Hip-Hop News

The Flying Luttenbachers’ “Shattered Dimension” is the first offering by the seminal cult band since 2007. It is released on CD and download on March 1st, 2019 via ugEXPLODE Records and on gatefold double LP in April 2019 via the Austrian God Records label. The current New York City based version of the group on this recording features stalwart leader and primary composer Weasel Walter on drums, saxophonist Matt Nelson (GRID, Elder Ones), bass guitarist Tim Dahl (Child Abuse, Lydia Lunch) and guitarist Brandon Seabrook.

The project of Trimolo was setup more or less in 1984. The group won a price at a band contest 1987 where they stepped up from a basement band to a highly asked live band in the upcoming years between 1987 and 1992.

After winning the price they earned their first studio experience and the first two songs published on an LP – the Rock Feierwerk 1987 Sampler. The year after they released their debut LP that is a master piece.

The sound of Trimolo is a melting pot of all 4 musicians that is not divisible from each other. All of them giving a unique sound that blends different styles together to one. Trimolo sometimes sounds like a jazz record but with influences that can sound like a Caribbean or an oriental or a classical record.

The original press of the debut album is nowadays high in demand and a collectors item that has been sold recently for more than 200€. Back in the days it was pressed in a tiny number and was only sold on concerts around the Bavarian capital Munich.

Europe’s leading reggaeton experimenters DJ Clara! And Maoupa Mazzocchetti. exert a tripped-out spin on modern Latin dance and vintage Galician folk styles for Low Jack’s boundary-stepping club division of Editions Gravats. Following the duo’s 2018 debut EP
and Clara!’s ‘Meiga de Acero’ single in 2019 for Les Disques De La Bretagne, ‘Luna Nueva’ binds the duo’s astrological, spiritual and romantic dancefloor cues in a significant new take on Caribbean futurism.

Designed to make you sweat - and maybe check your head -
the album pairs Clara!’s effortlessly nimble vocals with lean and spacious co-production by Maoupa Mazzocchetti in a way that faithfully and daringly plays with reggaeton convention, and, by extension, offers a critique of global electronic dance music currents.

Based in Brussels, Belgium, but originally from northern Spain, Clara! brings a strong knowledge of reggaeton, perreo and trap absorbed from beach parties and clubs back home to a wickedly offset batch of productions by Maoupa, who’s arguably earned a mean reputation in recent years for his killer mixtapes with the PRR! PRR! gang, as well as a slew of 12”s for everyone from Unknown Precept and Mannequin to Arma since 2014.

Together they throw down eight distinctive vocal cuts on disc 1, while disc 2 is loaded with their singular instrumentals. Clara! dispatches ice cool but barbed bars in diverse flows, bewitching Maoupa’s rhythms with on point style in the dramatic ‘Badman’ - a bullet for the male gaze - while layering herself in choral cadence on a spellbinding cover of Faltiquera’s Galician folk song ’Sum Sum’ over unusual tablas and drones...

But while the finer details of Clara!’s pointed but humorous lyrics may be lost on non-Spanish speakers, her co-productions with Mauopa are bound to resonate regardless of tongue, with strong, dare-to-be-different highlights in the hard and psychedelic drive of ‘Gaviléan’ and the bolshy bashment grind of ‘Virgo’, along with straight up freaky gear such as ‘Baja Y Suda’, plus their cold fusion of reggaeton and Mahraganat influences in ‘Secreto Ritual’, and warped hypermodernism in ‘Clarividencia.’ No matter what angle or
language it’s approached from, ‘Luna Nueva’ cycles fresh and luminous with a steadfast yet experimental call to the ‘floor while the world collapses around them.

Contagious is a solid blending of avant-garde experimentation and electronic music. Formed by two innovative voices from the Improvisation scene of Berlin (Andrea Neumann and Sabine Ercklentz) and Mieko Suzuki, a well-crafted and creative DJ and musician who’s operating in Berlin venues and festivals since a long time.

Contagious is one of the most forward thinking, mind-melting projects to hit the electronic music scene. Intense and powerful, yet rooted in a tradition of crafting and sculpturing of in the most creative ways, all this building up within a solid structure of instant composition and improvisation. The trio plunder each other’s musical spheres, appropriate them and switch roles. Andrea Neumann on her infamous Inside Piano, an instrument she pioneered and crafted, is applying the most creative feedback processing to simple piano strings and sending them occasionally to Mieko Suzuki’s processing rig, who also uses her own pre-recorded sounds and her skills on turntables, while Sabine Ercklentz’s trumpet sounds blast through her processing system and altogether the three musicians communicate into logics of composition and futuristic structures, where fragile sound textures and pulses become monumental.

Contagious is also the debut album recorded and produced by Rabih Beaini. The Trio wanders in new aesthetic areas, sound is a texture where the processing rigs are constantly developing new forms and evolutions. Structures and grooves implode in noisy fragments, growing into a deep trance state.

Jimi Tenor and a group of friends visited twice at Edward Vesala's unique home (Sound and Fury Studio) in Korkeakoski in southwest Finland. It was winter 1998.
Matti Knaapi and Jimi Tenor has been designing and building instruments since early 80s. They brought vanful of apparatus to Sound and Fury which already had a large collection of Vesala's exotic and self built instruments.

During the two rather extreme sessions 13 songs got finished. The first part was released in year 2000. Sadly Edward Vesala passed away before the first part City of Women I was released.
Now after 20 years of calming down we are ready to evoke the second part of the sessions.

