Beats News

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

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

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

Taken from the master tapes and remastered by Denis Blackham.

For the last ever release on Astro:Dynamics, we drop the third and final volume of Excavated Tapes from Portland artist Kevin Palmer, aka Best Available Technology.

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

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

ORE- BELATEDLY is to be released on 2xLP and digitally and features collaborations from Khyam Allami, Beck Baker, Sophie Cooper, Thomas Stone and Kazuyuki Kishino (KK NULL)

ORE is the project of Sam Underwood. Belatedly in his words:

The title is derived from the fact that I failed to complete this album the first time around. I started it as a gift to my father when he was diagnosed with lung cancer in late 2014. But I failed to complete it before his death 8 months later. I subsequently aimed to complete it but found that too hard...so had to start the whole thing afresh. This is now ready, Belatedly.

Aged 35 - the average age at which fewer cells regenerate than die - Sam Underwood left his previous job to pursue his dream of being a musician. He also put down his guitar, intent on exploring what he hoped would be a rich sound world, a compound formed of doom metal and low brass. ORE was formed.

For me, playing the tuba was the first time I really felt a connection - in every sense - with a musical instrument. An extension of my own pipework, my resonant frequency. A truly physical instrument to play.

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

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

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

We don't know much about George Boutz, except that he released two cassettes in the early 80's. All recorded at home, using several synths such as the OB-08 and the Micromoog, making weird, spacey and trippy tracks. Tip tip tip! Orbeatize has 3 more releases coming up in December, check out the link below the info of ORB 06!

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

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

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

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

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

Stelzer/Murray is the duo of Brendan Murray and Howard Stelzer, two stalwarts of the Boston noise / experimental scene over the past two decades. Both artists have long been friends and both artists have never shied away from collaborating with avant-garde musicians hither and yon. Yet, this marks their first collaborative work together. Better late than never, we say.

Stelzer brings to the table an array of mangled and partially demagnetized tape, and Murray brings his knack for compacted harmonics, obfuscated field recordings, and long-view compositional strategies. An irradiated, almost Kirlian glow permeates Connector through the duo's slow accretions and erosions amidst the soaring crescendos of compacted tone and vacant shadows of mechanical thrum. On occasion, rasping saw tooth frequencies and oblique synth-noise phrases stridently pop in a clinical opposition against the field of hiss. Screaming cascades from ice storms. Tape symphonies from urban blight. Life-support machines at the point of obsolescence.

In describing the process of building this album, Stelzer reflected, "When you've known someone for this long, the act of collaboration is like conversation over dinner, you don't fuss over it or worry about it, it's stress free, even instinctual like exhaling."

Good things come to those who wait.

Debut vinyl release for this curious Japanese producer combining electronics with subtle field recordings across a gorgeous set of arrangements. A maiden voyage too for the Lullabies For Insomniacs label. Blissful TIP on this one!
SUGAI KEN is an electronic musician based in Kanagawa, Japan. Using synthesis and recordings of his daily surroundings, he conjures the subtle and profound ambience of the Japanese nightscape. His music evokes a nocturnal peace that reflects the intangible qualities of his memory and dreams.

- On The Quakefish is an immersive exploration displaying a rugged invention, compressed into short bursts of electrifying genius. The release represents a romantic desire for dispersion into nature. Earthy as well as ethereal in his appreciation for figurative beauty, SUGAI KEN summons the Zen tradition of Satori. He invites one to listen with a sense of intimacy and introspection, reflecting on the extremes of subtlety.

