Techno News

Forma by Lucy Railton, is a work that digs into us. It disorients us, plays with us, but without malice. It is like a nocturnal butterfly whose wings reflect a dark light, thus projecting fleeting hallucinations, which nevertheless persist on the surface of our retina. Its trajectories, too, are unpredictable. But such disorientation is not that of a chaotic space, it is rather a mysterious reason that presents itself to us, an imperious unfolding whose logic escapes us, but which nevertheless fascinates. It is also a history of shapes and their becomings. A story, also of their own vanishing.

Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly), by Max Eilbacher is a teeming piece, a matrix where textures and structures merge together, where the polyrhythmic instances become timbre, where the formal abstraction of the harmonic volutes coagulates around a vibrating form that is actualized in the dramatic reality of a dying fly. And this formal mastery is not disembodied in Max Eilbacher's work and the kaleidoscopic forms of the sound spectra that he has deployed know how to resonate in the sensations and experiences of each one.

These two pieces have this in common, but each with their own agenda, that they evolve with grace and inspiration in the vast domain of the sound world and it is a great pride for us to present them in this new collection.

Released in association with Editions Mego.
Coordination GRM: François Bonnet, Jules Négrier

Executive Production: Peter Rehberg

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Milan Zaks' latest solo effort is coming out on Help Recordings.

Six compositions pressed onto two pieces of vinyl.

Assume your position, plug in or put on, play and await what could be described as the midday rebooting of your mental-balance. This work has not just one function. But it functions nevertheless. How? Find the time to time the find.
No one else will do it for you

71 minutes with full-on daydream catalysing, consciousness examining, sonic explorations that will take you in, out, to and through.

Recorded and produced in the Safe Studios during December '18 - March '19

Distributed by Triple Vision

Artwork by DJ C

Composed as a means to map the cultural translation between Chinese culture and European traditions, Piotr Kurek’s A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes is comprised of pieces composed between 2016 and 2018 specifically to accompany theatre performances directed by Tian Gebing (500m and The Decalogue) and Grzegorz Jarzyna (Two Swords). Kurek attended performance rehearsals in Beijing and Shanghai, with additional preparations and recording sessions taking place back in Warsaw.

While most of Kurek’s past work is unaccompanied by other musicians or outside help, A Sacrifice Shall Be Made / All The Wicked Scenes features various Polish and Chinese musicians both from classical and experimental scene (Barbara Kinga Majewska, Grzegorz Hardej, Łukasz Rychlicki and Hubert Zemler) as well as by actors of Paper Tiger Theatre Studio from Beijing. This approach of Kurek exploring new players and places is further juxtaposed as Kurek recycled samples from his own past, including various recordings with musicians he did throughout years, found sounds from the Internet, or cannibalised old solo work.

Recorded over the course of several years, this aural report of a monumental multi-disciplinary venture is in the end an enthralled and enthralling survey of a contemporary composer who is unencumbered by geographic or cultural boundaries. Concurrently, ditching any resemblance to local musical traditions and rearranging the compositions for all three performances, Kurek has formed an architecture that allows the phases of rituals to unfold while projecting social structure assumed in myth making. The regrouping of different moments in these stories is a curious way of narrating another myth — a synthetic, polyvalent story set in a city that strangely reassembles Beijing, Giza, and Prague at the same time.

Piotr Kurek is a Warsaw based musician and composer who straddles the world of electronic music taking inspiration from various genres but fitting comfortably in none. Through his unconventional use of a wide array of instruments both electronic and acoustic, he built a reputation for himself as a qualified inventor of hypnotic worlds drenched in uncanny arrangements.

Kurek has already released a range of idiosyncratic, forward-thinking works on a variety of imprints (including but not limited to Sangoplasmo, Black Sweat Records, Hands In The Dark, Dunno Recordings, Crónica, Foxy Digitalis) and participated in numerous music festivals including Unsound, CTM, OFF, TodaysArt and UH Fest as well as participating in extensive tours in Poland and abroad. In 2014 and 2015 he opened for Bonnie “Prince” Billy’s two European mini-tours. In 2016 he has been selected as a part of Shape platform for innovative music and audiovisual art from Europe.