City of Woman is
Edward Vesala, drums, vocals, instruments
Jimi Tenor, flute, instruments

Iro Haarla, harp
Jimi Sumen, programming
Matti Knaapi, instrument design and construction

Neues Album des britisch-nigerianischen Avant-Pop-Sänger/Produzenten Tony Njoku, der abstrakte Elektronik, Afro-Jazz und Art-Pop zu einem subversivem Kunstgebilde fusioniert und sich in eine Reihe mit seelenverwandten Künstlern wie Yves Tumor, Thom Yorke und Young Fathers einreiht. Njoku tourte bereits mit Anna von Hausswolf, Rival Consoles, Goat Girl, GAIKA, Jacques, Ider und Kokoko!. Zu seinen Fans gehören u.a. die BBC-Radio-DJs Gilles Peterson, Tom Ravenscroft und Huw Stephens.

"Exciting blends of African percussion, falsetto croons and dark synths." - Fact
"Fusing abstract beats with his angelic tones." - Mojo
"Turning high art into sonic form." - Mixmag

The avant-garde composer and conductor Pierre Boulez was a titan of post-War experimental classical music. Born in the small cheesemaking town of Montrbrison in central France in 1925, Boulez studied at the Paris Conservatoire with the composer and organist Charles Messiaen and received private tuition from pianist Andrée Vaurabourg; after moving to the Marais district in 1945, he briefly studied with Schoenberg disciple, René Leibowitz, and further influence came from immersion in Balinese gamelan, Japanese classical music and African drumming, among other sources. Earning money by playing an early electronic keyboard called the ondes Martenot on theatre productions, Boulez soon became music director of the Renaud-Barrault theatre company (led by actor/direction Jean-Louis Barrault and his actor wife, Madeleine Renaud), leading to tours of Belgium, Switzerland, Britain and both North and South America. American composer John Cage became an ally, though they subsequently clashed over Cage’s commitment to the role of chance in his compositions, paving the way for an intense and lasting friendship with the German composer, Karlheinz Stockhausen, who arrived in Paris in 1952 to study with Messiaen. In July of that year, the pair attended the International Summer Course for New Music in Darmstadt, leading to contact with Italian composer Luciano Berio and other noteworthy figures. Then, in 1954, with backing from Barrault and Renaud, Boulez began staging a series of concerts of experimental music at the Petit Marigny theatre, titled Le Domaine musical. The pieces collected on this album are all taken from performances staged for the 1957 Domaine musical season, beginning with Berio’s “Serenata I,” conducted by Boulez, which debuted in Paris in March of that year; arranged for flute and fourteen instruments, Berio said that the idea behind the piece was for the solo flute to be confronted by continuously interchanging elements, rather than mere accompaniments or oppositions. Boulez’s own “Sonatine,” composed in 1946 for flute and piano, is a 12-tone piece that evidences Messiaen’s influence, with shades of Asian classical music in places; then, Stockhausen’s monumental “Zeitmasze” or “Time Measures,” a serial composition for five woodwinds, played in different combinations of tempos and speed, was partly inspired by Webern’s principles of homogenous and harmonic textures. Finally, Messiaen’s 1949 work “Cantéyodjayâ,” delivered by pianist Yvonne Loriod, takes it shape from the classical Hindu rhythms of ancient India, as with much of the composer’s oeuvre.

Zru Vogue is a two man post punk avant-pop group from Palo Alto, California, combining the talents of Andrew Finkle and Rick Cuevas.

The band began in 1980 as a four member group: Rick, Andy, Tom Sanders and Nancy Miller. Tom and Nancy left the group shortly after the first single, "Nakweda Dream", was released by independent San Francisco label Adolescent Records in February 1981. Inspired by rave reviews and heavy airplay on alternative radio stations, Andy and Rick went back into the studio, now as a duo, to record some new ZRU tracks.

The self-tilted LP was released on the band’s Zero Risk Records in 1982. It contains eight compositions blending African tribal and Middle Eastern rhythms, avant-garde rock, minimal electronics, and funk-rock guitars.

The duo’s sound is inspired by the art and anti-art movements of Dada and Surrealism. All songs have been remastered by George Horn at Fantasy Studios. Each copy is housed in a replica of the original jacket, which features artwork by the group members, and includes the original 2-sided lyric sheet.

2nd volume of "modern composition supergroup" (The Wire) ZEITKRATZER's re-interpretations of early compositions by electronic pioneers KRAFTWERK.

In more than two decades ZEITKRATZER has created an astonishing broad catalogue from the obligatory (20th century avant-garde composers like CAGE or STOCKHAUSEN) to the unexpected (electronic artists such as CARSTEN NICOLAI, TERRE THAEMLITZ or underground experimentalists like THROBBING GRISTLE and KEIJI HAINO) – but hardly anyone was prepared for the ensemble's choice of early KRAFTWERK pieces! When volume 1 was released in 2017, ZEITKRATZER founder and director REINHOLD FRIEDL announced that there'll be a volume 2 of course – and here it is:: from the opening drony horns of "Harmonika" to the subtle guitar of the album closer "Wellenlänge", the 4 tracks own all the interpretatory and aesthetic acerbity the ensemble is known and praised for. The first album made it immediately into "The Wire office ambience" playlist and to the "Best of Bandcamp Contemporary Classical Releases": "ZEITKRATZER's interpretations are bouncy, horn-driven motorik grooves, static explorations of pointillistic overtones, breathy Zen-like meditations, and rollicking rhythms." The Spanish Rockdelux concluded: "Keep close and be happy to get more!" Sonic Seducer attested ZEITKRATZER to "uncover unexpected potential. It's a blessing that the next KRAFTWERK is already announced!"

And here it is! Now you can listen to all the music of the first two KRAFTWERK albums "as gloriously played as one could ever desire" (Vital Weekly).