Christa Päffgen aka Nico has been a femme fatale extraordinaire, a woman always searching for and always running from something. She began her career as a model and actress, but soon got addicted to music and all kinds of unhealthy relievers for her spiritual pain, which in the end caused a bad health and helped to generate the circumstances for her untimely death at the age of 50 in 1988. A few months prior to her passing due to a bicycle accident on the Spanish isle Ibiza, she performed her last show with mostly new and unheard tracks, plus one classic tune from her proto-gothic album The end' (originally released in 1974). If you are familiar with her avantgarde type music you may guess what awaits you here but I think I should explain it to all those who have never heard of Nico before. She had one of the most captivating and outstanding voices in the whole music scene during her active years, with an utterly dark and manic expression even while performing her vocals absolutely flawless. Besides her unique voice, Nico also performed as a supermodel, which flatened her path to the hearts and music of several well known artists from that time, like Andy Warhol, Brian Jones, Bob Dylan, Tim Hardin, Leonard Cohen, Jackson Browne, Jimi Hendrix, Danny Fields, Iggy Pop and Alain Delon. Andy Warhol connected Nico to Lou Reed, who's band THE VELVET UNDERGOUND she joined for the first album as a singer on Warhol's wish. Her later backing band THE FACTION created a thick carpet of pulsating melodies and rhythms with a spacey feel and a morbid atmosphere. Peter Murphy of BAUHAUS once called Nico's albums The marble index' (1968) and The end' (1974) to be the first ever true GOTHIC style records and he was right. Even twenty years after her first records Nico still had this gloomy but majestic charme and the older she got, the better and more intense her music became. With these accessible but still mind twisting songs on Nico's last concert: Fata Morgana' we get a rough idea where she wanted to go. All in all this is one of those cult albums from the 80s dark psychedelic music scene, which certainly deserves to be heard by current generations for it easily stands the test of time. Just phreakin awesome.

PTP is proud to present the debut album by Celestial Trax (real name Joni Judén) entitled Nothing Is Real, which he describes as a departure not only in sound but also geographically and spiritually from his previous output, having found an increased interest in mysticism and the esoteric. Taking inspiration from a quote by Anton Chekov, "if you want to work on your art, work on your life," Judén aimed for the album to be a true representation of his voice at this time. He felt a need to distance himself from the distractions a creative hub like NYC can often provide, not wanting to become too influenced by the city's current trends, and instead shifted his focus inward to cultivate a more meaningful self-connection: this journey and struggle thus serving as the main inspiration to the writing. In beginning Nothing Is Real, Judén had reached the point of creative purge, deleting almost all samples, sample packs, and software synths. Fueled by ideas of rebirth and true self-projection, he amassed a library of field recordings from New York City, plus samples from his own cassettes, vinyl, and Youtube search history - utilizing every sound source he could come across in his studio whilst trying to spend as little time as possible on the computer screen. The result being an album less concerned with achieving a masterful polish and sonic bombast, instead aiming for more organic textures where noise and imperfection reflects the human experience, with recurring themes of existentialism, surrealism and nature permeating throughout.

We are very excited to present the new collabo release between Cosmic Compostions and Jitwam's selftitled album " ".

Born in Assam, Gauhati, in Northeast India, but currently based in New York's storied borough of Brooklyn, Jitwam spent his formative years in New Zealand and Australia, before living in monasteries in Thailand, orphanages in South Africa, and washed out apartments in London. Of everywhere and nowhere, his music draws influence from a litany of iconoclasts including, but not limited to RD Burman, Moondog, The Velvet Underground, Yayoi Kusama, Jay Electronica, Jay Dilla, Moodymann, Leon Thomas, Madlib and Asha Bhosle.

Across " (selftitled)", he utilizes knowledge acquired through years spent digging through dusty crates, and talents honed as a multi-instrumentalist, producer, and vocalist. A series of stumbling, jazz/soul-rooted beat sculptures, each buried beneath a haze of fuzzy psychedelia, broken microphone blues, and articulated through a freestyled process he describes as "first thought, best thought", " (selftitled)" solidifies Jitwam's spot as a major emerging talent.

Recalling the fourth world dreamscapes explored by oddball songwriters like Connan Mockasin, Clarence Clarity, Jai Paul, Silicon, and Unknown Mortal Orchestra, it represents a time of transition and remembrance for Jitwam, while still fulfilling the core qualities he looks for in song. In his words, "Music is a refuge. A shelter from the storm. A place you can go to close your eyes."

