Beats Special Offers

Superabundance is back with Extrasolar, the new 2x12” hot wax album on Future Times. The duo of Jackson Ryland (Peach Discs, Fixed Rhythms, Rush Plus) and FT honcho Max D follow up 2021’s self-titled debut LP with a hyperfunk techno gallop, hurtling further out from where they began. Extrasolar’s tracks all burst into existence, produced in a quick, sometimes entirely improvised nature.

Cuts like “Sizable Jackfruit”, “20 Spectrum” and “Tempopalace” show off brash bursts of swinging loopy DJ creation, while “Reset” oscillates between cliff-hanging and solid ground time changes and “Crossfade Diving” slides thru wet streets with a paranoid step.

On tracks like “Perplexion”, “Dex Holo”, and closer “Goth Hi Tek”, the duo paints new shades of their sound, getting into a twist on synthpop, soundworlds and Cure progressions.“Perplexion” enters smudged shoegazing territory, smearing percussion in the mix with soaring chords.

“Particle Busters” repurposes industrial junk into soundsystem punk machinery. “We XL”, a rave slammer featuring one of DC’s best, Nativesun (Black Rave Culture) is for booming warehouses only. “Big Deal” breaks out the sliced funk and melted data. TIP!

The flesh withers to the pulses of thunderous cave reverberations, while the spirit is united with the psalms of the Glorious Dead, the Ancient Entities that have conquered Death and become Life, dominant, absolute and victorious. This Work consists of a ritual deriving from the darkest corners of the Mind, the deathlike spheres of the Netherworld and the truest essence of the Afterlife, to become a homage to the Force of Life Eternal.

Guided by Her Luminous rays, it is dictated to be experienced solely in chamber-like conditions, below the waxing Moon, accompanied with Myrrh and lunarian incenses and agharbattis, to be properly roamed within its uncharted corridors. Listen, experience and conquer, setting aside the mundane aspects of realities, explore the unmapped pathways, with every preconception burnt to the altars of this Magnum Opus.

SHIBALBA's music is saturated with the mysticism of the East. It's richly detailed and multidimensional, while layered with chanting and broadly defined elements of traditional ritual and shamanic music. Apart from contemporary synths and guitar drones, the band makes use of bones and skulls as percussion instruments, Tibetan Horns, Tibetan Singing Bowls, bone & horne trumpets, Darbuka's (goblet drums) as well as ceremonial bells and gongs, to name a few. The Spirits behind the Shamanic Halls of Shibalba are V.P. Adept & Aldra-Al-Melekh.
CD edition of 300 copies in 6 panel Digisleeve, Matt Lamination. 7 Tracks. Running Time: 43:04
Vinyl LP edition of 300 copies in 3mm sleeve with printed innesleeve, Matt Lamination. 7 Tracks. Running Time: 43:04

Before New Angels is the debut album by Swills & Phil Mills, a Dutch mixed electronic duo in which vibrant talent and solid experience swirl together in a hazy cloud. Ten cinematic ambient tracks that combine the imaginative power of Biosphere and the hallucinatory club DNA of Huerco S and GAS.? Take for instance a track like Common Parlance. It's a centerpiece and forms the beating heart of Before New Angels. With its elongated, shuffling chords and deadpan kicks it seems to come from an early Wolfgang Voigt recording.?? Utrecht-based Sabine Willems is the newcomer of the two. Her work is experimental and does not conform to any genre. She likes to challenge herself by keeping her instrumentation to a bare minimum. Phone recorded samples of the world around her sometimes serve as a building block. But where her earlier tracks still contain rhythm, Before New Angels is virtually beatless.? Phil Mills is the experienced side of the duo. He's from the North of The Netherlands. Anyone who dives into his musical past will come across dance productions that date as far? back as the early nineties. Mills' experience pays out on Before New Angels, where its layered melodies and slow evolving arrangements never smother the minimalist compositions.?Is this one of the better ambient albums of 2023? We tend to think so.?You better lie down and feel for yourself.?

Excursions down footwork, acid, breaks and grooves are what Jeez Marquis brings to Cape St. Francis for their third release.

The common denominator between these tracks? F-U-N.

Step into a cosmic journey with "Cocaine Kisses," an ethereal album that effortlessly blends spacey synthesizers, moody melodies, and loungey beats. This captivating musical expedition reflects the tumultuous emotions of love and trust issues, resonating with listeners on a profound level. Crafted during a period of personal transformation and isolation brought about by losing management and enduring the trials of quarantine for COVID-19, each track becomes a portal to both introspection and connection. From hauntingly beautiful melodies that mirror the depths of heartache to uplifting rhythms that evoke moments of hope, this album encapsulates the paradoxical nature of human relationships. As the celestial harmonies intertwine, listeners are reminded of the resilience of the human spirit and the power of forging meaningful bonds amidst adversity. Through "Cocaine Kisses," prepare to embark on an otherworldly sonic odyssey that transcends the boundaries of time, welcoming you to a universe where love, loss, and self-discovery collide in a symphony of emotions.

Quoth is proud to present its second EP of spectral dance music, following Coralie’s 'Barney’s Maze'.

Coming from the third mind of Pearl River Sound and The Horn, two artists with illustrious solo back catalogues, the 'Top Shelf Material EP' is a kaleidoscopic trip into the timeless psychedelia of UK rave music. Highly referential, but never pastiche, the sound world draws from IDM, mutant hardcore stylings, grime, 80s fantasy, and pulp cinema.