Recorded live atHELLERAU - European Centre for the Arts, Dresdenin january 2019, "zeitkratzer performs songs from the albums "Kraftwerk 2" and "Kraftwerk" " delivers the compositions that were still missing to complete zeitkratzer's stunning take on the early, hybrid kraut-esque electronic avantgarde albums "Kraftwerk" and "Kraftwerk 2". Mission accomplished! A must-have. As German radio SWR agreed: "ZEITKRATZER is serious music turned from stiff to joy!"



Mixed by Klaus Dobbrich (Volksbühne Berlin).

Mastered & cut by Mike Grinser at D&M, Berlin

Recorded in Oslo’s small and intimate St. Edmund’s Church the 13th of December 2017, this LP features compositions by James Weldon Johnson, Thelonious Monk and Joe McPhee plus two by McPhee and Nilssen-Love.

The album was mixed, edited and mastered by Lasse Marhaug and is vinyl only, no digital. 500 copies made and no re-press. Artwork by Kim Hiorthøy.

“Following on from Homenagem, Lugar Alto’s first critically acclaimed project, the São Paulo label's new endeavour is the reissue of another neglected masterpiece. This time, it’s “Poema da Gota Serena” turn by Zé Eduardo Nazário from 1982. This unique work gathers elements of free jazz, Brazilian Northeastern rhythms, Asian percussive instruments and electronics.

Zé Eduardo is a virtuoso drummer and percussionist with a prolific career as a musician and teacher. He was introduced to music in his youth and started playing professionally at the age of thirteen. In the late 60’s he was a regular at the famous Totem night club in São Paulo, where he performed alongside the pianist Tenório Jr. and other exceptional instrumentalists. It was there that he met Guilherme Franco, and together they formed the Grupo Experimental de Percussão. This period defined Nazário’s interest in different sonorities involving percussion, and he broke away from the more traditional genres, such as bossa nova and jazz. Over time, this distinctiveness in sound and playing allowed him to create his own path which culminated in an extensive number of remarkable works, including the colorful and psychedelic “M andala”, which examines Indian and hippie themes. He also played with Hermeto Pascoal’s group and joined him and Jaques Morelenbaum for the recording of the cult classic “Imyra, Tayra, Ypy” by Taiguara. For Egberto Gismonti’s “Nó Caipira”, Nazário performed with the khene, a mouth organ from Laos, a present from Gismonti himself.

But it is Nazário’s work with the 1976 collective Grupo Um which is his most well-known, who, during their 6-year legacy recorded, amongst movie and ballet soundtracks, 3 albums: “Marcha Sobre a Cidade”, “Reflexões Sobre a Crise do Desejo” and “Flor de Plástico Incinerada”. The combo is considered one of the most innovative formations of its time, unusually combining electro-acoustic elements, jazz and Brazilian traditional music.

Poema da Gota Serena was Zé Eduardo's first solo project and it was financed by the legendary Lira Instrumental, a collaboration between the ground-breaking venue, label and publisher for the São Paulo avant-garde, Lira Paulistana, along with the always interesting Continental Records, home to such luminaries as Tom Zé. The album was offered as a package deal simultaneously with the production of “Flor de Plástico Incinerada”, ensuring 2 studio sessions at JV studios in October 1982.

Each side of the album explores different duets which, with its suite formated tracks, give the album the feel of a cohesive whole. The first half of the A side, “Energia dos Três Mundos”, is shared with the improvised saxophone of Cacau. Nazário delves into free jazz rhythms and plays his drums with a rolling and tumbling swing, using the kit in full, demonstrating the power of Brazilian jazz fusion. The second half of the suite takes us into a more tranquil mode. “Só Prá Ouvir”, demonstrates Zé’s mastery on the glockenspiel, and Indian percussion instruments, such as the tabla and mridangam. Cacau, on his side, switches his saxophone for more delicate dancing flute driven passages, equal parts northeastern rhythms and deep Amazonian indigenous influences. The B side, with “Prá Pensar / Prá Sentir e Prá Contar”, contrasts heavily with the A side’s more organic and natural feel. In Prá Pensar Lelo Nazários’s synth clusters and electronic blasts strangely interact with the exploring, wandering percussion. This track leads into the sublime “Prá Sentir e Prá Contar” where South Indian inspired vocals, performed by Zé Eduardo, accompany the graceful synth chords and fluttering percussion. The result is a hypnotic, otherworldly feel to the music that is infectious and takes the listener on an extraordinary journey.
With Poema da Gota Serena, it is possible to hear music that extrapolates the lines of the avant-garde and popular music. It is an album the demonstrates that Brazilian jazz fusion can be both spiritual and challenging at the same time.

All the tracks were expertly remastered by Lelo Nazário, directly from the original tapes, maintaining the high quality of production that Lugar Alto are becoming renowned for. All the artwork was reinterpreted by the São Paulo design studio Sometimes Always, including an exclusive insert and unpublished images.

It seems that Lugar Alto have managed to excavate yet another gem from the seemingly bottomless Brazilian mines. Long may they continue to do what they do so well.”

Stefan Fraunberger's Quellgeister#3 Bussd is Recorded entirely on an abandoned church's organ in the village of Bussd, Romania, the album is the third installment of the series by Austrian artist and composer Stefan Fraunberger. His research on the influence of nature on culture touches on time, periphery, memory, and transience as evidenced in his Quellgeister research. The album is an archeological sonic research on the deteriorating Organ discovered in the saxon church in Transylvania.

A project founded by label owner Manolis ten Haaf in collaboration with musicians Ruben Kodheli, Arjuna Schiks and guest artists. Combining his Italian and Dutch roots of classical symphonies and urban electronics into an avant-garde painting of improvisation with no boundaries. The classical rustic Italian countryside versus the non-stop Dutch metropole and the New York city life.

