured in Dummy magazine, Clash Magazine, Crack Magazine and the EP was premiered in XlR8R and Running was streamed via I.D magazine. The video for Hope was featured on Wonderland Magazine and the EP has been picked up lots of other smaller blogs and websites. It got two seperate blog posts on Hypem and clothing retailer Wellgosh also did a small feature on the record.

The third incarnation of the legendary Krautrock project Kluster/Cluster expands their audience with contemplative, mature and intelligent electronic music.

MANIMAL GROUP is excited to announce the sequel to YOKO ONO'S critically acclaimed 2007 collaboration record Yes, I'm A Witch (Astralwerks).
Yes, I'm A Witch Too features new collaborations and remixes pairing ONO with Death Cab For Cutie, Peter, Bjorn and John, Sparks, tUnE-yArDs, MiikeSnow, CiboMatto, Portugal The Man and more.

REINHOLD FRIEDL and his ensemble ZEITKRATZER perform "Kore", a hommage to the French-Greek composer IANNIS XENAKIS. 180gr-LP incl. DL code on KARLRECORDS.

"Kore" is a natural advancement of REINHOLD FRIEDL's earlier composition "Xenakis (a)live!" (released 2007 on ASPHODEL) - a homage to the French-Greek composer IANNIS XENAKIS. The piece is conceived for nine amplified instruments demonstrating ZEITKRATZER's well established tradition of instrumental amplification (e.g. the early collaborations with ZBIGNIEW KARKOWSKI or MERZBOW and more recently with WILLIAM BENNETT of WHITEHOUSE) where playing amplified does not only mean making things louder, it also entails having a microscopic view of sound in which acoustic microsounds appear in a completely new context. The references to seminal XENAKIS' tape compositions like "Persepolis" or "La Legende d'Er" are audible in the materials and textures, densities and sound masses performed by ZEITKRATZER, taking it to new areas of physical qualities that create a huge sonic architecture. Recorded live January 2013 during KLUB KATARAKT festival in Hamburg, "Kore" adds a stunning new chapter to ZEITKRATZER's audacious catalogue and a new sort of intensities to contemporary chamber music.

The zeitkratzer line-up includes FRANK GRATKOWSKI, who won the German SWR Jazz prize , the Norwegian French horn player HILD SOFIE TAFJORD (also known for her noise duo with MAJA RATKJE), the British trombone player HILARY JEFFERY, who toured a.o. with JIMI TENOR, MARC WEISER (cofounder of the Club Transmediale Festival in Berlin) and bass player MARTIN HEINZE from the BERLIN PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA. RASHAD BECKER was responsible for sound and recording.

zeitkratzer, directed by Reinhold Friedl

Frank Gratkowski / clarinet, Hild Sofie Tafjord / french horn, Hilary Jeffery / trombone,Reinhold Friedl / piano, Marc Weiser / guitar,Maurice de Martin / drums, percussion,Burkhard Schlothauer / violin,Anton Lukoszevieze / violoncello, Martin Heinze / doublebass

Recorded by Rashad Becker, mixed and mastered by Ralf Meinz

Minimal Wave is pleased to announce a second release by Belgian favorites Linear Movement.
The collection entitled 'The Linear Way' marks our 59th release on Minimal Wave and continues our celebration of 10 years as a label. The album is a collection of warm melodic electronic pop songs that have for the most part remained unreleased until now. Linear Movement is Belgian mastermind Peter Bonne (A Split-Second, Twilight Ritual, Autumn) joined by Peter Koutstaal, and Lieve Van Steerteghem contributing vocals on the final track. The songs 'The Linear Way' and 'Don't Try To Trick Me' appeared on the exquisite Pulse Music cassette (released by the Micrart Group in 1983) while the rest were never officially released. Our last collection of Linear Movement material entitled On the Screen came out in 2008 and is now long sold out. We're very excited to present this special archival album and finally make these tracks available. The Linear Way LP will be presented in a heavy quality full color printed sleeve, pressed as a limited edition of 999 copies on 180 gram pink vinyl, and released in mid-October. Digital release to follow. Vinyl pre-order now available, here.