Metempsychosis Records invites you to 'Breaking The Silence', the sonic soundscapes of End Train along with remixes by Oscar Mulero and VSK.

The release will be available in a transparent marbled black 12" vinyl. The package includes a printed insert, narrating the story of the Aztec god of wind, who inspired the creation of the record.

Story
Relentless percussions, savage rhythms and mind-expanding glitches narrate the adventure of Quetzalcoatl, the Aztec feathered serpent deity of Wind and his mission to interrupt the silence on Earth with music. A long time ago music was yet a privilege of the Sun who was keeping all the musicians confined in its realm.
The evolving nature of the tracks symbolizes the journey of the Wind, who, helped by the waters, reaches the Sun s land. Disoriented and lost in the Sun s maze, he accepts the challenges that his adventure presents and endures a lengthy and demanding quest to find the music. The only way to get on the right path is by feeling the sound itself. By trusting it and following the air vibrations, he finally finds the courtyard where all the musicians are playing. Despite the Sun s crying and imploring the musicians not to go, Quetzalcoatl manages to bring them all down to Earth. With their arrival, the silence in the world is suddenly broken, while sounds and music sprout everywhere as animals and humans learn how to sing and play.

This story teaches us that through our perseverance and also by working with others - like the wind joins forces with the waters - we can change any condition and bring wonderful things even where they do not seem possible. It s up to each one of us to create the world we want. So abandon yourself and embrace the broken silence.

Five years after his critically acclaimed debut album Throwback, Glenn Astro returns with his deeply personal album Homespun.

Marking a change in course from his first release on Tartelet Records, Glenn Astro is set to showcase his sophomore album Homespun, a testament to a visionary artist who has come into his own. Made up of ten tracks spanning 45 minutes, the record twists and turns between electronic meditations, soulful vocals by Ajnascnet, and futuristic electro, carving out a world of spacey eclecticism that is as nostalgic as it is experimental.

“This album is in all facets different from the first one, which was a deliberate decision. No vintage sounds and references, no sampling, combined with futuristic sound design and song structures.I tried to keep it as current and intuitive as possible,” he says.

Known for his chunky beats and fuzzy textures, Glenn Astro has released on labels such as Ninja Tune and Apollo, leaving a distinctive signature on everything he touches.

But Glenn Astro has quietly been crafting a new sound for himself. Sometimes taking detours – morphing into his dark alter ego and experimenting with artist collaborations.

The sound of Homespun is a culmination of several years of reflection and artistic development – however, the album itself was produced in less than three months. “I set myself an ultimatum to finish the album within three months. If I didn’t make it, I’d
have to rethink my career path and keep music as a hobby, he says.

On the introspective first single and album title track “Homespun,” Ajnascent’s vocals lend a sincerity to the melancholic production. “It’s about the regret of not taking chances and giving in too much, but also about taking responsibility and being honest with yourself. Homespun is a nod to nostalgia and a desire for simplicity and prudence, being equally the culprit and the cure,” elaborates Ajnascent.

On “The Yancey,” an homage to J Dilla, Glenn Astro paints his vision of contemporary dance music with shimmering melodies, deep ambient soundscapes, and advanced drum programming. “Moreira” and “Look at You” feel like spaced-out electronic funk hybrids, while “Taking Care of Business” goes back to the future with Glenn Astro’s take on jungle. Other tracks such as “Mezzanine,” “Slow Poke Flange,” and “Viktor’s Meditation” provide the finest dubby electronics.

Belgrade's infamous club night launching the label with a split 12" by these hidden jewels of the city's underground. Slow, dark and to the left.

"Auf dem schwarzen Kanal" ist eine der herausstechendsten und gesuchtesten Veröffentlichungen in Conrad Schnitzlers umfangreichem Katalog. 1980 als einzige von Schnitzlers Platten bei einem Majorlabel veröffentlicht, war diese Maxi und insbesondere das Titelstück ein Flirt mit dem zeitgleich aufkommenden experimentellen New Wave und klang dennoch so eigenwillig wie keine andere Musik zu jener Zeit. Die zusammen mit Wolfgang Seidel entstandenen und in Peter Baumanns Berliner Paragon Studio aufgenommen vier Tracks sind ein bissiger, dissonante Mutant Disco Trip, der bis heute nichts von seiner Faszination eingebüßt hat. Bureau B freut sich dieses lange vergriffene Werk endlich wieder verfügbar zu machen!