‘What the fuck?’ moments of full throttle breakbeat pressure are counter-poised with the liminal robot romanticism of heart-rendingly detuned electronica. Eschewing refinement and polish for raw sensibility, the 'Top Shelf Material EP' is emotive and propulsive, playful and tragic, wistful and optimistic. We couldn't recommend it more.

Percolated electronic treatments bubbling around pure guitar drift.

In striking daubs of bled-out colour and finely sculpted layers of instrumentation, Lord of the Magi arrives on Tartelet Archives with an album of ambient reflections.

Copenhagen-based Theo Nicola Anker has different sides to his musical output. But on Soul Exchange, he shakes off stylistic concerns to focus on a purer emotional expression. It’s an instinctive paean to the pastoral life he grew up with, sent with love from his city-centre apartment. His chosen tools – guitars, pedals, synths – are the medium of the message. “I appreciate music with personality, character, and charisma,” Anker says, “so I always strive to create tracks that tell a story and evoke a specific atmosphere. No single idea for a track is solely melodic, rhythmic, compositional, or focused on mix techniques. It's always about the bigger picture, the overall vibe.”

On Soul Exchange, the overarching mood is an inviting, becalming one, but there’s plenty of space for melancholy and even a little friction. That’s apparent in the natural synergy of the organic and electronic elements as much as the emotional content, rounding out as a wholesome, holistic listening experience.

2023 VINYL REPRESS

Received an 8.3 Best New Music from Pitchfork.

What could be better than a reissue of GROUPER’s Dragging a Dead Deer Up a Hill? How about an entire album of unreleased material recorded at the same time that is equal in quality?.

Sept duos pour guitar acoustique et piano préparé is the second duo recording from Stephen O'Malley and Anthony Pateras. Their first together, Rêve Noir (2018), took an electro-acoustic scalpel to a 2011 duo concert for electric guitar and piano, using Revox and digital treatments to twist and smear gig documentation into ghostly echoes and fractured drones. Here, in contrast, the music is entirely acoustic and presented as it was performed, without overdubs. Both players’ choices of instruments are notable: this is O'Malley’s most extensive recording on steel string acoustic guitar (playing an instrument whose previous owners include Marissa Nadler and Glenn Jones) and Pateras return to the prepared piano, which he has rarely employed in recent years, after spending much of the first decade of the 21st century exploring its possibilities.

Recorded during O'Malley’s residency at La Becque on Lake Geneva in the summer of 2021, from the first moments of the opening ‘déjà revé’ the music immediately establishes the distinctive landscape of chiming tones and hovering clouds of resonance explored throughout its one-hour running time. Pateras’ preparations create tolling bell-like tones alive with complex overtones, alongside which O'Malley’s open strings and natural harmonics add a sparkling clarity. While Pateras’ music often uses a densely chromatic harmonic language, these duos are remarkable for their modal simplicity. However, the interaction between the pure intervals of O'Malley’s just-intoned strings and the unstable harmonies created by the piano preparations suspends the music in an oneiric state of hazy ambiguity. Without obvious reference to tempo or meter, the music floats in what the composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler has called a ‘bottomless sound space’, the temporal placement of events determined by bodily rhythms and the performers’ own listening to (and enjoyment of) the sounds being made.

Heard one way, this music can seem striking in its consistency, almost environmental. Attending more carefully, the listener hears the pitch sets and tunings changing throughout the album’s length. Each piece has its own character, subtly distinguished from the others through mood, pacing, and timbre. On ‘déjà voulu’, for instance, O'Malley makes prominent use of slide, the woozy, bending pitches weaving through a series of lush arpeggiated chords from the piano. ‘Déjà senti’, on the other hand, is particularly spare, the gestures spaced out to the extent that they often float in isolation against the background of fading resonance. Much of ‘déjà su’ is built around a slowly pulsing single prepared piano tone, creating an almost ominous tension, whereas the sparkling guitar harmonics and arpeggios of the closing ‘déjà raconté’ have a gently triumphal air. While the music’s calm, rippling surface is immediately entrancing, these seven duos – in the tradition of the best improvised music – also reward close listening, which reveals sonic details and focuses the listener’s attention on how the music unfolds spontaneously from decision to decision, from gesture to gesture.

Recorded during a period when O'Malley and Pateras were grieving the loss of recently departed friends and collaborators, these seven duos possess a reflective, at times almost mournful quality. More importantly, though, they are imbued with other qualities that can arise from personal loss: a clarity that allows one to clear away the inessential, to begin again, to renew one’s faith in friendship and music.

The second vinyl release by young, interdisciplinary Dresden label fragmented: is called fragmented:borders (FRAG:002) and features three original productions by fragmented: resident RANDOM DATA accompanied by a remix from WARNING resident Mars Leder. It is composed of experimental breakbeats defined by dubby bass and eclectic drum patterns infused with oriental rhythmic elements, creating a sonically unique atmosphere. The remix by Mars Leder is a dreamy and playful house re-interpretation of the original, which skillfully opens up new perspectives on its various elements by embedding them in a refreshingly uplifting soundscape.