Revered Chicago-based instrumental group Tortoise, comprised of Dan Bitney, John Herndon, Doug McCombs, John McEntire and Jeff Parker, have spent 25 years making music that defies description. While the quintet have nodded to dub, rock, jazz, electronica and minimalism throughout their acclaimed and influential six-album discography, the resulting sounds have always been distinctly their own.

It's a fact that remains true on the hotly anticipated forthcoming new album 'The Catastrophist', due out 22nd January via Thrill Jockey and Tortoise's first studio album in nearly seven years. They have conjured sounds that aren't being purveyed anywhere else in music today.

Recorded at McEntire's famed Soma Studios, it's an album where moody, synth-swept jams like the opening title track cosy up next to hypnotic, bass-and-beat missives like 'Shake Hands With Danger' and a fantastic cover of David Essex's 1973 hit song 'Rock On' sung by U.S. Maple's Todd Rittmann. Throughout, the songs on The Catastrophist transcend expectations as often as they delight the listen's eardrums.

Rock On isn't the only vocal moment on the album. Yo La Tengo's Georgia Hubley distinctive tones are on the bittersweet classic soul/R&B vibe ballad 'Yonder Blue'. This also marks the first time a Tortoise album will feature a guest vocalist singing original lyrics.

'Gesceap', the first track which you can hear from The Catastrophist, is a stunning seven-minute long, minimalist rhythmic piece, morphing from two gently intersecting synth lines into a pounding, frenzied full-band finish.

Issued now for the first time on vinyl is the complete studio album Demiurge produced by Emptyset, the collaborative art/electronics project founded by James Ginzburg & Paul Purgas. The release demonstrates this moment in the development of the project's production processes, examining non-grid based structures and the integration of sculptural feedback into the analogue signal chain. The collective body of work exhibits the precursor to their current studio work with raster-noton and highlights the project's emergence and transition into a distinct sonic grammar, reflecting upon the reappropriation of analogue media and the innate physical properties of sound. TRACK LIST:

Mysterious Eastern Renaissance joins forces with newly started, norwegian label project Gråtone for a broken, noisy affair.

Life on the Inside is the audio companion (created and recorded in 2015) to the french sculptor Pierre Besson's exhbition (D'objets noires et de Choses carrées - Black Objects and Square Things).

Never published before, this more than 30 minutes long musical ambient track (divided in 2 parts here) was diffused inside of the sculpture. This album is an excellent addition to the David Toop discography of any wide-ranging ambient fan.

The Boston based ensemble Ehnahre has been pioneering an effort to rethink and redefine what metal and extreme music can be, since their debut release in 2008- to equal parts acclaim and condemnation for their sins against the tradition. Their upcoming release, 'Douve', pushes things even farther into the muddy perimeter, incorporating elements of contemporary classical music, serialism, free improvisation, aleatory, free meter, noise and other experimental techniques.

An 18 part cycle based on poet Yves Bonnefoy's "Theatre", the record is a window into the distressed mind of a man as he observes the death and decay of his metaphorical beloved, the "watcher of the cold secret". Employing a dizzying variety of timbres, instruments, moods and stylistic homages, the album ranges from the delicate shimmer of piano overtones to full-bore metal howl, its emotional intensity only overcome by the density of its harmonies. Sometimes beautiful, frequently disgusting, "Douve" is not only an aural narrative, but a display of the group's radical evolution. It is sure to shock the uninitiated, challenge the extreme music veteran, and cement Ehnahre's status as the most forward thinking metal band on the planet... "Nothing remains except a fire in death's kingdom."

On this record Ryan McGuire and Ricardo Donoso return, along with new members Richard Chowenhill and Jared Redmond, and are joined by vocalist Ken Ueno, who appears on several tracks. Artwork contributed by Matt Saunders.