After two compilations and a split EP, Oscillate Tracks present their first solo EP. Having played dynamic DJ performances at Oscillate events as well as releasing top-notch productions on Livity Sound and Man Band, Toma Kami seemed the perfect fit. With 3 tracks of percussive body music, sharp rhythms and precise arrangements which build to hard-drum energies as well as a confidently layered and commanding remix from atmospheric techno icon Forest Drive
West, this EP packs a patient yet satisfying punch.

Neil Landstrumm and Tobias Schmidt are two men responsible for modern day electronic music. When the sound crawled out of the primordial speaker, this pair were there to welcome it. For more than twenty years the two have worked together as Sugar Experiment Station and arrive on Shipwrec for their first collaboration in eight years. This is a 12" born in burning furnaces of bass. Moulded in those low frequency fires, smelted in the thumping heat, are beats, beats hardened like steel before being shaped into lancing points. With these tools of rhythmic brimstone SES goes about destroying dancefloors before reinventing them. Chords are rolled in gravel, doused in distortion and rinsed in static. A style forged from the friction of pistons, the sweat of the assembly line, before being dipped in a searing liquor of circuitboards and molten microchips. SES - Sugar Experiment Station - Shattering Every Stereotype.

OMIC is a new side-project from Ian McDonnell - better know as electronic music producer and DJ Eomac - exploring the experimental, the unusual, the idiosyncratic side of his output. Inspired by the idea of 'outsider' music and explorative producers like Jim O'Rourke and Arthur Russell, OMIC approaches music without the constraints of genre and style or the 'dancefloor' considerations and conventions that are usually present in Ian's output. Off-key vocal experiments, downtempo electronica, ambient, noise, pop, techno - expect all, any and none of the above.

Sangam comes to Forgot Imprint with a double cassette release.

The first release 'We Surrender in Grey' on the A side is all new material of dark, ambient dance music featuring Sangam's trademark synths recalling a lost void mixed with hard hitting kicks.

The second release 'Facing Reality, (You're not Here)' on the B side was released on Lost In The Rain of Our Tears and will now be available on cassette 9/19 in Edition of 25.

The prolific artist has released on labels such as Dream Catalogue, Lobster Theremin, Pure Life, and Doomtrip Records.

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It has been two years since the first compilation on the Various Artists series (PEVA) of Pi Electronics and the concept has stayed true to its aim: to present a coherent selection of the label's favourite collaborators from the roster and parties over the years. Bringing together Greek and international artists, this compilation opens with a 10 minute recording by the combined forces of Orphx and JK Flesh (Justin Broadrick), from a live performance recorded in Amsterdam. Meanwhile we also showcase the resurfacing of Vofa, the joint project of producers Sawf and ANFS. There is a variety of options in this 13 tracks release; from the raw and harsh textures of An-i and New Frames, to Lycurgus live drum set recordings, Kondaktor's African percussive electronics and Sarin's EBM infused techno. Some more techno interpretations, such as the hypnotic moods of Stave and Fragedis, or the more punchy sounds of Restive Plaggona and Poison Green. These shape the full picture of this second Pi Electronics compilation titled "Divide & Rule".

Formed by Swiss post-metal veterans from Knut and Abraham, strom|morts' goal is to compose music inspired by their Alpine environment and its weather, which glides over impassive mountains, evolving with the seasons. Such a landscape encourages deep listening – minimalist musics whose subtle evolutions reveal themselves over several minutes, disturbing the perception of time passing or even provoking, through deep and sustained concentration, a meditative state.

strom|morts write: "Clock Resistance is all about time and chaos, reflecting the behaviour of nature around us, embodying the cycles of life and death. The sinister yin yang of strom|morts symbolising the source and the end of everything we have known so far. Two drones were composed as an embodiment of this concept. This record was mainly made with modular synths for their flexibility, but you can hear here and there the ghost of a Moog Voyager. One drone is totally synced, the other one is free. One side's got a guitar, the other one is synths only. Achieving symmetry, the two drones have the same timing." –strom|morts, Conthey, Switzerland, 19 May 2020.