In support of their forthcoming Bob Moog documentary Electronic Voyager, Waveshaper Media have produced a compilation LP of Moog recordings from the 1960s. The first compilation of its kind, Electronic Voyages: Early Moog recordings 1964-1969 contains tracks by Robert Arthur Moog, Herbert Deutsch, Joel Chadabe, Lothar and the Hand People, Intersystems, Ruth White, Max Brand, and Paul Earls. All of these tracks, released here on vinyl in an edition of 1000 copies, have been scarcely heard and difficult to track down, with all but three of them previously unreleased on vinyl.

Bypassing the Moog synthesizer’s backseat appearance on key pop recordings by the likes of the Beatles, the Doors, and the Beach Boys, Electronic Voyages aims to highlight the diverse approach of 1960s musicians and composers who adopted the Moog as their primary instrument; these recordings all feature the Moog synthesizer front and centre. Beginning with an “audio letter” (The Abominatron) from Bob Moog to his musician-muse Herbert Deutsch, demonstrating some of the first Moog synthesizer prototype’s capabilities, Electronic Voyages veers from avant-garde and electronic soundscapes, to psychedelic madness and summer-of-love pop. In the 1960s, the Moog synthesizer was a new, groundbreaking instrument, and its use was completely uncharted territory. The pioneering use of the Moog on all of these recordings sounds fresh today - you can sense the wide-eyed exploratory delight unfolding, and the disparate results range from endearingly naive (Lothar and the Hand People, Paul Earls) to downright eerie (Ruth White, Intersystems).

The musicians and composers behind these Electronic Voyages may have been among the first to adopt Moog synthesizers, but the fact that they so readily found within them expressivity, heart, and a means to translate their wondrous sense of discovery, speaks far more to Bob Moog’s visionary invention and enduring legacy.

Glorious new Floris Vanhoof LP co-released with Kraak. Comes with 24 page colour photo book.
. Modern experimental Belgian brilliance by this ever exciting artist. Do Not Sleep! 220 copies only. BIG TIP !

"This music and these pictures are made out of curiosity about how multiple images overlap on film
and how waves that arise in tiny electronic circuits translate to the outside world.
2 side long pieces and a selection of 24 slides printed on a lush 30 by 30 cm format give an
alternative for popular myths “our memory is a tape recorder” and “the exact photographic
memory”. When we take time to listen inside own heads, what appears might be closer to the
double exposed images and swirling tape manipulations then we imagine.

Whooshing echoes out of homemade musical circuits and acoustic recordings processed through
configuration of tape recorders and filters mix the same way as the colors in the layered images.

The title is comes from the book 'The Pattern on the Stone' by inventor W. Daniel Hillis. The word
'computer' usually refers to an electronic digital device. The book tells about the existence of
computers where water flows instead of electrons. This 'fluid computer' serves as a source of
inspiration for deconstructing the ubiquitous algorithmic machine, and for new technologies to be
revived through untracked sidetracks."

Infinity is the new release by Melbourne-based Leo James, and the second Patience production. Leo scratches a longstanding itch and delivers two sidelong excursions that inhabit a similar sonic space but spin off in opposite directions on the continuum.

Desert Nightflower hums with vitality in a seemingly lifeless landscape. Impressionistically tracing the lifecycle of a flower’s bloom in the desert night – from the searing afternoon sun through dusk’s chill, the midnight blossoming and symbiotic relationship with travelling bats, through the blue hour comedown to first light – Leo employs vibrant, buzzing electronics, plaintive strings and levitating clarinet to illustrate beauty’s brief conquest of nature’s harshest environment, with vividly evocative and deftly moving results.

After Desert Nighflower floats completely off the grid, an ever-present kickdrum drives Infinity’s near 20-minute trip into timelessness. Sharing Side A’s subliminal synthesised hum and free-form clarinet, Infinity moves fast and firm down a dub techno dirt road towards the end of time. As elements drop in and out of the mix, Infinity builds momentum to a pulsing, cathartic peak of poignant piano, ethereal keys and lucid clarinet expressions.

As an avid nature enthusiast, spatial awareness looms large in Leo’s work. His solo releases on Berceuse Heroique, Neubau and his own label Body Language have been inspired incarnations of techno, EBM, industrial and wave.

Patience is a new outlet for exploring further beyond the break than usual. Inspired by the music perpetually on rotation at HQ – with E2-E4 representing the format’s high tide mark – each release will be one artist’s deep dive down one inspirational wormhole spread across two sides of vinyl, or two side-long sojourns making full use of a round 12” piece of plastic. Set and forget, zone out to tune in.

Koma Saxo is a highly potent new five-piece produced by the visionary Berlin-based Swedish bassist-producer Petter Eldh. The lineup brings together five heavy jazz names on the Berlin–Nordics axis, including Eldh on bass, Christian Lillinger on drums and the frontline of three saxes: Otis Sandsjö, Jonas Kullhammar and Mikko Innanen. Despite the top-billing names, make no mistake: this is not just another "supergroup", but a real working band with their own sound and musical trejectory.

Eldh's vision for the Koma Saxo sound is one step ahead of what groovy avantgarde jazz could sound like in 2019, involving postproduction work with the raw material recorded in Helsinki in connection to Koma Saxo's successful debut at the We Jazz Festival. Both studio and live tapes exist side by side, and Eldh goes deep in molding the final music to be heard on the upcoming Koma Saxo releases.

The first introduction into the world of Koma Saxo comes in the form of a 7"/digital single "Port Koma / Fanfarum For Komarum". Side A presents a restlessly dubby beat track, which would be ripe for hiphop sample use. The flip launches into a joyful full-on groovy free jazz fest which is hard to resist. Think Art Ensemble of Chicago at their swingingest but add a little "Nordic Noir" dropped right into the busy streets of Berlin's Kreuzberg.