Since he first shared his music with IZWID Records boss Kutmah at a Brainfeeder afterparty in London, Jitwam has released through Leaving Records, Cosmic Compositions, and The Jazz Diaries (the label he co-runs with Casey Van Reyk and Nigel Mphisa). He's also written with Inkswel (BBE) and Paul White (R&S), featured on Moodymann's K7! "DJ-Kicks" compilation and been championed by Gilles Peterson, Alexander Nut, Andrew Jervis (Bandcamp), and Funkineven. Mainly mixed and mastered by Matthewdavid at Stones Throw studios in Los Angeles, " (selftitled)" will be available on vinyl and digital formats.

Originally released in 1969, this LP features music by BBC Radiophonic Workshop members Delia Derbyshire and Brian Hodgson alongside David Vorhaus, an American born composer and musician with whom they formed the experimental electronic band White Noise'. It was put out by the Standard Music Library label, set up in 1968 by Bucks Music and London Weekend Television, which supplied production music for use in TV, commercials, radio and film. Many of these tracks were used in the 1960's cult TV show, The Tomorrow People' and each one has a short description of the music after the track title.

Both Derbyshire and Hodgson assumed pseudonyms in the credits: Li de la Russe & Nikki St. George respectively.
Two of the tracks are co-written by the pair, who also worked together to set up the organisation and studio project Unit Delta Plus', which was extensively involved in the promotion and exploration of electronic music.

'Six Harmonies', the febrile opener from Killing Sound's recent EP double-pack (BLACKEST028), refashioned as a shapeshifting, shark-eyed junglist wrecker. Nine minutes of pure dread at 180, cut by Matt Colton at half-speed for maximum dancehall pressure. A one-sided 12" release.

In 1979 the Fairlight CMI (Computer Musical Instrument) was launched, the year that the BBC Radiophonic Workshop celebrated its 21st birthday. At the price of a house (approx. £30,000) this state of the art piece of equipment was embedded with an 8 bit digital sampling synthesizer capable of emulating acoustic instruments and orchestras alongside the manipulation of sound effects.

For the BRW this was a major game changer, where previously, composers would spend weeks editing small pieces of tape together to create sounds. Ingenuity and creativity in music and sound was still at the forefront for Workshop members but suddenly made a whole lot easier. This 1983 collection (a first time re-release here of the complete album) celebrated these new found freedoms most notably on the opening track where five Radiophonic composers combined to add their own musical identity to a rhythmic percussive sequence from the Fairlight.

Highlights include music from the radio production of The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy and Fancy Fish based on Saint-Saen's Carnival Of The Animals which was the first BRW project to utilise the Fairlight.

Devoted to a lifestyle of meditation and spiritual embrace, Cooper reflects inner peace to a universal call for calm. "This is for us to incite stillness in our hearts and minds," each word a song, each title a movement in the greater dance of harmony and balance.

Cooper's sentence is not about meditation, but the result of it. The album's message does not predict its sound. Though moments of The Sentence are quiet ("To") and hopeful ("Is"), others are whimsical ("Us") and moody ("Minds"). "Incite" crashes cymbals upon Moog waves, samples of Saturday cartoons and middle school conversations. "Stillness" threads multiple movements within a three minute expanse: abrasive samples, billowing horns (care of Rev. Kiah Abendroth on trumpet), a guitar / synth lullaby and North Carolina finger-picking.

The most elaborate of The Sentence, "Us", brushes ecstatic orchestral movements atop a canvas of chamber recordings and present-day electronic freak-outs. The song exemplifies Cooper's breadth, toolkit and imaginative execution as a composer. "Us" features performances from Steve Klimowski (clarinet) and Bonnie Thurber-Klimowski (cello), both of the Vermont Contemporary Music Ensemble, and was recorded in a chapel in Montpelier, VT.