Gabie Strong is the founder of Crystalline Morphologies community imprint, dedicated to releasing experimental sound works by historically underserved Los Angeles women, queer and non-binary artists. She has been working in experimental music since the early 90s. The recordings on this cassette document a series of live performances from 2017-2019 in which the Los Angeles artist Gabie Strong asks, "What does the body sound like when it is making its own music?" A hard-of-hearing interdisciplinary artist, Strong asks us to consider that hearing is subjective, based on how the brain translates the reception of sound. Each track documents a performative questioning in which Strong suggests that being deaf is not living in silence, but rather it is navigating a highly complex and nuanced soundscape of noise that is audible only to the deaf body. For Strong, deafness comes from her own skull working against her, closing off external sounds and sending scrambled messages back to her consciousness. Captured at Ende Tymes 9 Festival of Noise and Experimental Liberation, Land and Sea Oakland, Volume at Coaxial and the Sagehen Creek Field Station Experimental Forest, Strong layers the kinetic sound of contact mics running over her body and through her hair, ambiguous vocal utterances and amplified guitar feedback to create a visceral soundscape of her body.

"This tape gathers a series of demos and live recordings of a short-lived Portuguese band from the 1980s: Os Senhores (1985-87, briefly resurrected in 1990).

Portugal was just beginning to open up to the international cultural scene back then; for a younger generation of creatives, this meant a visceral rejection of tradition ("Fado??? The past!"), and a thirsty embracing of whichever echoes made it from abroad, often in the shape of expensive import vinyl or hissy third or fourth-generation cassette dubs: from post-punk to post-modern, we all wanted to break from the old paradigm. And yet we were painfully blind to the fact that we were largely replicating another paradigm: we simply lacked the broader conceptual and contextual milieu in order to push things further beyond the peripheral or derivative.

A venue in Lisbon, Rock Rendez Vous, was congregating this younger generation through a series of rock marathons and competitions. We dutifully applied and stepped on stage for the first time ever in March 1986; track three of this tape begins with the first few seconds of such gig. A handful of gigs followed, and we recorded various sets of demos at Luís Carlos' Studio X in Porto.

Paradoxically, our objective lack of formal musical training and relative scarcity of musical skills provided us with a potential degree of freedom. And oh, we were free to be our vicarious selves: the female singer was a Siouxsie devotee, the male singer was heavily into Krautrock, the guitar player wanted to play the blues, the drummer just wanted to hit stuff. The bass player and the keyboard player held it together somehow. This seemingly impossible mix of aesthetics could have produced something special; instead, we tended to cancel each other out. We were just too often caught between the dilemma of pursuing said freedom (and risk illegibility, even to ourselves), and the desire to prove our worth within the familiar canons.

As a consequence, there is little of musical or aesthetic interest in these recordings: their value is essentially documentary, more of a snapshot of a given era. Yet their release provided us with an opportunity to revisit the source material and have a go at reconfiguring it into something else that, while remaining faithful to its original references, would make a somewhat better statement in itself.

We tried quite a few approaches, to no avail… some worked sonically but distanced themselves too much from the original, thus losing the plot; other attempts just seemed dragged down by the linearity of the original compositions.

In the end, we opted for a more straightforward approach in the re-working of the original sources: we had various recordings play simultaneously, without further tweaking. Whatever fell on top of whatever else, so it stayed.

In this way were able to preserve the original sonic, structural and contextual aspects of each recording, while somehow amplifying the tightrope of chaos/ineptitude we traversed throughout those two years. And just as decisively, through this process of superimposing, we were able to reveal a few odd juxtapositions that, had we had the vision back then, could have been infinitely more promising than the elusive post-something format we obsessively kept hunting down.

So what do you know: the first release by Os Senhores, over three decades after we split (and not very amicably, as rock and roll would have it). Hey, it took us slightly longer than originally expected. And we are all now back in touch: old age has its perks." – Heitor Alvelos, Porto, 16 March 2020

The second release of Black Merlin's SFORMATOR series on Pinkman. Three cuts of hypno-beat electronics, created through ritualistic embodiment of sound by the machine doctor to expand minds.