Brooklyn-based saxophonist Jonah Parzen-Johnson presents an inspired set of ambient jazz for baritone sax and electronics, captured at Helsinki's We Jazz Festival in December 2018. The mood of the set is intense, with Parzen-Johnson's powerful music blending perfectly with the spacious feel of the room. His commentary in between songs gives the set a communal feel, which can now thankfully be revisited in the warm spirit of this wonderful evening of music.

This We Jazz Records release is tape only in terms of its physical distribution, while also a digital version is offered for streaming and download. "Helsinki 8.12.18" by Jonah Parzen-Johnson is a part of the ongoing "We Jazz Live Plates" series documenting the label's live activities.

Some Became Hollow Tubes floating in the ocean.

6 self recorded improvised drone rock waves from Eric Quach (thisquietarmy - relentless DIY powerhouse) and Aidan Girt (Godspeed You! Black Emperor).

Chords loop, pedals get pushed, pounding drum parts get added and subtracted, it starts quiet and gets loud. Eric no longer needs to worry about the rhythm, Aidan no longer has to worry about the song structure. All four ears stay cocked and listening even if neither of them are very good at keeping eye contact.

One life to live, pound drone and loop this moment into the present, hahaha let’s keep joking, it's ok.... the music has our sadness. This world is dying, the machines are getting better and better at eating material things to create nothing and all we can do is make wordless music in response.

The album was mastered by Harris Newman (Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Tindersticks etc).

Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt Electric Smog, the next installment in Unrock's ongoing Saraswati series, will be the most rebellious and wildest to date. Again an intercontinental output, this is a dangerous, electric brew filled with exotic aroma from Cairo's sound guerilla, Alan Bishop (Sun City Girls), Maurice Louca (Karkhana), and Sam Shalabi (Land of Kush, Karkhana). The always-changing face of Dwarfs Of East Agouza shows them in a feverish mode with an adrenalin rush; massive eruptions fight a genuine flow. Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt manage to sound like a tonal cyclone consisting of 156 musicians, blowing heads and minds away. Out of the blue they suddenly manage to change mode and develop mild, calm, and elegant/fragile melodies. Interplay between early Baker and Clapton in Cream's looser frequencies seems sometimes just a stone's throw away. Electric Smog is meant to be a twin release to Sir Richard Bishop and David Oliphant / Karkhana with Nadah El Shazly's Carte Blanche. One-time pressing.

Active in Los Angeles’ 1980-1986 underground music scene, John Lafia is best known for the hypnotic album Prayers, released through Barry Craig’s influential, cassette-only label Trance Port Tapes. "Life Is Short", "A Promise", “Dream", “Hidden Things", "Spaghetti Western", and "Escape" come from that release.

This compilation also features tracks from subsequent Trance Port releases: LA Mantra 2 ’s "Queen Of The Nile" and Phantom Takes’ "The Moth". John’s “Odyssey Girls” appeared on the seminal 1983 spoken word LP, English As A Second Language. “The Confession,” a collaboration with legendary producer Ethan James, was released on 1986’s LP, Voices From North America. While recording this music, Hollywood-based John also dreamt of making his own films.

To support himself, he intermittently crewed on low-budget movies, including fellow UCLA Film School alumni, Alex Cox’s infamous Repo Man. Cinematic influence comes to the fore in titles such as, “Spaghetti Western”, “Queen Of The Nile”, “Escape”, and “Hidden Things”. Working alone endlessly in his home studio, John used the recording environment as a launching pad for exploring his uncensored psyche’s furthest dimensions. Hours of repetitive rhythms often transported him into trance-like states.

Tracks “Propaganda” and “Art Of The Jungle” exemplify this technique. Others, “4AM”, “Doubt”, and “Montgomery Park”, are miniature psychodramas (replete with three-act structures). Songs "Life Is Short", and "Dream" grapple with life’s fragile and unknowable essence. "The Moth", "Fourth Of July", and "SOS", are sonic journeys into trance-like repetition.

This intensely personal music never intended to "find" an audience; it was a means in and of itself. Its decades-later rebirth in this compilation is a joyous surprise.

Charlemagne Palestine's majestic 1976 work The Golden Mean, originally performed by Palestine on two pianos, is revisited here as The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn, a new collaboration between Palestine and enigmatic musician Rrose.

March 2018: the Festival Variations in Nantes commissions Charlemagne Palestine to reinvent The Golden Mean for two pianists. Palestine chose Rrose to join him in this new rendition of the work. Together, they performed The Goldennn Meeenn + Sheeenn onstage at the main opera house in Nantes -- the sumptuous Théâtre Graslin – with extraordinary results.

The concept of the 'golden mean' goes back to the roots of mathematics, and ancient Greek philosophy. It is an important work in the Palestine mythos, embodying his total immersion in the power of the interval. "It's probably his most systematic work . . . a step-by-step journey through the intervals of the octave," says Rrose. "When we rehearsed it, we were noticing how each interval is like a universe of its own -- with its own history, emotions, and sonic qualities all mixed up together. Every time you move from one interval to the next, it feels like moving into another world."

"I love the interval," Palestine told me in a recent interview. "I love when it plays with itself. That's what I learned from organ musics too. You can just do an interval, and if they're just slightly out of tune with each other, then they shimmer . . . they play themselves. And it sounds like somebody's playing lots of notes. In your ear, it's like an aural phenomenon . . . that's my whole concept. I make something that then does itself somehow. It continues by itself. So I don't have to always be there. And that makes my music a little less egocentric. So there's more space. Also for the listener — the ear plays with these things, and you're not always being given orders. Your ear isn't given orders all the time of what to listen for."

Beautifully recorded, with mastering by Rashad Becker of Dubplates and Mastering, The Golden Mean + Sheeenn feels expansive, radiant and hypnotic, opening new ears to its enduring mystery.