The cover artwork by Lydia Henkel deals with the haptics of memory. Traces of working in the ransacked material are emblematic of gestures of individuals who have to fight their way through water, authorities, everyday life, in order to find a foothold and to be allowed to arrive. The often invisible struggles of those who must fight for perception and treatment as individuals and not as the cause of problems are reflected in the vase and remembered silently and angrily.

A central part of this release is the cooperation with political association “Mission Lifeline'' which mainly focuses on sea rescue missions in the Mediterranean. By drawing attention to their work on the vinyl cover and inner sleeve print, fragmented: aims to provide a platform for this vital cause. To further support their efforts, 50% of the proceeds from this release will be donated to Mission Lifeline.

'After a first album as a duo released on Okraina Records: "Le Corps Défendant", Delphine Dora and Mocke invite us to join them again in listening to a new album. We slip into it as if in a dream, the music carries us away with its floating images.

Heard before on a handful of disturbingly beautiful solo albums and in collaborations such as Midget!, Arlt, Chevalrex, Mohamed Lamouri, Mocke (Dominique Dépret's nom de plume) is a subtle and inventive guitarist, who draws melancholic arpeggios, with a beautiful languor, that walk the line between tensions and tears. Delphine Dora has been heard with Roxane Métayer, Sophie Cooper, Andrew Chalk, Jackie McDowell, Helena Espvall, Valentina Magaletti ... meeting in a moment of improvisation, a solitary sincopated voice blooming between the black and white keys of her piano, tuning betwist these keys, or at other times in the gap of the right note. Here improvisation feeds on melody, or is it the other way round?

Recorded in an old church in the village of Mauzun in the Puy-de-Dôme, by Cyril Harrison, "L'invisible est multiforme" is an invitation to join them, to let these abstract songs erase our obsessive thoughts of the day, to open ourselves to the vibrant poetry of the air and the evening, to finally forget ourselves. Each note played by these four intertwined hands is like a slight break in the fabric of time, sliding one over the other, reminding us of mortality and its beauty. Ritornellas flow out of mechanical clocks, fragile, taking care not to hurt the silence. Both seek to dig and open up new paths to enrich their duet, to open up imaginary landscapes. Sometimes the guitar cuts through the fabric of an organ, fractures the song, just as the rain erases a landscape, redrawing it. But very quickly, both of them continue to follow this new path, improvising what will serve as a framework, a perspective, a language. There is a kind of praise for slowness in this "invisible", a desire to hold back the song, not to let it slip away, to let the listener's ear enter its course, to share the last note, its illumination. Each of these thirteen short sound pieces merge into a common colour, a vibration close to the different tonalities, which inter-penetrate, like a cubist painting. Words cannot take away the mystery of this record, words can only fail to describe the music, you must hear it.'
- Michel Henritzi

'A forward thinking collaboration between electronic music pioneer Jon Appleton and trumpet great Don Cherry, that explores the relationship between the humanity and the manufactured robotic future.

Using the techniques associated with Musique Concrete the ensuing improvisations create a unique entry into the great trumpeter's discography. It was an in vogue attempt to render the music of tomorrow, and today sounds more like the soundtrack to a truly great sci-fi movie

Reissued in a fascimile of the original gatefold sleeve, and remastered from new 24/96 transfers, this is part of Ace's HiQ LP series.'

Der multidisziplinäre Künstler Jasper Marsalis, bekannt unter seinem Künstlernamen Slauson Malone 1, kündigt sein neues Album EXCELSIOR als Debüt für das Kultlabel Warp Records an. Unter den Juwelen dieses Albums befinden sich die Singles NEW JOY, eine faszinierende Erkundung des Vergnügens, das aus der Unterwerfung entsteht, und VOYAGER, die von der Zeit der Liebe und Freude nach Veröffentlichung seines von der Kritik gefeierten 2019er Albums 'A Quiet Farwell, 2016-2018 (Crater Speak)' erzählt, bevor er nach LA zog.

Das Wort EXCELSIOR verkörpert den ewigen Aufstieg. Slauson Malone 1 stellt es sich als metaphorisches Schwert vor, das im Besitz von jemandem unaufhörlich wächst, bis es in einem großen Finale die Erde spaltet. Diese Metapher wird zu seinem Objektiv, um alle Facetten der Männlichkeit mit einer neuen Klarheit zu erforschen, während er seine eigenen gelebten Erfahrungen anhand von Songs und Bewegungen auf dem gesamten Album hinterfragt, die von allem inspiriert sind, von der Grammy-preisgekrönten Komponistin Wendy Carlos bis hin zu den Ähnlichkeiten zwischen dem Ende der Liebe und der nuklearen Halbwertszeit. EXCELSIOR hat die Form einer Sammlung persönlicher Essays mit Vignetten, die ineinandergreifen und eigenständig sind, aber letztendlich dem Zweck dienen, Slauson Malone 1s bislang persönlichstes und fesselndstes Musikwerk zu bilden.

E.P. of low slung and tripped out Cologne style mind melters. Grischerr achieves a live and open sound in these grimy productions which adds to the immersive atmosphere conjured up across all tracks. It's inspiring stuff!
Lucas Croon doses up the psychedelic measures with a flipped version of 'The Man That Never Smiled' topping off the E.P. just nice.. RH TIP!

The fourth release on Damo B’s Emotec label, following on from MOY, BufoBufo and Auto Sound City. This one is deeper than Atlantis!