SUMMER OF SEVENTEEN are MONIKA KHOT (NORDRA, ZEN MOTHER), WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA (MAMIFFER), and AARON TURNER. (SUMAC, SPLIT CRANIUM).

Wildfires plagued Washington state during the summer of 2017, their smoke drifting westward toward the Seattle area and toxifying the air. Shortly before that trauma, MONIKA KHOT, WILLIAM FOWLER COLLINS, DANIEL MENCHE, FAITH COLOCCIA, and AARON TURNER had gathered at the latter two musicians' House Of Low Culture studio on idyllic Vashon Island with revered producer RANDALL DUNN. There they cut eight songs that capture the makeshift band's feelings of what COLOCCIA calls "a kind of doomsday lurking in the background." It's as if these highly attuned players had a premonition.

"Summer Of Seventeen" -which was edited and arranged by MONIKA KHOT, who records apocalyptic music solo as NORDRA and plays in the avant-rock band ZEN MOTHER—is a nuanced admixture of these musicians' sounds and a culmination of all of their previous collaborations. COLOCCIA and TURNER have created eldritch folk and chamber rock for over a decade in MAMIFFER while engaging in various solo and group projects that explore their profound spirituality in sound. MENCHE has been a fixture on the abstract composition scene for 31 years and COLLINS is a savvy explorer of drone and ambient forms. Their ephemeral summit meeting has yielded a masterwork for the ages.

A heaven/hell and beauty/beastliness dichotomy pervades the album—as if a titanic struggle was transpiring in that small studio. The fearsome trumpet fanfare that starts "Chorus Of The Innocents" heralds a baleful fate. With a subliminal industrial rhythm bristling beneath the eerie exhalations, the song submerges us in a slow-motion maelstrom, a horror-film facsimile of MILES DAVIS' "Bitches Brew". "Perceived Slight" threads death-metal screams through a stark, suspenseful atmosphere, with austere glints of guitar and beats like fists on a casket lid intensifying the dread.

Angelic chants and celestial drones perfume the air in several of the songs on "Summer Of Seventeen", countered with muted blast beats, serrated hums, jagged glitches, simulacra of grinding gears and lightning. It's as if no good deed goes unpunished. "Spirits Of Redeemer" could be an elegy for the human race while "Cultural Orphan" sounds like a symphony for a malfunctioning factory. The album ends with "Theatre Needs An Audience," a harrowing ballad somewhere between EINSTÜRZENDE NEUBAUTEN and MERZBOW; it's a savage rent in the space-time continuum.

"Thinking about this record now," COLOCCIA recalls, "it seems like we were all sort of anticipating something like this current pandemic happening, although we were thinking about it as fire in the hands of man (literal fire, and also gunfire) that would overturn the normal running of things and reveal the current false beliefs systems holding up most of America."

That grave aura infiltrates "Summer Of Seventeen", However, a hopefulness bubbles beneath the foreboding architecture of sound and noise summoned here. The bunker is the new penthouse.

-Dave Segal, April 2020

*** For the 1st time on vinyl! With remixes by CHRISTIAN FENNESZ (Touch, Mego) and STEFAN NÉMETH (Radian, Innode) & unreleased material from 2000 ***

** The LP comes as beautifully crafted collectors edition with CD & DL-Code & 30x30 cm inlay with background information in English & Japanese **

* Mastering & Vinyl Cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin *

After receiving an honorary mention at the Prix Ars Electronica 2000 in the category Digital Music, Ulrich Troyer's Debut EP NOK was originally released on the highly influential experimental music label MEGO in October 2000. The "soundtrack for an imaginary cartoon", combines a palette of extreme high and low frequencies with organic sounds in a polyrhythmic flow.

Now, NOK is available for the first time on vinyl as a full length album supplemented with previously unreleased material from 1998 - 2000 found on the original DAT-Tapes. The reissue includes 2 new remixes created 20 years later. Christian Fennesz (Touch, Mego) delivers a powerful, guitar driven remix that is simultaneously joyful and sorrowful. Stefan Németh (founding member of Radian, INNODE) creates a precise condensation of NOK's sound world with additional overdubs using the MS-20 he was using 20 years ago.