Rrose adds this note to listeners: "Do not focus your attention on the notes being played, but on the ocean of overtones swimming, suspended, overhead, brushing against one another, kissing one another, melting into one another."

This is the definitive reissue of the long out of print first album from Italian experimental-rock band La 1919. Originally released in 1987 by ADN, the Italian Recommended Records branch, Ars srA was an early example of a long distance collaboration album as result of a virtuosic exchange of tapes between the Milan based duo and the legendary American guitarist Henry Kaiser and Canadian maverick sound artist John Oswald. The resulting music sounds like a perfect blend of '70s Art-Rock elements and '80s electronics. An eclectic mix of "Frith" oriented guitars, cold synthetic sounds and programmed drum machine beats. Some sort of sonic no-man's land where elements from the Post-Rock in Opposition aesthetic meet the experimental side of New Wave. The album includes a declared tribute to the Frith-Laswell-Maher seminal coalition, via a metronomic version of "Killing Time", the title track from Massacre's first album. The LP comes with updated graphics and contents including unpublished pictures and various memorabilia + CD with extra tracks.

The second volume of Water and Rock Music by British guitarist Jon Collin is another solid gambol in the outdoors. For much of this it sounds almost as though Mr. Collin is wearing a pair of hip waders and is up to his ass in a stream, casting for notes the way Hemingway casted for trout. His string bending recalls Loren Connors at points, but he has a manual approach to filigree Loren has never displayed. Notes bend and hovers, but they also flutter, and the combination of sounds is not quite like anything that’s preceded it.

Some listeners have noted that the environmental sounds put them in mind of New Age string pluckers, but Collin’s compositions do not fall into the trap of needing to resolve melodic quandaries, or making gestures that chase after standard forms of beauty. Jon’s music works as a series of comments on sound and questions about the physical space in which it’s created, but like any good philosopher he knows when to leave a sense of mystery hanging in the air.

There is plenty of sweetness to the playing here, whether he’s strolling through a playground, standing in the middle of a busy street, or sitting the the flight path of an airport. The music never seems dictated by the background sounds, so much as it encourages us to consider every part of the sonic construction to be heard as music (in the Cage-ian sense). The elements become a part of the greater whole in a seamless way. And the closer you listen the more that becomes clear.

I am still most struck by (at least what sounds like) the “stream” sequences. But that’s just because I really like the visuals it conjures up. You may find different personal sweet spots. But find them you will.

Water and Rock Music Volume II is a truly ear-opening spin.

-Byron Coley, 2019

Reissue of a true avantgarde-rock classic: Skeleton Crew were the maverick duo of Ex-Henry Cow guitarist Fred Frith and the great late cellist Tom Cora. Formed during one of Frith's early American residencies, Skeleton Crew was a legendary two man crew who somehow - in real time, managed to play all their instruments, cello, bass, electric guitar, violin, vocals - as well as, drum parts dislocated between the two of them. No one sounded like Skeleton Crew, ever. An unprecedented and tight duo coalition that produced some of the best music of the decade. Originally released in 1984, Learn to Talk consists of a highly integrated mixture of art-rock, punk energy, tape manipulation and re imagined folk elements. A catalogue of invention that remains breathtaking today. Fully re-mastered and including a printed inner sleeve with previously unpublished text by Fred Frith in memory of Tom Cora on the 20th anniversary of his premature passing.

We announce the joyous return of the spacecraft known as IQ+1 to Planet Earth.

After more than six years, which its members spent on experiments, improvisational side-missions, solo excursions, and hunting for material, we can finally welcome a third mission, following on from the highly acclaimed Tvárí v tvár (Face to Face, 2011) and IQ+1 (Polí 5, 2013).

The current line up – George Bagdasarov, Veronika Hladká (PIO), Jaroslav Tarnovski (Gurun Gurun, Wabi Experience, Jipangu), Petr Vrba (Rouilleux, Poisonous Frequencies, PIO), Michal Zboril (PIO, B4), and Katerina Bilejová – adheres to the philosophy of free improvisation. There is no captain to determine its momentary course, nor genre restrictions, nor sonic or musicianly hierarchy. The strategies remain unchanged, as does the instrumental variety, and the authentic excitement of live performance.

Mappa editions presents IQ+1’s third album, titled Conversaphone Plus, as the result of several séances recorded at the end of 2017. Every submersion in its depths is an unrepeatable experience. The organic sonic material is constantly contracting and expanding, adapting itself to the listener’s context, escaping beyond the horizon, creating mimicries, and enticing us to bubbling, popping, and jingling polyrhythms to then release its protective toxins. All six pieces boil on the narrow edge of chaotic decomposition and celestial order in which every sonic detail has its precisely determined position. Field recordings permeate the instruments on an equal footing, making it difficult to identify the sound, instrument, or player, so that each time the record is turned over, a new adventure begins. Federsel (B4, Handa Gote, Gurun Gurun) took care of the connective tissue between the pieces and the balanced post-production architecture.

Avoiding irritating instrumental exhibitionism, and egocentric deafness, Conversaphone Plus is nothing less than an uncompromising electro-acoustic testimony to the vitality of the Czech improvising scene. And it is nothing more than an attempt to connect sonic geology with astral listening.

Open the window a little – a messenger from the spacecraft known as IQ+1 is descending through the opening.

Nach Releases Auf Going Good, Jinn, Lovers Rock, Gravity Grafitti Und Moscomans Disco Halal-label Veröffentlicht Der Japanische Produzent Yoshinori Hayashi Nun Sein Debütalbum Auf Smalltown Supersound. Als Schüler Des Avantgarde-komponisten Mica Nozawa Besitzt Sein Werk "ambivalence" Einen Kosmischen, Hypnotischen, Fast Rituellen Ansatz Und Wird Von Resident Advisor Als "komplexes Patchwork Aus Studiogeräten, Live-instrumenten, Verstaubten Jazz-platten Und Clever Geschnittenen Library-sounds Mit Weichen Und Einladenden Strukturen" Bezeichnet.