The Cliffdive EP begins the journey of Astral X-Ray, the collaboration between Rain & White Transit Van. Inspired by a cosmic journey, the EP encompasses many facets of the duo’s influences.

Spanning from melancholic breakbeat to melodic fizzling electro, Cliffdive is a versatile EP that moves and evokes emotion in its listener in equal part.

Polish septet EABS apply an innovatve approach to jazz, distlling it
through the prism of hip-hop, blending it with elements of soul, funk and electronic music. ‘Slavic Spirits’ was 2 years in the making and contains 100% original material. They are joined by 22a head-honcho Tenderlonious who lends his exceptonal soprano saxophone and flute playing to all seven tracks.
Afer their very well-received 2017 debut album ‘Repettons (Leters to Krzysztof Komeda)’, focusing on the lesser-known works of the legendary Polish composer, the Wroclaw-based EABS decided to further expand this lead and released two more vinyl records, ‘Live At Jazz Club Hipnoza (Katowice)’ and ‘Kraksa / Svantetc’, the later recorded directly on tape and released via 22a, which crowned the “Kom eda triptych”. The astounding recepton of these releases built up loyal following outside of their natve Poland and whet listeners’ appette for completely new recordings.
For this LP the musicians turned to Slavic mythology and Polish demonology, while pondering upon the contemporary spiritual conditon of Poles. The enigmatc “Slavic melancholy” remains the main inspiraton, as the band tried to extract it from their own DNA. ‘Slavic Spirits’ is an endeavour to get in touch with the world of a long and brutally lost culture which, due to lack of sources, will never be thoroughly explored.
Personnel: Marek Pedziwiatr (piano, synths & vocal), Vojto Monteur (guitar), Pawel Stachowiak (bass), Jakub Kurek (trumpet), Olaf Wegier (tenor saxophone), Marcin Rak (drums), Spisek Jednego (samples, sound fx & percussion), special guest: Tenderlonious (soprano saxophone & flute)

Die unnachahmliche Róisín Murphy veröffentlicht ihr mit Spannung erwartetes neues Album, 'Hit Parade' das sie in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Virtuosen der elektronischen Musik DJ Koze produziert hat. Das 13 Tracks umfassende Kompendium aus genreübergreifenden Perlen wird am 8. September 2023 auf Ninja Tune veröffentlicht.

Die warmen Klänge des HipHop, die psychedelischen Elemente und die eleganten, gefühlvollen Grooves sind allesamt Teil der Vision von Murphy und Koze, was zu einem Album führt, das man endlos wiederholen kann, während die Melodien darauf sich im Gehirn festsetzen. Die 13 Tracks, die zu dem mühelosen Glanz des Albums beitragen, wurden in sechsjähriger Arbeit fast vollständig aus der Ferne zusammengebastelt. Fans beider Künstler:innen werden wissen, dass diese inspirierte Zusammenarbeit aus Murphys Beiträgen zu Kozes 'Knock Knock' aus dem Jahr 2018 entstanden ist - insbesondere 'Illumination' und 'Scratch That' - und als Murphy mit Koze an 'Hit Parade' arbeitete, fand sie den gemeinsamen kreativen Prozess auf seine eigene Art und Weise aufschlussreich.
Seit sie in der irischen Stadt Arklow aufwuchs, schien die Musik Murphy fast sofort zu rufen, von dem Moment an, als sie im Alter von 10 Jahren die Kraft ihrer eigenen Stimme entdeckte, indem sie den ewigen Showtune-Klassiker 'Don't Cry For Me, Argentina' bei einem lokalen Poesie-Festival vortrug. Murphy stürzte sich kopfüber in die Musikszene, nachdem ihre Familie nach Manchester umgezogen war, als sie noch ein Teenager war. Nach einem kurzen Flirt mit Noise und Punk in Manchesters Umgebung trampte sie mit 19 Jahren nach Sheffield, um in die Clubszene einzutauchen. Ein zufälliges Zusammentreffen mit dem örtlichen Bassisten Mark Brydon führte die beiden zur Gründung der gefeierten Gruppe Moloko. Seitdem hat Murphy eine beeindruckende Solokarriere hingelegt, die sich über fünf hochgelobte Alben (mit einer Nominierung für den Mercury Music Prize für 'Hairless Toys' in 2015), gefeierte EP- und Single-Kollaborationen und in jüngster Zeit auch über Auszeichnungen für Videoregie und Schauspielerei erstreckt.

Composed, produced and arranged by Evangelia VS, the artist behind Abyss X, Freedom Doll is the culmination of a year of emotional unloading through songwriting, offering an introspective journey into the ocean of her mind. Produced and recorded between an artist residency near the Mayan jungle in Mexico and her Berlin home, the album chronicles transformations the performer tackled mentally during the writing process, tracing the rollercoaster of falling in love during the pandemic, as well as the pleasures and tribulations of womanhood.

Freedom Doll encapsulates the romantic escapade between her voice and the guitar. The amalgamation of seduction, sexual tension, vulnerability and assertiveness pulses throughout the entirety of the album, spiralling out of the cracks spawned from her vocal chords. From the twirling dance between her lush harmonies and the progressions of the acoustic guitar in tracks such as Ascend and From Hot to Cold, to the explosive confrontation between the metallic and operatic qualities of her voice, the searing sound of the electric guitar in industrial rock / psychedelic anthems such as Torture Grove and Banyana and the cathartic momentum found in the gospel inclined chants in A CHEW - Freedom Doll untethers the dramatics and theatricality that defines Abyss X’s vocal performance and music production, while maintaining the sensual vibrations of her creative essence.