All tracks have been completely remastered from the original DAT-Tapes and cut to vinyl by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

The Vinyl comes with CD & DL-Code & 30x30 inlay with background informations in English & Japanese

Neil Landstrumm new form as a sexless gas was taken in response to the decline of need for physical form in the facebook era of humanity. Brain Rays facilitated this transformation at his Bizarre Rituals event that he holds in the South West of the Brexshit UK in 2017. From this alchemic fusion of sexless gas and thermal energy was born the Dark Magus project of 1980s 12-bit spell casting and is now manifest in this mini-LP relaunching the Scandinavia label on 1990s techno based fame. Alternatively Landstrumm and Brain Rays can be found on a capitalist-disaster product market stall in Totnes most Tuesdays renting out knives and forks and tents to post-Brexit Tory victims.

The genie of Wadi Rum, found by Brain Rays and held captive in a small perfume bottle found on the streets of Salisbury to be freed only once returned to his native desert in Jordan by the mythical Hans of Pllazoor. This 12' is their communication to attract and seek Hans of Pllazoor and form a trilogy of cunts to make the epic journey by ancient Landcruiser to the valleys of Wadi Rum to the source of Dark Magus itself. Answers will be found as to why people STILL vote Tory in Britain and why a racist curse was placed over the moist islands in 2016.


What do/did you want to express with this record

How it feels to be a sexless gas in post_Brexshit Britain on a mission to release the genie of Wadi Rum with the help of Hans of Pllazoor. The mood was alchemic 12-bit spell-casting from deep inside the fantasy portal and the state of mind was careless panic.

How did you record it / technique / material

Brain Rays invited Neil Landstrumm to contribute tracks via the fantasy portal . Unfortunately lacking fingers, the sexless gas of Neil Landstrumm (ghost of the 90s) simply vaporised the material and breathed it through a hollow tube towards the portal. Brain Rays, who has fingers, simply gathered the gas and boom!, the vapour was mixed into a perfect holofane file.


Which influences / scenes did you want to represent

Brain Rays and Landstrumm wanted to represent disaster based capitalism and promote their weekly Brexshit market stall renting knives and forks and tents to Tory victims in the lovely town of Totnes in Devon. We exorcise evil Brexshit spirits. Influence was also taken from the 'Powder Exhibition' and several packs of Beef Rings. We represent 'Tales of Immoral Spell Casting' in 2019.

The Future -

We don't have any gigs as dancing social media expert DJs with USB sticks take them all these days from actual proper real record producers.

The mysterious musical group ,debuts on the Faith Disciplines label with an album of industrial music with a variety of ethnic influences, voices and traditional instruments fused with powerful rhythms

Special edition coloured vinyl version of Mercury Music Prize nominated Anna Meredith’s ‘Varmints’ album. For all its atmospheric diversity, Anna Meredith’s ‘Varmints’, released on Moshi Moshi, is held together by her expert understanding of dynamics. “Pacing is a physical thing,” she explains. “I can feel when stuff has to happen in a
track. I knew I wanted ‘Varmints’ to end privately but start confidently, have moments of privacy and moments of power and build. I love writing a build - my friends talk about ‘the Meredith Build’! I love the feeling of ‘get on board, we’re building up now!’ Even if you’re dancing at a club, there’s an amazing transparency to a build.”

Aside from sharing bills with Anna Calvi, James Blake and These New Puritans, Meredith’s dizzying CV includes being Composer In Residence for the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, writing a piece for MRI scanner, soundtracking Prada’s Spring / Summer 2015 campaign, symphonies created for nursery children, music for park benches in Hong Kong and sleep-pods in Singapore.

Performances at the BBC Proms have included collaborations with Laura Marling and The Stranglers for the first 6Music Prom, a performance of her bodypercussion piece ‘Connect It’ from the BBC Ten Pieces project and her Last Night Of The Proms composition
‘Froms’, simultaneously performed by five symphony orchestras across the UK and broadcast to an audience of 40 million people.