'Uplifting, spiritual, science-fiction music from E.R. Addis Ababa's Endeguena Mulu has worked on elements of this EP for roughly a decade. Drawing inspiration from the sun, Ethiopian war hymns, and his own dreams for this release, Mulu returns to 1432 R in fine form, pushing Ethiopian electronic music further into uncharted territory. Hints of jungle, hip hop, house and folk roots, working in harmony.'

New York City's grittiest returns from the underground with a new batch of polluted grooves. Gut Nose follows 2014's acclaimed Vicetopia 12" and Filthy City album / mixtape with Escape The Matrix, a five track EP showcasing yet again how versatile in this city's styles the man can be.

Two Variations marks the return to Umor Rex of the Los Angeles based musician & producer M. Geddes Gengras, following his two volumes of "Collected Works" from 2013 and 2014. The two pieces here are the result of Gengras' continuous exercises and obsession with his modular synthesizer, —technique apart—, "Two Variations" is a new statement, the reinforcement of MGG's prowess in this area, and how through these machines, he is able to build harmonic music pieces, contours between the electronic collage and concrete music.

The first side of this tape is an edit of the first two run-throughs of a patch that I had been conceptualizing for a while before I majorly rearranged my system to accommodate this obsession. Four voltage-controlled oscillators (Make Noise Music STOs) are controlled by the output of a four-stage shift register (synthtech e102) which takes a single sequence of voltages and distributes them (in the style of a round) across the four voices. The e102 is being fed a long sequence from an Antimatter Audio Brainseed. A single clock controls the sequence speed, the shift register's 'action', and a gate sequencer (Noise Engineering Zularic Repetitor operating in a probability mode) which in turn activates four AD envelopes (Intellijel Quadra) to open the four channels of a Make Noise Quad Multi-Mode Gates module which is mixing the four voices of the VCOs. The 'delay' in the shift register (essentially how many clock pulses it takes for a note to advance to the next output) is modulated by random voltage from a Make Noise Wogglebug. The end result is two pairs of marimba mallets attached to a pair of dice. The b-side is a soundboard recording of a performance utilizing this patch, among others, from the same period.

More Bites sees RVNES' ambient tendency turn in on itself, the frustrated and endless feedback soundscape and static carries the kind of intensity that Masonna struggles to elongate for more than a couple of minutes over two twelve minute plus cuts.

Avoiding recognizable melodies and creating some of the harshest, visceral noise pieces imaginable, RVNES creates an exceptional and bewildering piece of underground art. An aural map of desecrated topography, More Bites is a discordant experiment perfectly suited to tape.

Split album of the Berlin based artists Shapes a.k.a. Niklas Dommaschk (member of Phantom Horse) and Oliver Koch as Melfi.

There's some peculiar mutuality in the works of Melfi and Shapes that add an unexpected kind of conceptuality to that split tape on hand. Both artists work with machines that are older than themselves, and it is obvious that their approach alleges some kind of antiqueness that sets the listener on the wrong track. There's an inheritable sadness to all of these tracks, friendly and compelling in the same way, and there's a vision of dusty, blurry glances of reclusive silence. These tracks transport an evidence of sound and melody as fundaments for themselves - sometimes krauty, old-fashioned in some way, making the synth a speaker. The kosmische road is only seen as a signpost, and the drunken comets still dither above your heads and ears and in your brain: This is a tape you should listen to while being alone or broke or drunk, and you know why.

Re:collecting is the first collaborative album of Steven Hess (member of Locrian, Cleared, Pan- American, Haptic, and Innode) and Rutger Zuydervelt (also known as Machinefabriek).