90's Electro-Punk project based in Chicago after Janis Sils emigrated from Riga, Latvia. Self built instruments to create an trash and solid industrial sound. Influenced by label Wax Trax! & bands like Laidbach, Nine Inch Nails, Front 242 ... The world of U.S.O.C.A. reflects a strong talk to military minds. Something straight with no breathe. A uniting calling for masses.

collecting orders for repress ... !

Originally released in 1972, Lord Of Lords was Alice Coltrane's final album for Impulse! and the last installment in her awe-inspiring trilogy that also included Universal Consciousness and World Galaxy. While all three records featured strings alongside a jazz ensemble, Lords Of Lords stood apart from its predecessors due to the sheer size of the orchestra (12 violins, 6 violas and 7 cellos, arranged and conducted by Coltrane herself) and its refined, blissful performances - shining a vital light on the devotional path that she would follow for the rest of her career.

On the first two pieces, "Andromeda's Suffering" and "Sri Rama Ohnedaruth" (titled after the spiritual name for her late husband), Alice's dazzling piano and harp blend perfectly with the blanket of strings, while the haunting rhythm section of Charlie Haden and Ben Riley and a magnificent, droning electric organ emerge immaculately on the title track and closer "Going Home." Coltrane's musical vision is bold in its imagination and cosmic in scope, yet remains intensely personal and immediate. Lord Of Lords points inward as much as to the beyond, recalling her classical roots and recasting Eastern modes to radically invert the American avant-garde and spiritual jazz traditions.

This first-time vinyl reissue has been carefully remastered from the original master tapes.

Low Jack's Editions Gravats yield a killer debut of lean, mean reggaeton/dancehall mutations by Clara! Y Maoupa on the club-ready BZH series.
Following Low Jack's feverishly received 'Riddims du Lieu-dit' pack and the recent 3rd volume to Clara!'s cult, female MC-focussed 'Reggaetoneras' mixtapes, 'Meneo' slings three vocal cuts, plus two instrumentals and an acapella, serving to remarkably reveal Clara! as a cool and deadly vocalist and producer alongside Brussels-based Maoupa Mazzocchetti, who's best known for his EBM/industrial misshapes on Mannequin, and as member of An Ultimate DJ for PRR! PRR!
Hailing from Spain's northern coast, Clara! presents a unique spin on the imported reggaeton stylesshe grew up listening to and eventually DJing at beach parties in her home region, before moving to Paris and Brussels. Combined with the more industrial rub and tug of Maoupa Mazzocchetti on the instrumentals, they render a piquant spin on reggaeton proper in Ruge, where Clara! masterfully glydes over acidic bass and dembow drums, also handily included as instrumental and acapella.
Flipside, on 'El Ratón' they resurrect and version the seminal '90 bashment anthem 'Playground
Riddim', tilting it 20 years forward with resonant tweaks and plasmic textures infiltrated by another effortlessly slinky and on-point vocal from Clara!, before the duo really push the prism with the paso-doble vamps and raving chicanery of 'Discordia', the EP's maddest and hyper-colourful number, again featuring Clara!'s wickedly poised and playful vocal.
The result is a delectable new take on Caribbean futurism, presenting Clara! as a vocalist to be reckoned with, and rendering a whole new angle to Maoupa Mazzocchetti's production style after years of gristly, technoid beat-offs. In other words: pure heat for fans of Equiknoxx, Low Jack, LAPS, The Bug.

Michael Beharie (new York) And Teddy Rankin-parker (chicago) First Met More Than 10 Years Ago While Attending Oberlin College. Since Graduating, Beharie And Rankin-parker Each Veered Into Markedly Different Avenues. In Addition To A Consistent Output Of Solo Releases On Nyc-label Astro Nautico, Beharie Also Recently Joined Up With The Ever-confounding New York Ensemble Zs (northern Spy, The Social Registry, Troubleman Unlimited), Recently Performed On Albums By Laurel Halo, Greg Fox & Colin Self, And Is A Regular Composer For Dance And Film. Rankin-parker Became An In-demand Cellist For His Prowess In The Work Of Improvisation, Avant-garde Music, And The More Exploratory Realms Of Indie Pop, Lending His Talents To A Wide Array Of Bands And Collaborators, Such As Primus, Iron & Wine, Steve Reich, Pauline Oliveros, Glen Hansard, Father John Misty, International Contemporary Ensemble (ice), Chicago Sinfonietta, And Nicole Mitchell's Black Earth Ensemble.

Shunter, the new album by the Berlin-based duo Driftmachine, is their most ambitious work to date. Although instantly recognizable, featuring their trademark Kosmische and Avant-garde sounds, it also presents a new journey into abstract and hallucinatory worlds. Filled with eerie textures, their electronic visions are darker and more vaporous than ever.

Driftmachine's fourth album (also the fourth one for Umor Rex) offers a new perspective on their ample sound spectrum and systemic narratives. Shunter overlaps and mutates their post-industrial-dub motives. It was conceived and produced in search of a very different kind of imagery, with sections of noise and field recordings intersecting with analogue sounds, a mixture of contrasted fragments, where the usual creative process of modular-synthesis leads Gerth and Zimmer to the discovery of a dark, hazy and diffused experience. There is a protean quality to the rhythmic elements, with tempos constantly contracting and expanding, a departure from the mono-beat-rhythms of "Nocturnes" and "Colliding Contours". The first half of Shunter is made of four pieces named "Shift", although individually separated, they are conceptually linked and can be understood as a sort of score. Imagine a late stage of the industrial revolution, with the interaction between heavy machinery and human beings. The second half of the album is not completely separated, but it has three other substantial melodic moments. Somewhere between the hauntological and the realms of archive-music, a huge range of subterranean beats and distinct patterns dotting the landscape of early electronic and post dub music.