Freedom Doll is the encapsulation of the Minoan woman, the elusive harlequin tiptoeing her way through the “circus of terror” that is living and loving her way through womanhood. With this visual reference, Abyss X pays tribute to her ancestors and their groundbreaking ancient artistry. The back cover of the vinyl features a reiteration of depictions of bulls leaping found in Minoan frescoes; an inherently male cultural act that in the ancient Minoan times presumably gave expression to a tension that underlies man's somewhat tenuous mastery of nature. Freedom Doll’s artwork challenges this preconceived notion through an eco-feminist approach, bringing the Minoan woman slash Gaia in the seat of the bull leaper, taming the unhinged and predominantly male earth - threatening human force.

Repress!

Sound artist and researcher Amit Dinesh Patel aka Dushume began working in the field of music technology in 2000. In 2021, he began a research project addressing the distinctive lack of visibility for Black and Brown artists within the field of experimental music and sound: "Exploring Cultural Diversity in Experimental Sound", hosted at the Sound/Image Research Centre, University of Greenwich.

Disruptive Frequencies is one output of this research. Patel, together with five other Black and South Asian experimental and electronic artists recorded new music to release as part of this compilation:

Crossing noise, high-energy electronic music, deep bass, ambient and experimental soundscapes, this compilation is a statement challenging institutional Whiteness, racist biases, lack of visibility and access to experimental practices. Each contribution pushes the boundaries of sound manipulation, turntablism, field recording, audio fragmentations and sound collage techniques.

Edition of 50 lathe cuts, hand stamped, housed in custom inside-out numbered matt sleeves with yung Florian picture.

After an introspective period of small-run releases & self-released output, Florian Kupfer realizes a full-circle culmination of the kinetic, roughly refined yet stylistically diverse sensibilities he showcased on his seminal debut for L.I.E.S. and returns to the fold for a volley of raw, elusive DIY house on his new 12” single ‘About U’.
Landing on Hugo Capablanca’s Discos Capablanca label, Kupfer reasserts where he’s been, and conveys where he’s at, forging aqueous, hazy manoeuvres of crisp breaks, fragmentary R&B-inflected vocals, and heavily filtered FX on ‘About U’. Here, locked, cyclical scuffles of broad low-end and fizzing percussion emerge and disperse, reflecting the exhilaration and enervation of an adventurous late-night session, if soundtracked by Rezzett, Theo Parrish and some narcotized edit of Drake. An impactful reset from a truly original operator, ‘About U’ signals an emphatic new chapter in Kupfer’s trajectory.
Ridiculously limited edition.

CHRIS CARTER & COSEY FANNI TUTTI’s remastered limited edition vinyl series continues on 4 August 2023 with the release of Technø Primitiv (1985), Trust (1989) and Pagan Tango (1991) – all available on vinyl for the first time since their original release. The remastered albums will be available on coloured vinyl, each with a printed inner sleeve of archival photos, via CTI. Elemental 7, Muzik Fantastique!, and Feral Vapours of The Silver Ether were released earlier this year, and the series has seen many of Chris & Cosey’s influential albums available on vinyl for the first time, giving listeners a new opportunity to revisit some of their celebrated catalogue.

The remastered releases for August includes 1985’s Technø Primitiv, originally released on Rough Trade, the album is from Chris & Cosey’s whiplash minimal ‘80s icy synth period.

REPRESS**

Weird Dust launches his own label Private Stress, kicking it off with 4 rabbitholes as deep as they go. Home made music, home made artwork.

microCastle’s third offering of 2023 welcomes Ditian back to the label for his first artist EP. Splitting time between Buenos Aires, Berlin and Barcelona, the Argentinean artist has carved out a unique place in the electronic underground over the last half decade. With an immediately recognizable sonic signature, Ditian channels languages of varied musical landscapes, churning them into his own complex rollercoaster of intricate electronica. A sound that is equally at home on rebellious dance floors around the world or in the sweet spot of a late-night leftfield listening session. A short but meticulous discography reflects Ditian's choosy nature; with Exit Strategy, Innervisions and TAU serving as the primary landing spots for his musical output. Having remixed Ivory’s ‘Arpstairs’ for his microCastle debut last summer, a project which was followed by a contribution to Dixon and Ame’s Secret Weapons 15 collection to begin the year, Ditian now returns to the label with a four-track showcase entitled ‘Serpenta’.

The crushing title track crashes in and sets any preconceived ideas of Ditian’s music alight, forecasting jet force propulsions and wild signal bending synths. As somewhat of a departure from his previous experiments, Ditian’s clustered pungi mutations provide an enduring main theme, while a wonderfully warped break is sure to cast a paranoid spell over the dancefloor.

‘Venena’ follows in fine style and further hammers down Ditian’s elusive vision. Dizzying, rapid-fire sequences of rhythm, granular textures and heavily manipulated synths travel to the very edges, while maelstroms of drums and contorted basslines highlight a high-octane second act.