Over that past years, Steven Hess has recorded piles of cassettes on an old four-track and classroom desktop tape players, going through a chain of pedals and loopers and then back into the cassette recorders again. Besides his usual drum kit and cymbals, the sound sources include guitar, bass, AM/FM radio chatter and wood floors. After sifting through the big archive of recordings made over the years, he sent the best material to his collaborator. Rutger Zuydervelt further processed these recordings, keeping the mysterious murkiness intact, but subtly adding extra sounds, creating a complex palette of textures, and working on an overall structure. Despite their dark nature, there's openness to interpretation and an appealing seduction. The tracks on Re:collecting are different 'states' or 'environments', converted in fascinating ambient/drone and minimalistic songs.

UNIVERS ZERO's 1977 debut album masterpiece re-released as 2LP set + bonus track.

Longstanding Belgian chamber rockers and avant-garde pioneers led by drummer/composer Daniel Denis, Univers Zero was formed in 1974 with co-composer and guitarist Roger Trigaux (who left the band in 1980). This is their first album recorded between the 2nd and the 5th of August 1977.

"The rhythmic energy and dissonant riffs, the distinctive sound of the bassoon and strings, and the tricky, fragmented time signatures make for a challenging and highly distinctive listening experience." (ALLMUSIC)

Cassette reissue of the 2010 split LP release. Edition of 50 copies. Custom letterpress packaging, hand stamped & numbered, artwork/design by F. Coloccia.

'Music like this cannot merely be described; music like this must be felt. Mamiffer's debut is a beautiful piece of unremitting dream music, an arc of soft diaphanous emotion wrapped in pieces of classical music and brilliant noise.' -Blog Critics

The split LP is a time honored tradition in the realm of underground musics, one which has often signified an artistic and personal kinship between the participating parties. Such is the case with this split album between Mamiffer and Oakeater, to which both contribute lengthy side-long tracks. Having played numerous shows together in various forms, collabortaed live as well as in the studio, Oakeater and Mamiffer embody the idea of musical comminity, sharing an affinity for musical explorations into the murkier regions of emotionally driven sound and song craft.

Oakeater's contribution to this split follows the trajectory previously estblished by the Chicago based group since their formation in 2006, fitting together elements of ritual ambience, cavernous drones and abstracted black metal. With 'Iron Road II' they manage once again to construct a deeply affecting and clearly articulated song from seemingly nebulous sounds and materials. Over the course of 18 minutes tones generated by guitar, crackling synths and percussion collide with washes of whispering vocal howls and cyclic minor key figures to create true night time music.

Working as the sole operator in Mamiffer on this particular release, founding member Faith Coloccia makes use of heavily saturated guitar tones as the base element from which the track here is constructed. While most material on past releases has centered around acoustic and electric piano as the focal instruments, the use of guitar reveals the same core aspects that have defined Mamiffer - a great sensitivty for the emotional impact of sound, the use of sonic textures to form musical narrative, with a clearly intuitive and focused approach that manages to defy easy categorization. Though 'Fake Witch' is abrasive on the surface level, deeper listening reveals ghostly beauty balanced with a palpable sense of ecstatic consciousness.

Vorab zum Album kommt die Single "Put Your Mask On" als 7" Vinyl und Digital. Dort wird noch tiefer in Akeres Zwischenwelt vorgedrungen und es stellt sich heraus, dass Akere dort nicht allein sind. Neben Sarah Sulais abstrakten Strophen, greift auf dem Bonustrack "Deep Waters" die Münchner Sängerin Louisa nach dem Mikrofon und bereichert die entstehenden Bildern mit ihrem ganz eigenen Stil. Zu beiden Songs sind auf der Single auch die Instrumentals enthalten, denn auch ohne Text kann man in diese musikalischen Gewässer tief eintauchen.

Giuseppe Ielasi is an electro-acoustic musician based in Milan. He runs the micro label Senufo Editions. Originally released in 2013, Error Broadcast re-issued 'Stunt (Appendix)' just recently (ebc028). Here Giuseppe Ielasi delivers a highly unique take on beat music.

After a hiatus of three years Inventing Masks is a new moniker the producer uses to publish his self-titled debut LP. 'Inventing Masks' comprises six concentric but slightly out-of-balance sound sculptures, equally inspired from generative composition, ambient music, and hip hop.