All songs written & produced by Driftmachine (Andreas Gerth & Florian Zimmer), Berlin.
Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri. Design by Daniel Castrejón.

Mutima Is The Debut Album Led By Bassist Cecil Mcbee Recorded In 1974 And First Released On The Strata-east Label. In His Review For Allmusic.com Michael G. Nastos Called It "a Landmark Recording In Early Creative Improvised Modern Music" And States "mcbee As A Pure Musician Has Staggering Technique, Rich Harmonic Ideas, And An Indefatigable Swing, But It Is As A Composer That He Is Set Apart From Other Musicians Of This Mid-'70s Era... Mutima (translated As "unseen Forces") Undoubtedly Solidified His Stature And Brilliance As A Major Player". Dustygroove.com Now Calls It: a Great Bit Of Spiritual Soul Jazz - And One Of The Few Albums As A Leader Recorded By The Legendary Bassist Cecil Mcbee! Cecil's Joined Here By A Large Group Of Players That Includes Billy Hart On Drums, George Adams On Tenor, Onaje Allen Gumbs On Piano, Jimmy Hopps On Percussion, Art Webb On Flute And Dee Dee Bridgewater On Vocals - Adding In Just A Touch Of Soulful Color To The Record As She Did On A Few Other 70s Sides Like This.' Plus: the Music's Got That Essential Strata East Sound, With A Rich And Spiritual Vibe On All Tracks, And Slight Bits Of Funk Hiding Somewhere In The Mix! Tracks Are Long And Freely Expressive - But Never Too Outside, Either.' A Long Lost Classic We Call It. And This Latest Reissue Is The Best Vinyl Version Ever Since It First Appeared Almost 45 Years Ago!

Austin Based Experimental Collective Thousand Foot Whale Claw Is Back With The New Cosmic Full Length black Hole Party, Out June 29, 2018. Featuring Members Of S U R V I V E, Troller, Single Lash And Future Museums, This Is The Supergroup's Second Lp And Their Most Accomplished Work To Date. Inspired By Progressive 70's German Kraut-rock, Thousand Foot Whale Claw Maintains A Classic Style While Establishing An Original Voice. With Album Art By Renowned Contemporary Sci-fi/fantasy Illustrator Kilian Ang, black Hole Party's Aesthetic Is Cohesively Curated Throughout Its Dense, Multi-layered Track List, Ranging From Serene Sound Baths To Driving Dance Beats.

Tfwc Was Founded In San Marcos, Tx By A Core Group Of College Friends Who Bonded Over Loose Collaborative Jams Of Effects Driven Improvisations. Eventually These Unstructured Practices Evolved Into Refined Studio Sessions And Intense Live Performances, Leading To A Rich Discography And Enthusiastic Fanbase. Balancing Repetition With The Unexpected, Tfwc's Sustained Motifs Slowly Reveal The Band's Signature Free-form Experimentation. Known For Heavy Walls Of Guitar And Electronic Drones, Tfwc Spirals Into Circular Rhythms And Looping Riffs Stacked With Shredding Guitar Solos And Ambient Soundscapes. Explorations Spurring From A Central Theme Is The Basis For The Band's Compositional Approach, Always Seeking New Instruments, Sound Sources And Production Techniques For Each Piece. Recorded And Engineered At Stassney Studios In Austin, Tx With Producer/artist Dylan Cameron, black Hole Party Has Become The Band's Most Defining Body Of Work Thus Far.  

On black Hole Party, The Polished Structure And Acute Development Of All Six Tracks Is Distinct And Tangible, Making This Record More Composed Than Any Of Their Previous Releases.  Propulsive Songs Such As deridium Rail' And The Album's Title Track Are Driven By Four-on-the-floor Dance Beats And Arpeggiated Synthesizers, Contrasting Songs Like genesis Effect' That Predominantly Features The Natural Tones Of 12-string Acoustic Guitar And Harmonium. The Wide Variety Of Sonic Flavors Is Reflective Of Tfwc's Vast Musical Tastes, Refusing To Settle On One Approach And Allowing The Band's Idiosyncrasies To Shine Regardless Of Genre. To Classify Tfwc As An Instrumental Psych Band Is Only Partially Accurate, However There Are A Lack Of Proper Terms To Fully Encapsulate The Band's Broad Scope. Black Hole Party Is The Latest And Brightest Collection Of Songs From Thousand Foot Whale Claw, Meant To Be Enjoyed In A Multitude Of Environments For All Fans Of Expansive Listening. 

Latino Bugger Veil presents the long-awaited vinyl reissues of Butthole Surfers' first four full-length albums. Originally released between 1984 and 1988, these classic and influential LPs capture the band at their peak, drawing
from punk, rock, psychedelic and experimental influences for a truly inspired and unmistakably unique
sound. Comes with coupons for free digital downloads

There are experimental musicians that know how to well craft the best of pop music, and there are pop musicians that know how to experiment at upper echelons of instinct. Samara Lubelski is both of these musicians in

one. It may be a bold statement, but yes, it is true, every word.Her breadth of experience in both of the otherworldly sides of these spheres grants her an enlightened gift in song writing. It is elegant and transporting,

and it coalesces in that golden new age of purple and orange psychic pop music that ducks its head into the present realm from time to time. Flickers at the Station' is an album that showcases Lubelski at a creative apex. Beautiful and

breathtaking, it is a forever keeper of a baroque pop record. Its late evening music. Its early morning revelation music. Its a glorious day unto itself. The pure connection between Lubelskis outr improv and instrumentation and her

poppsychic songwriting is in complete harmony.