Therapy With Colour is the Constellation debut by Montréal-based producer and sound artist T. Gowdy, who has released three prior albums of exquisitely textured, predominantly ambient electronic music (most recently Pachira Aquatica via Shimmering Moods Records in 2019). His sublime audio/visual performances have featured at MUTEK (Montréal and Barcelona) and Spektrum (Berlin), alongside his ongoing work as an in-demand producer/engineer with over fifty album credits to date, including Suuns (Secretly Canadian), Ensemble (Fat Cat) and Ada Lea (Saddle Creek) to name just a few. Therapy With Colour is Gowdy’s most sonically and conceptually acute solo work to date, inspired by experiments with the Nova Pro 100 Light and Sound Mind Machine (among the best-known home hypnosis ‘mind machine’ devices, first released in the late 1990s). For Gowdy, the ritualized therapeutic reprogramming of consciousness promised by this technology has two primary personal dimensions: “to explore psychological ‘debiasing’ and decorrelation of heteronormative narratives that exist within my familial, intimate and economic relationships; to let flow neutral communication with the self and others” and to circumvent the technical biases and temporal blockages endemic to digital audio workstations and the computer-based editing that governs production of most electronic music. The album’s five tracks are extracted from live, linear, real-time stereo recordings that have their origins in an audio/visual collaboration between Gowdy and light artist Laura Buckley (whose scanner artwork features on the album cover and packaging). The music on Therapy With Colour is indeed meditative, but in a resolutely contemporary and highly engaging way, eschewing gauzy New Age or environmental music tropes and instead conveying the rigour and empiricism of controlled experiments. Consistent with theories of ‘mind machine’ brainwave synchronization, these tracks involve oscillating, shimmering Minimalist pulse and techno-adjacent rhythm that reward active listening, while working coequally as dissociative concentration music. Each of the five songs has a distinct vibe but constitute a deeply satisfying and cohesive flow. From the day Gowdy dropped this record on us a few months ago, devoid of context or background notes, we’ve probably listened to it more than anything else – not realizing we’d been self-medicating. But we can see everything so much more clearly now.

"Lugar Alto's newest project is the idiosyncratic album MUMIA (portuguese for MUMMY). Never released before, it is a work that was originally recorded on cassette and combines elements of post-punk, industrial and ambient music.

Kodiak Bachine and Celso Alves formed the ephemeral and eponymous duo in 1988. The partnership resulted in a single recording derived from improvised sessions using minimal amounts of electronic equipment at Celso's country house, located in the interior of São Paulo.

Bachine was an important figure in the São Paulo underground. His most renowned project was the band Agentss from 1981, which also consisted of Miguel Barella, Eduardo Amarante, Elias Glik and Lyses Pupo (later replaced by Thomas Susemihl). In its brief duration, the band released only two seven inches that were considered seminal artifacts in the Brazilian post-punk scene: “Agentes / Angra” from 1982 and “Professor Digital / Cidade Industrial” from 1983. These two rare records are highly sought after by collectors and DJs from around the world for their inventiveness and originality.

Similar to Agentss, MUMIA brings with it extreme authenticity, managing to extrapolate the barriers of more traditional Brazilian music and interact with unorthodox elements. The lyrics are a mixture of Portuguese and English and it is still possible to identify picturesque fragments of Spanish, French and German. In addition, sonically, the record portrays aesthetics from the eighties and dialogues with themes relating to LSD. Another notable feature is the fixation on Egyptian post-mortem themes, providing a cinematic and lysergic experience of the desert landscapes from the African country.

It is a recording with comic passages which provokes an unpretentious reaction from the listener. However, it still has more ethereal and atmospheric moments, such as the opening song “Ave do Deserto”. In the final two tracks, it is possible to enjoy a darker MUMIA, which with “Massacre da Serra Elétrica I” and “Massacre da Serra Elétrica II”, provide a sound experience capable of accompanying intense scenes from the macabre productions by Tobe Hooper and George Romero.

The striking new artwork was created by the Sometimes Always studio, a partner of Lugar Alto and responsible for diverse graphic collaborations with artists, venues and parties in Brazil. The album, mastered by the prolific Arthur Joly, also has a booklet containing Kodiak’s texts in Portuguese and English, in addition to the lyrics, which serve as a logical exercise for further understanding of the album.