‘Inertia’ lands at the collection’s midway point and does so in remarkably twisted fashion, stepping decisively on the gas and steering into shadowy transgressions. Never one to shy away from darkness or pushing boundaries, Ditian’s metallic storyboarding rises and falls across act one, consciously withholding energy, as grooves pulse and effects orbit, creating tension that eventually gets resolved as clusters burst open and oscillate in kaleidoscopic fashion.

Ditian’s creative attitude reveals itself further on collection closer ‘Influenza’. Presenting some of his most club-adjacent rhythms yet, it’s a clever coax of billowing tones and scrappy melodica which get wrapped up in a concordant fog, eventually getting washed away; because after all, the oceanic drones are all the better when they’re magnified to full size.

Cover art: Mauricio Seidel

“This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine. It goes backwards, and forwards… it takes us to a place where we ache to go again. It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel. It lets us travel the way a child travels - around and around, and back home again, to a place where we know we are loved.”
(Don Draper)

Call Back Carousel is an audio time-travelogue, a slideshow of the mind’s eye - projecting Kodachrome memories directly into the listener’s mind by means of sound alone. It is a way of travelling without ever having to leave the home. A vicarious vacation for the imagination. Pure audio escapism.
Each episode is based on a found tape of a pre-recorded slideshow commentary. Most of these tapes were made by amateur tape recording enthusiasts and hobbyist photographers of the 60s and 70s. Their recorded commentaries would at one time have been used in conjunction with a sequence of 35mm slides but only the taped voices now remain. The recordings themselves come from Vernon's own archive of found reel-to-reel tapes that he has collected over the past twenty years.
Using these found slideshow commentaries as a framework, a series of musical soundscapes have been created to bring the absent images to life, activating the listeners’ imagination in the classic tradition of ‘cinema for the ears’. It’s a little like looking through a family photo album where only the hand written captions and mounting corners remain; the photographs themselves have all been removed. The evocative rattle and clack of the projector shuffles through different slides as the fragile voices of our tour guides accompany us on a sonic journey that fractures time - and through the cracks, the past bleeds through into our present.

Melts In Your Mind is the mercurial new LP by Healing Force Project, aka Italian producer Antonio Marini.

An amorphous, shapeshifting, intangible proposition, Melts In Your Mind represents Healing Force Project at it’s most fluid and alchemical yet, a melon-twisting amalgam of jazz, dub and acid house tropes mulched and rearranged in inimitable style. Seemingly live and erratic polyrhythms, liquid basslines and expressive roving keys combine with kitchen sink sample hits and rogue licks for a thrilling, constantly shifting, alive sound. It’s music that’s difficult to grasp on first or even fourth listen, and as such continues to reward on repeat. Rather than going somewhere, tracks just go, rarely repeating motifs but riffing on, digging into and working out.

Behavior Of Waves sets the scene discretely enough, a simple bass refrain that is eventually overcome with an urgent rhythm that stumbles over itself into a post-dub cavern. The title track resembles a scramble of disparate earthly sounds - lurking synthesizer, restless popping drums, West African balafon and a muted vocal sample - sucked into the same swirling black hole and dropped into another dimension, completely cohesive. Equator acts as loose-limbed palette cleanser, an unmoored drift gently driven forward by an insistent snare roll and improv piano stabs. Inharmonious Layer stands out on the record for being less reliant on samples and by it’s relatively predictable unfolding, a queasy acid lope from the darkest corner of a deviant dancefloor, while on Diaphonization Marini flexes his aptitude with drum sampling, a bouncing excursion in sampled loops interrupted by unironic jazz cliches, the product of an omnivorous lover of the genre’s high and low. Melts In Your Mind closes on the droning tambura, ethereal pads and scattered rhythm of Two Waves In The Dark, a suitably metaphysical and ultimately peaceful resting place for a record that challenges perceptions from the outset.

Marini has released records as Healing Force Project on Firecracker, Berceuse Heroique, Bedouin and most recently Beat Machine Records. He’s based in Treviso, Italy.

Melts In Your Mind was written, produced and mixed by Antonio Marini. It was mastered by Chris Wang. Art and design by Ginji Kimura.

Special vinyl-edition of the legendary cassette, privately produced and
released by Maurizio Bianchi in November 1980.

he undisputed father of nuclearsurgic sound-degeneration and apocalyptic avantgarde produced one of his most radical and uncompromising works entitled COMPUTERS S.P.A., consisting of dense electronic segments, furious pulsations and harsh waveforms, formed by the KORG MS 20-synthesizer plus machinistic recordings from tape.
Maurizio Bianchi describes his early works as TECHNOISE SOUND coming from; strictly personal feeling, frustration and contradiction.

COMPUTERS S.P.A. is completely idiosyncratic piece of music, conceived with dramatic insistence, emotion; irrationality, hysterical scission, schizophrenic energy and madness.
The two improvisations inspired by computerized music can be defined as FINAL INDUSTRIAL MUSIC (term used by M.B.), the last sensation before the end.


After the "concretistic" beginnings and the synthesis between integral
concretism and artificial synthetism, in the autumn After the "concretistic" beginnings and the synthesis between integral concretism and artificial synthetism, in the autumn of 1980 I arrived at the synthetic court of the purest and most uncompromising electronics and thus the "COMPUTERS S. P. A." project was born, consisting of two improvisations on the Korg MS synthesizer-20, free of ancestral prejudice and freely inspired by computerized music that in the second half of the 70s was gaining ground in the academic schools of experimentation. After more than 40 years, these "technical rehearsals" could seem a playful and carefree exercise, while inste@d they cover a dramatic denunciation of the sounds generated without the basic help of emotion and spontaneity, essential elements of the most genuine and constructive avantgarde music.