Fresh, expansive, experimental EP by Martino Marini and Niccolo` Daniel Rufo (from Tru West and Nightdrivers). Warmly spontaneous forays into tribalism, motorik punk, twisted disco... including field recordings, live guitar and electronics.
The new creation of the poly-sided Martino Marini and Niccolo` Daniel Rufo brings Marmo back to an improvisational-executed cross-genre mode. The authors of Tru West and the club-banging Nightdrivers project don't` have enough of exploring further. The Leftovers embodies another experiment, another call to get loose, to go punk, away from club mentality and functionalism.

A unique synthesis of time-dilating folk-jazz romanticism, brittle chamber dub and plasmic post-techno electronics, Tarquin Magnet is Australian artist Tarquin Manek's first full solo release on Blackest Ever Black, but by no means his first contribution to the label: he is one half of Tarcar (with Carla dal Forno) and a member of F ingers (with dal Forno and Sam Karmel), while his track 'Not Missing You' features on the BEB compilation I Can't Give You The Life You Want. Manek has been busy elsewhere, too: he released Th Duo, an LP made under his LST alias, on Another Dark Age earlier this year. The disturbed and enchanted environments of Tarquin Magnet are the result of improvisation, domestic field recording and fastidious editing; for all its rough textures and strange juxtapositions, this is masterfully mixed and arranged music, its deep spatial dynamics and higher dub logic powerfully apparent.

It is said that the gods of the dead demand you ritualistically commit to each intensely hot beat of the ceremonial drum. Now, here, is the music for their celebration of death, music to dance together with, to oblivion, a music both spectacular and ecstatic where, like never before, the spirits of santería and vaudou mix with raw electricity into burning diabolical polyrhythms. We here present Cut Hands and Festival Of The Dead. This is Cut Hands' third album to date: the acclaimed Afro Noise I introduced the project in 2011, and 2012's Black Mamba expanded its feverish vision, preceded by a single of the same name on Blackest Ever Black. 2013 saw the release of the similarly fiery 'Madwoman' and 'Damballah 58' 12"s (on Downwards and BEB respectively). Festival of The Dead is without doubt the most potent distillation yet of Cut Hands' malign percussive energy, with pieces like 'The Claw' and 'Vaudou Take Me High' leading the irresistible polyrhythmic assault, in pursuit of one thing: a final rapturous celebration of oblivion. Written and produced by William Bennett. Original veve artwork by Mimsy DeBlois. Mastered by Noel Summerville. 2xLP (BLACKESTLP010) housed in high gloss gatefold sleeve.

A Noisy Live set fromp ATR, nope dancefloor alloud ! Pure terrorism !

feature exact repro LP artwork to retain authenticity, but are now on 180 gram heavyweight vinyl

Last years TBG01 was charted by german DJane Ellen Allien and broadcasted by Gilles Peterson of BBC-International fame - amongst others. The second installment (with the slightly confusing catalog-number TBG04) changes its appearance from 'white-label 12 in a black & white gatefold cover' to 'heavy white vinyl in a multicolored disco-sleeve". The label's patron Arthur Boto Conley showcases the work of obscure 1980s producer Clifford Trunk. The lo-fi dance and ambient tracks origin from a tape which was hand to Conley by Trunk during a brief encounter at Düsseldorf's 'Ratinger Hof' in 1986. Depicted on the cover you can see Italian designer Ettore Sottsass' work for the fashion company Esprit's european headquarter which opened up the same year. Clifford Trunk was working for the Sottsass Associati from 1982 on and had a leisure time obsession for drum-computers and sample synths. What a serendipity! - Limited to 333 records.

Pineal activation. IMAX phantasy. Drippy acid ecosystems. HD....everything. All contribute to the sentient environment that is Exo, Gatekeeper's debut LP dropping on LA-based label Hippos In Tanks. Demented and celebratory, sinister but pure-hearted, Exo is a cerebral spectacle, a gapless playback rush of digitally-enhanced stimulation.