The dubwise duo moving into more intuitive terrain. Part 1 beats its wings and scurries about in the undergrowth of a chattering Jungle; 2 moves into the light with kosmische intrepidity.

Debut of the Hit+Run Presents "Road Kill" compilation series. Volume 1 includes 14 exclusive & vinyl unreleased! tracks by the Los Angeles underground and beyond, like The Gaslamp Killer, Mono/Poly , Jeremiah Jae, Mndsgn, Computer Jay, Ras G, Daedelus, J.Rocc,Kutmah, Zackey Force Funk, and more... Tip!!

After finding a kitten named lola in an abandoned
Rimowa suitcase, Pearson Sound (aka David
Kennedy) thought it only right to wheel the creature
home and write a track about the experience. And
that's just for starters - if you love the Shepard tone
and powerful drums then you're sure to fall in love
with 'Power Drumsss'. On the flip, Pearson pays
tribute to one of the UK's best-selling confectionary
products....

With a quiet intensity over the last 12 years, Strategy has proven himself to be an incredibly resourceful and rewarding musician in both group settings and as a solo artist. In the latter guise, this Portland producer/multi-instrumentalist (aka Paul Dickow) has released a prolific amount of excellent work for quality indie labels such as Kranky, Idle Hands, 100% Silk, Endless Flight, and Entr'acte, putting a cerebral yet sensual spin on dub, ambient, post rock, and house music. For his Further Records debut, Noise Tape Self, Strategy delves ever deeper into his more ambient inclinations and experiments with tape loops. Most of the six tracks bear titles more suited for a library record, but Noise Tape Self lacks library music's faceless functionality; rather, it's an immersive soundtrack to stimulating one's imagination or losing one's bearings. Dickow says he became obsessed with making tape music in 2008, after tiring of using the computer as his main instrument. Fellow Portland producer/ingenious gear-tinkerer David Chandler (Solenoid) taught Dickow 'how to make a tape loop that could be put inside a cassette tape. I got really into this, and got a 4 track, knowing this would allow me to have four synchronized loops per tape. I would then run each channel through a series of effects and 'perform' live mixes using the loops. I alternated between using source material of my own devising and using whatever source material happened to be on the cassettes I was hacking.

Jilk release their new EP 'In Need of Tess' - A wonderful collection of tracks that build on the established epic soundscapes of past releases but also demonstrate the organic development of combining experimental ambient pallets with more traditional orchestral scores and delicate pop sensibilities.

Following their successful collaboration with Haiku Salut on the emotionally charged 'Periscopes', Jilk return with warped vocals, soaring strings and a techno core tying the spiralling dense walls of ambience together.

The lead single, 'In Need of Tess' is a collaborative piece, a pulsating slice of chamber pop about dead dogs and dreams which also draws on the considerable talents of video director Nic Kane, the sculptures of Hester Sorel Moriarty Thompson.

The rest of the EP comprises of a two-part piece developed from a soundtrack Jilk produced for a lovely short film by Nim Jethwa. Building, developing and fleshing out the ideas, Jilk combine the sweeping beauty of orchestral timbre with driving 4/4 pulse and rusty sounding guitars for Nim and Nim (Sit Down Outro).

Baby Hannah is an epic piece of post rock inflected electronica making full use of the bands wide range of players. Vibraphone, violins and guitars cling to foundation drum patterns as the piece moves from ambient drone through to a rain storm of melodic percussion that even Steve Reich would approve of.

Be Heart: A short but emotionally charged clattering lo-fi electro love song built from home found sounds and frazzled broken synths. The most aching club romance to take place in a child's toy box.

Then a collaboration with the incredible Nuala Honan as Jilk rework her stand out track 'All is Not Lost', (taken from her 2014 album The Tortoise). Jilk mould the song into a hazy blanket of clicks, whirs, strings and heart wrenching vocals from snippets.