Special mention about collage art design method in collaboration with Maurizio Bianchi, Siegmar Fricke and myself. A combination with traditional tecnique of collage, 'xeroxed copy' scan and digital treatment in 'Off-set' quality print. Taken original ideas from early 80's 'mailing trade' music on cassette format.

The third album from crooner Pink Shabab, for fans of Avalon era Roxy Music, Bullion, Gary Lucas and other odd pop troubadors.

We couldn't be happier to announce the first Mapache Records compilation after all these years. ONE MILE FROM HEAVEN is a dreamy travel through the 70's and beyond private singer songwriters scene.

There have always been privately-pressed records. Such a "private" LP is an album that has been composed, performed, recorded and edited usually very-DIY style by the very artist or by an amateur label. A private press record is, above all, an act of the artistic urge. It's an act that takes place outiside of the industry out of need, out of a lack of knowledge, out of love, out of a drive, out of ambition... you can choose among the many reasons.

Depending on their genre, origins, time, and above all, quality, some of these efforts have become valuable pieces for the music collector. Having been created behind the "canonical history of music" written by the industry, every now and then an archaeologist will bring to the surface an artifact they have found in some basement or flea market, or that was kept covered in dust in the shell of some old recording studio soon to be torn down.

All these records have their own story, and some are still especially relevant, and others are but small footnotes in the encyclopedia of music that made their way into the margins of the mainstream world. These are the most limited of editions (and mostly locally made ones) of largely unsociable and mostly unobtainable records--and when found, they are often exorbitantly priced. Many of these marginalized and onscure artists have stayed alive only through the wonderful work of tireless song rescuers, music lovers, vocational archivists, collectors, and record labels with an idealistic drive. These romantics have been rescuing and indexing a form of music that very few have showed interest in until recent years. This record is a tribute to all of those who managed to make these songs not be lost to time. Above all, this release is a tribute to all those artists who recorded their songs on their own, mostly because they couldn't keep the music inside themselves.

Montreal duo Bas Relief present a collection of rough-cut IDM and pitch-corrected emo on Insulary, a five-song EP out June 2023 on Brooklyn imprint Quiet Time. Written and compiled long distance from threads of bass music-inspired alt pop and guitar recorded in isolation, Insulary is the duo’s first substantial release since 2018. Granulated microglitches fill out the digital drum arrangements, calling on influences Baths and Loraine James, overlaid with warm piano progressions, melancholic guitar loops, and collaged vocal production.

These self-reckoning, forlorn vocals form a patchwork narrative, hazed like a shapeshifted memory, long reconfigured with each conjuring, coherence inconsistent but still there. Recurring dreams find home among recursive passages, self-referencing lyrically and with samples churned through plugins, recorded on loop until you fall upon the most satisfying aha! moment and lock it to the grid. At certain moments all the pieces combine to reminisce in sentimental shards of Porter Robinson or The Postal Service, while never straying from Bas Relief’s own vernacular.

Visiting the past in person simply by walking the routes you took in a life long past, that reenactment of memory, that attempt to capture that which you can’t – it might even be a future – is a central bolt of Insulary’s lyrical content. It’s sentimental, it longs for some past which might not even have existed, and it’s hopeful too, never capitulating to traditional structures in its embrace of unusual stylistic combinations. Insulary – brim-packed with fragments of drum and bass, uptempo electronica, and emo – is but a preview of Bas Relief’s exciting near future

These recordings weren't intended for release, they aren't even demos, but rather exercises – process tracks in an attempt to mirror the influences of an aspiring artist as they oriented their emerging work. Most of the tracks were constructed in single sittings and recorded to cassette at home in Glasgow through a Philips AW-7694 boombox. That they feel finished, even iconic amid the shortlived confluence between Detroit techno and intelligent dance music, is a testament to what was materialising, but also to our collective nostalgia, revisionism, and thirst to understand how we've arrived here and why. Übungen has that youthful and pre-internet utopian aura, without being tethered to the phony maxed-out optimism ricocheting across the Atlantic in a 4G pollution. That I first came to Dave Clark's earliest work in the anxiety-ripening stage of the pandemic while I was becoming chronically sick – a time when it was all too easy to glide through dystopian nightmares and realities alike – only speaks to the work's presence and its allowance to dream, ahistoricism or splice into the affect of histories, and to dismantle the contemporary, not in an arsy or nihilistic way, but to appreciate (questioningly) the passage of time.

Sitting somewhere between an EP and a full-length, these six pieces predate Dave's other archival release – Sparky's 94Archive2/8 Rubadub, 2015, which also features cassette transfers originally recorded in stereo without overdubs. As a sound archivist myself, it was a welcome experience first listening to Dave's transfers on headphones while walking around the canals of Maryhill rather than handling the digital captures in a studio. I've been enamored with the music ever since and despite the original utilitarian intention, shifting contexts and the chance to listen afresh decades on allows for clearance (dare I say recuperation). It is, for this reason, and the sardonic re-opening of archival material perverted into something on the ground, that's not merely dog shit, that I am very pleased to finally share this collection.