Tadd Mullinix first made a name for himself as Dabrye in the early 2000s with a pair of instrumental albums combining the rhythmic finesse of Detroit hip-hop with the ingenuity of electronic music. But instrumental beats were only a temporary goal, a way for Mullinix to catch the ears of MCs. On Two/Three, his second Dabrye album for Ghostly International, Mullinix brought together a formidable crew of local and national talent to make the statement he'd always intended. Released in 2006, Two/Three o-ered a fevered vision of rap's future that remains just as intoxicating a decade on. Ahead of the long-await-ed conclusion of Dabrye's hip-hop trilogy in 2018, Ghostly is reissuing Two/Three.

Dabrye's move towards rap began in 2004 with the album's first single, 'Game Over' featuring Jay Dee and Phat Kat. An early inspiration of Dabrye's, Jay Dee invited Mullinix to his crib in 2002 for a listening session during which he picked the 'Game Over' beat to rap on. Crucially everyone involved was in accord that despite perceptions of their respective work this would be a hardcore rap song. Together with Kat, Jay delivered a one-two lyrical punch on 'Game Over' that no one saw coming. Detroit made the world go round and everyone's head spun. 'Game Over' set the tone for the album and, over the next few years, became a Detroit anthem — shortly after Jay's passing in 2006 the audience at Movement Festival sung his verse.

Moody, propulsive, and above all ambitious, Two/Three emerges from a sonic stew of Detroit and UK dance music, Jamaican sound clashes, and hip-hop sampledelia. The guests, a who's who of the mid-'00s underground rap scene, engage in a raucous rhyming session that pays as much attention to the realities of the streets as it does world events. MF Doom, Wildchild, Vast Aire, Beans, and AG represent for the various coasts while local talents — Waajeed, Ta-Raach, Invincible, Finale, Kadence, Guilty Simpson, Big Tone, Phat Kat, and Jay Dee — bring Two/Three alive with an infectious energy. In between bursts of raw rap and hard beats, Dabrye showcases detailed instrumentals that evoke bleak industrial futures, underwater meditations, and smoky late night sessions. With Two/Three Dabrye placed himself at the forefront of hip-hop's new wave, throwing a Molotov cocktail into the rap world as uncompromising as the head-twisting cover art from WK Interact. The independent press praised Mullinix's audacity. Over the following years the impact of Two/Threewas felt in slow increments as Dabrye's music became central to the sonic makeup of a new generation of producers. As this beat scene grew and moved away from rap, it showed Mullinix the influence of his work and the value of his vision for Dabrye as his own brand of Detroit hip-hop.

Hui Terra. The dreamlike shape of the half-heard word, abstracts with faint impressions of bucolic landscape, or handfuls of translucent and brightly-colored gemstones that hold odd, elusive, asymmetrical form. This enchanting, gently surreal debut album from Alex Cobb's Etelin project explores the power and playfulness of impulsive action diffused through electro-acoustic and ambient sound.

This music was created with digital synthesizers and a sampler in the four months immediately following the birth of his first child, a hazy period marked by a lack of regular sleep and a diet of INA-GRM, Nuno Canavarro's "Plux Quba", and Microstoria's "Init Ding" - records that appeared to produce both stimulating and soothing effects on a newborn's nascent consciousness. Recorded and arranged at all hours, this is an album that reflects on moments of tumult and fragility. Cobb sews small sharpnesses and surprises into its movements to uncover different aspects of each sound source, doubling as hypnic starts cast to advance and variate the narrative in subtle and unexpected ways. Sound and atmosphere manifest in eccentric, alchemical fashion, as though forming in processes of sublimation - solids dissipating into vapor - and deposition - clouds resolving and dropping to the ground in piles - to an obscure and domestic rhythm. There's the purveying sense of moving within the boundaries of small, hermetic ecosystem. This is underscored and doused by a slow, blooming sense of warmth; growing joy without bombast. Even the more startling textures conceal this same truth and emphasis, such as the alien, sour salt-butter electronic babble in "Little Rig", largely sampled from Cobb's son's voice at just a week old. It is emotional music - devoted, affectionate, and playful.