Finis Africæ. Words redolent of mystery and myth, of Europe looking out to new lands, new worlds, new times. And so it is with "A Last Discovery", the work of Spaniard Juan Alberto Arteche Guel and his musical co-adventurers, recorded between 1984 and 2001.
After fifteen years of musical success in Spain with his band Nuestro Pequeño Mundo, Arteche was ready to experiment with new ideas, and with the purchase of a four-track reel-to-reel recorder he did so, exploring imaginary global music-worlds with a core of like-minded explorers. The group, dubbed "Finis Africæ" by JAA after reading Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose", where the term refers to forbidden books and hidden knowledge, released seven recordings over an eighteen-year period, the best of which are compiled here.

Finis Africae was part of the "new wave" of Spanish music which gradually emerged after the end of the Francoist regime. Using
modern electric instruments and traditional acoustic instruments from many cultures blended together via studio alchemy, a magic which grew even stronger with the acquisition of a sixteen-track recorder after their second release, Finis Africæ created an outward-looking musical multiverse, an unclassifiable amalgam encompassing elements of folk traditions from all over the world,
skillfully and lovingly shaped into an inclusive pan-global whole. Deeply influenced by African music, the group's reverberant, organic minimal funk will appeal to DJs as well as all who yearn for the loving warmth that comes with the embrace of global possibilities.

With liner notes in Spanish, English and Japanese by JAA, "A
Last Discovery" is available on CD and double vinyl (with two bonus tracks). This is the first release by Finis Africae outside of their native Spain. Come take a retrospective journey of discovery. New worlds await.

Martoc, aka Martin O'Cuthbert, has been making alien and alienated synth-pop in the UK since the post-punk period. This compilation gathers six songs released on seven-inch EPs during the years 1978-80, plus four songs released during the first decade of this century !
The tracks show a distinctive stylistic unity, inspired by fellow spirits like Fad Gadget, The Normal, John Foxx and
Kraftwerk, across the decades Martoc has maintained both his close relationship with his synthesizers and an arms-length relationship with society, resulting in an appealingly quirky and individualistic iciness, informed also by his love of science fiction writers such as J. G. Ballard and Iain Banks.

One of the songs included here, "B.E.M.S.", was chosen as
Record Of The Year by John Lydon in New Musical Express in 1978, John Peel was also a supporter. Despite these and other accolades, Martoc and his simultaneously catchy yet disturbing music has hovered resolutely under the radar, an alien craft avoiding detection by an unaware and perhaps unprepared world. Gathered together here, this collection of tracks offers an excellent opportunity investigate an alien explorer.

What do you do afer a journey of musical discovery in Mali and Burkina Faso You go cycling in south-
ern Germany!
That's what Anders Lauge Meldgaard, the man behind the pseudonym Frisk Frugt (translated as 'Fresh
Fruit') did afer fnishing work on his previous album Burkina Faso i det himmelblå rum hvor solen bor,
suite (2010), a record that made his name as one of the champions of experimental music.
Where 'Burkina Faso...' took listeners on a magical musical journey from the African country of its ttle
and back to Denmark, Anders's latest sonic adventure fnds him travelling closer to home. Called Den
Europæiske Spejlbue (English translaton: The European Mirror-Arch), the new album consists of 12
orchestral collages, all revolving around the study of songs in Danish matched up with what you could
call European world music.

Zehn Jahre nach seinem letzten Werk auf Trevor Jacksons Output Recordings meldet sich der französische Electro-Rocker Marc Nguyen Tan a.k.a. Colder auf seinem eigenen Label zurück. Die 12 neuen Tracks atmen die gleiche reduziert-kühle Grundstimmung aus Post-Punk und Post-Disco wie auch zuvor ein. Als Bonus gibt es eine zusätzliche Matias Aguayo Version. Das Album erscheint physisch nur auf Vinyl, wahlweise auf schwarzem oder blauem. "Suicide-ish vocal meanderings and Krautrock-via-Joy Division hypnosis." CMJ Magazine