Each of the titles provides the recording year and is initialed by the respective influence: Carl Craig, Aphex Twin (you'll recognise the shimmering hi-hats), Yellow Magic Orchestra, Black Dog, Polygon Window, and Drexycia.

All music was produced by Dave Clark, except "1993CC" produced by Dave Clark & Graeme Slater, and "1992PW" produced by Dave Clark & Roger Elliott.

This incredible new release follows a path along the electronic skyways first created by the German/Krautrock electronic pioneers of the 1970s such as Cluster, Ash Ra Tempel, Roedelius and Michael Rother. Hawksmoor is James McKeown.

He first created "Hawksmoor" five years ago as an imaginary hauntological soundtrack, inspired by the six Hawksmoor churches in London. Further releases have followed on Environmental Studies, the cassette-only label "Spun Out of Control", Castles in Space and The Library of The Occult.

For his debut on Soul Jazz Records, Hawksmoor has created a fascinating blend of these two sensibilities - a love of German electronic music of the 1970s alongside the British retrofuturism and cultural memory bank aesthetic of hauntology - Ghost Box, Mount Vernon Arts Lab, Advisory Circle, Focus Group etc.

Using strictly modular synths (Moog Sub37), electronic drum rhythms, and guitars, Hawksmoor creates an electronic landscaped music world that is both new and old, immediately identifiable and yet utterly unique.

Tracks are mixed together.

"In this album, Akira Umeda mixes 42 recordings, dated between 1988 and 2018, which, in a sense, reflect the incredible range of his creative work: from songs, to ambient music; from field recordings to prank calls. The cassette tapes, whose contents make up this double-LP, had been stored in Umeda’s house in São José dos Campos, in São Paulo, Brazil.

Restless, and easily bored, Akira moved seamlessly from one activity to another – he was a little bit of everything (and nothing at all). Such people usually go unnoticed and unrecognized, something which Umeda found perfectly acceptable. Nevertheless, unlike most people, he had no right to see himself in this light – in the light of ephemerality and anonymity –, for in everything he tried his hand at, he inevitably left an impressive and distinctive mark.

The term cruising refers to the practice of seeking and obtaining instant, no-strings-attached sexual gratification with strangers. Akira Umeda was well-acquainted with this term, but his practice of it was not restricted to the aforementioned context. Rather it extended into all spheres of his life and work. A historian by training, he later became a ceramicist, a photographer, a visual artist, a draftsman, a graphic designer, a DJ, a musician, an audio technician, a writer, a researcher... He made forays into a myriad of artistic and academic fields – with a single intention: to achieve a specific objective and promptly exit stage left, as it were."

"Don't DJ is back with his new album sampler to teach the imitators how it is done.

Leftfield tribalism at it's best, with a pinch of Martin Denny and Les Baxter exotica for some flavour and a little bit of Zoviet France fourth world voodoo for the 5am crew that wants to get hazy in the dance. Florian knows how to incorporate percussion sounds that at first you think that they wouldn't work but it always works and this is only a taste of what is gonna come with the release of his album (soon come).

Morgan Buckley of the mighty Wah Wah Wino crew, takes this deep and intense trip and he goes ballistic while he is playing a live Bodhran to invoke the ancient spirits of Ireland. If the essence of a remix is to keep the original vibe of the tune and add a different flavour to it then Morgan Buckley nailed it in a big way.

Two drum wizards at their best and it's an honour to have them together in one record."

Illustrations by Non Yung Hoon.
Design by NMR.

James Adrian Brown is a British-born songwriter and former lead guitarist from the alternative rock band ‘Pulled Apart By Horses’. After studying art for six years in Leeds (UK), Brown set up his own independent record label in the city and would soon begin carving out a career as a professional musician. After achieving chart success, touring the world and releasing four critically acclaimed studio albums with PABH, James has begun paving a pathway into the world of instrumental electronic music and composing.

Brown's solo work is heavily electronica-based utilising analogue synths alongside tape machines, piano, strings and walls of ambient atmospherics. His work focuses on the analogue side of capturing and creating sound in the real world with physical hardware.

He’s received support from the likes of Gideon Coe at BBC 6music and also Chris Hawkins who championed him as creating ‘Massive electronic soundscapes in a Mogwai kind of world’. James was also featured on BBC Radio 3’s ‘Unclassified’ show by the show host Elizabeth Alker.

Taking inspiration from influences such as Boards Of Canada, Rival Consoles, Floating Points & Thom Yorke. Brown is discovering, advancing, and pushing his songwriting into new sonic domains.

“There is Space Under Your Seat” is a beautifully constructed piece of electronica which is inspired by a longing to create mental space and pause emotions when things become overwhelming. The title was penned after James found himself on a sold out air-flight with disgruntled passengers complaining of little to no space for their luggage.

James recorded the tracks at *ICP Studios in Belgium after crafting the demos in his own studio in the Yorkshire Dales where the compositions were tracked to his tape machines. It was decided by (Producer) James Mottershead they’d breathe new life and space into the tracks in a new environment/studio, which saw them head to Brussels to complete the recordings.

The 7” is released as a deluxe red vinyl single with numbered photo/inserts selected and created by James. The single is issued in a limited edition of 200 copies.