This edition documented a collaboration of three international composers working with found objects and mundane artifacts. The trio of Anne-F Jacques (CA), Ryoko Akama (JP/GB) and Takamitsu Ohta (JP) created slow intensifications using installations of modified devices and movements. An investigation of intermingling whirs and clangs, sometimes soft and tiny, raised from glass bottles, rocks, newspaper, pvc pipes, matches, electronics or dried leaves, begging the listeners to decipher and keep guessing what provoked every incidents. It is a showcase of motions, a narration on process, a phenomena through forces, an ode to Kosugi.

Debut collaboration between these like-minded English underground titans, perfectly mixing the long-form pop eccentricities of Grumbling Fur with the free electric sound of Astral Social Club to produce four epic and memorable tracks. The music is dense and layered, with hidden hooks, haunting vocals, unidentifiable electronic shuddering, delicate ambience, etc. Challenging but completely accessible and beautiful stuff. After a brief vocal declaration of purpose, “Back To The Egg” rides a motorik pulse ala Harmonia or Kraftwerk for ten hypnotic minutes. “Three Years Apart” pulses gently in a burbling cloud, reminding that along with crafting song gems, Grumbling Fur has collaborated with noted avant-composer / performer Charlemagne Palestine. “Ozone Antifreeze Intelligence” layers electronics over a haunting piano and vocal melody, framed by subliminal fuzz guitar. “Toejam Boxdrum” closes the album with an uproarious polyrhythm hidden by more layers of soft-focus electro-fizz, gradually giving way to thick bass riffs and tremelo’d interjections.

Barbara Proksch (born 1943 in Berlin, living in Salching, Lower Bavaria) is a German visual artist. After having studied Lettering and Illustration, she first worked in graphic design and theatrical painting before in 1982 deciding to become a freelance artist, concerning herself mainly with drawing. Her works are characterized by her long lasting fascination for letters and geometrical figures and often incorporate signs, characters and writing as well as calligraphic elements. Another thread of influence stems from her background in theatrical painting: the physical aspects and the body language of painting which come to the fore when working on huge canvas with large brushes and litres of paint. From the beginning, a further aspect has drawn her attention, namely the sounds that occur while drawing and writing, and the way they influence the resulting work. She noticed that the sounds made by the tools she uses feed back into her drawing process, and that just like speech and writing – in a linguistic sense – cannot be decoupled from each other, drawing and listening cannot either: Eye and ear become partners, drawing becomes a performance with the specific tools and materials used as musical instruments.

This observation has led to the development of her group of works called OPTO_PHON, a name which, from the 1990s onwards, Proksch uses for performances that draw upon this synaesthetic process: Usually, Proksch works on large sheets of paper, mounted like drumheads and tackled with various tools (scrapers, brushes, pens, knives, twigs, etc.), the sounds amplified through contact microphones. The early OPTO_PHON performances were made with herself standing in front of the paper sheets, visible to the audience while drawing. Later, she decided to stand in the back of the paper with a spotlight behind her, so that light shines through it when it is cut and ripped.

Side A of this LP contains excerpts from OPTO_PHON performances, the first made in a church in Cheb, Czechia, in 2003, led by the strong echo emerging in the hall, the others recorded in her studio. They are contrasted on side B with a very different performance that is, however, conceptually related to OPTO_PHON: While travelling on the Trans-Siberian Railway, Proksch experienced a similar synaesthetic process while listening to the repetitive rattling of the train and watching the landscape passing by. In 2010, this experience was transformed into a sound piece for amplified sewing machine.

Edition of 300 in full color sleeve with printed inner sleeve and insert, containing images of optophonic tools and drawings, and extensive liner notes.

Originally released in the early 1980s this reissue features the Belgian
electronic artist Benjamin Lew along with Steven Brown, the front man of
US band Tuxedomoon.
With his small analog synthesizer, Benjamin had a unique talent for creating
magical, evocative and poetic atmospheres. “Douzieme Journee” takes the listener on a journey through alien landscapes, which has elicited comparisons to
the music of Jon Hassell and Brian Eno.
“An album of mesmerising strangeness, an exotic, surreal trip. Elusive and fascinating” - New Musical Express, 1983

It’s almost four years since their last opus - two years since the most-recent run
of live shows. Now, Bitchin Bajas return from whatever kind of rare ether they
occupy when they’re at home, bearing the riches of the whole cosmos in their
hands. And strictly OG as well - on cassette only.
 ‘Switched On Ra’ is the outcome of a typical Bajas exercise: pouring some out
for the pioneers that came before (as they’ve done with Bitchitronics and their
participation in the annual Chicago performance of ‘In C’ over the years). It’s a
nice way to get a flow - they play a little of themselves, then some for the
pioneers, then a little more for the band. Before long, they’re playing with the
inspirations twined, as they can only come from within.
 For ‘Switched On Ra’, this meant a deep delve into the song-book of one of their
soul-predecessors, Sun Ra, whose music is literally written in the Bajas DNA.
Digging into this music sounded wild on paper: the drone synth group taking on
the Arkestra harmonies and Ra’s loose grooves? The trick was to get that sense
of rhythm to translate across the spectrum from Ra to Bajas, in a way that
worked for them both.
 Their rearrangements of the tunes went good - up and down the EQ band, they
were finding the round sounds and jagged edges that brought Ra’s music into
their own thing. Then at the last minute, there was another twist - why not pay
tribute to the Queen herself, and think of the arrangements with a Wendy Carlos
vibe? A little side homage? After all, ‘Switched on Bach’ was visionary, bringing
analogue synths from the outside all the way into the mainstream in the late 60s -
and this take on Ra is meant to take him to new ears everywhere.
 Sun Ra of course was his own kind of original keyboard visionary, using electric
keyboards in the late 40s and 50s to fill a role in jazz that had traditionally been
played on acoustic piano only. Once he’d done so, he took his writing in
directions inspired by the electricity, places no one had thought to go before
then.
 Bitchin Bajas have been content to dominate in a microtonal world, usually
without a single chord to be found anywhere. But here, they step up righteously,
their vibe triangulated as they bring Ra’s music forward with some Wendy C
style, making an unexpected space for all to thrive. There’s a real feeling of joy
as these collected signals bounce off the tape and through the speakers into
your space.
 To get this unique colloid exactly right, Bitchin Bajas used nineteen different
keyboards. They abstained from deploying their arsenal of reed and woodwind
instruments: everything had to be on the keys. This meant Yamahas, Rolands,
Korgs, Casios, a MicroMoog and of course their trusty Ace Tone organ. They
even broke out the Crumar DS-2, to have some of Ra’s chosen tone in the mix.
Then Jayve Montgomery added an EWI as a solo voice on a few tunes, just to
get some air-blown signal (and a natural shout out to EWI master Marshall Allen)
in there, after all. It felt like somewhere in the universe, Ra was decreeing it.

Casi is a singer of Welsh and Irish inheritance whose remarkable voice moves effortlessly from the melancholic to the uplifting. First radio play on Radio 1 on 17th February! Limited 10" (250) with Tarot Card. “an otherworldly talent” – Clash, “rousing arena pop” – Dazed, “turning daydreams into gold” – Noisey

'Resort for Dead Desires' is the third LP from Casual Nun, a noise rock band made up of a mixed up bunch of Londoners who originally hail from Greece and in one case California via Dartford, Kent. Strange beginnings we know. They're fond of psychedelic speedfreakery, mixing weird and abstract in a blender with a heady dose of amphetamine.

'Resort For Dead Desires' dips into the memory banks reflecting on events and times and spaces and all that stuff that bands love to write about. Oh, and Rabbits, there's a song about a kid that thinks immortal rabbits live inside your head, so that's a first we think? Either way, it's nine tracks of joy wrapped in one convenient package, regardless of what's immortal inside your head.

PRESS/ONLINE:
"On Resort For Dead Desires, Casual Nun are not afraid to experiment and set fire to the box – tracks like the chanting see-saw wander of Pink Celestial Heron to the squealing, balls-out raging soundstorm of sludge-rock closer Amulet all showcase just how exciting, experimental and deadly the noise rock template can become if you delve deeper" - Echoes And Dust

“Whoooooaaarggggh! From the same scene as Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs and Luminous Bodies, Casual Nun come at you with the relentless forward motion of the best Can songs; Sabbath meets Hawkwind meets High Rise guitars; and Gibby Haynes (but much less annoying) style vox. Heavy psych doesn’t get much better.” – The Sleeping Shaman

Cindytalk is the mercurial, expressionist outlet of Scottish artist Cinder. An evolution of her early 1980's Edinburgh-based punk band The Freeze, she launched the project upon moving to London, inspired by the crossroads of exploratory UK post-punk and early European industrial. Her work thrives on chance and transformation, collaging elements of noise, balladry, soundtrack, catharsis, and improvisation. After a series of celebrated albums for the Midnight Music label as well as collaborations with This Mortal Coil and Cocteau Twins, Cinder migrated to the United States, becoming involved with various underground techno collectives around the Midwest and West Coast. Subsequent relocations to Hong Kong and Japan further expanded Cindytalk's horizons, resulting in a fruitful partnership with Viennese experimental institution Editions Mego, for whom she released five albums of swooning, granular atmosphere. 2021 finds her as engaged as ever, at the precipice of long-awaited back catalog reissues alongside multiple new works, guided by her lasting love of discovery and deviation: “new pathways always being uncovered.”

Across decades of activity Cinder’s body of work has forever followed its own elusive muse but nowhere is this restless spirit more apparent and ambitious than the 4th Cindytalk LP, Wappinschaw. Conceived as “a call to arms” inspired by Scotland and its struggle for independence, the title refers to an archaic Scottish battle inspection during which clan chieftains surveyed their group's weapons to ensure they were combat ready. A mindset of reflective preparation threads throughout the record, manifested in forms both naked and noisy, ancient and anguished.

Opening with an aching solo vocal rendition of the British folk standard “The First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face),” the album then surges into the Cindytalk classic, “A Song Of Changes,” sparkling and spiraling in strange waves of sorrow and joy. From there the mood fragments, tracing asymmetrical paths of feverish dirge, pensive spirituals, noir abstraction, spoken word (landmark Glaswegian writer Alasdair Gray guests on “Wheesht”), bagpipe drone, and apocalyptic post-punk. Given its aggressive eclecticism, it's not surprising that Cinder describes the creation of Wappinschaw as a “precarious” process, composed from “scraps” with abruptly shifting personnel – a situation only compounded by the impending dissolution of their label at the time, Midnight Music.

New record from Darksmith years away from the previous ... well, it is not easy to talk about the records of Tom, even if this difficulty, on the borders with the impossibility, validates the complete success of his work. We are not dealing with an abstract thing, reality is omnipresent in these furrows ... yet it manages to escape any attempt at semantic classification and makes even impossible the definition of an emotional tonality; rather the listening leads back to places of the familiar insignificance in which life is immersed. The two sides are both tripartite, perhaps less messed up than usual, with the usual limping of difficultly identifiable sounds, phantom appearances of music, deteriorated, elsewhere. (Francesco Tignola)

Dean Blunt’s new album, ‘BLACK METAL 2’, is
released by Rough Trade Records.
Available on CD and heavyweight LP.