MUMIA was unearthed by the renowned Brazilian DJ Millos Kaiser, who in addition to kindly curating this album, put together the compilation “Onda de Amor: Synthesized Brazilian Hits That Never Were (1984-94)”, released by Soundway Records.

Now, after 32 years in its tomb, the MUMIA has risen and thanks to Lugar Alto it can finally be celebrated and appreciated."

Amidst her work with the primitive-futurist neo-psych outfit Zen Mother and as a touring member of Daughters, Monika Khot creates apocalyptic dirges combining modern classical explorations of electronic ambience with hardware-fueled industrial barrages under the name Nordra. The project has taken her across North America and Europe, performing in both the high-brow art world and in the underground rock trenches on tours with artists like SUMAC and Algiers. Nordra’s third full-length continues her penchant for chilling digital drones, thunderous clatter, polyphonic idiosyncrasies, and a search for a harmonious balance between wrangling sounds out of new technology while exerting an undeniable human presence over the machinery. This final factor was of particular importance to choreographer / multi-media artist Colemxn Pester, who enlisted Khot to score their modernist dance performance trilogy PYLON, which explores the themes of resilience in the age of technology, surveillance, and other man-made impositions on the human body. Nordra’s second outing, the commissioned score for PYLON II, was a hard-edged martial exercise— fitting for the dystopian nature of the series’ second installment. But for PYLON III, Pester was looking for the light at the end of the tunnel and requested that Khot instill her work with hope and calm in order to serve the utopian aims of the performance.

Despite this direction, Nordra’s latest offering retains a certain tension and power present in her early work. “All of the writing techniques I intended to use remained in place, but I think the emotional resonance of this piece of music changed over the course time,” Khot reflects. “I don’t think this piece embodies utopia or the shedding of a corrupted society at all even though that’s what I set out to do... there’s a dystopian destructive sound that I can’t shake just yet.” That unwavering sense of foreboding is evident from the first note of the record, a massive square-wave pulse that ushers in “Prologue.” But the musical embodiment of hope follows close behind with sublime electronic drones that continuously push and pull the composition between major and minor keys. Digital hisses, the clatter of machinery, and the doomsday clock-tick of the hi-hat nudge the tone back into dire settings while swells of pocket trumpet and ethereal choral vocals struggle to provide solace. The duality of hope and despair was perhaps inevitable given the climate around PYLON III’s creation, with Khot dealing with a close friend’s cancer diagnosis and Pester’s performance preparations interrupted by technical setbacks and injured dancers.

It’s impossible to convey resilience without also capturing hardship, and the album’s second track “Remembering” excels at communicating a sense of calm while some vestige of danger percolates beneath the surface. Khot’s dreamy wordless-vocals sit at the forefront of the piece while stuttering percussion and groaning drones bubble up from below like buried memories. On “Monologue On The Beach,” Khot uses sporadic guitar harmonics, fractured piano melodies, and soothing digital hums in a manner that feels spontaneous, fluid, and human, effectively creating an underlying sense of peace amidst disorder. This dichotomy between chaos and calm was one of the shared themes between Pester and Khot’s work, and it manifested in a variety of ways on PYLON III. One of the most obvious examples occurs on “Searching In Fields For Elements,” where Khot filters digital noise through a MIDI note interpreter and inserts the resulting melody as a sequence of synthesized bell notes. “I wanted to create an actor that represented this industrialization so you could see if you found it endearing or not,” Khot explains. Our response to these random elements opens up a dialogue about the will of the element. “Some days I’m an anarcho-primitivist and some days I’m curious about what the exploration of machine-learning has actually taught us about our own consciousness,” she continues. The notion that technology could accelerate our journey towards enlightenment is perhaps the most utopian vision one could have in our current age.

Ultimately, the music of PYLON III provides one context as backdrop to Pester’s multi-media performance, but it has its own life and own character when absorbed on its own. In terms of emotional timbre, it’s a departure for Khot, even if the instrumentation and hardware tonalities are consistent with her self-titled debut LP and PYLON II. “I don’t think I would write the music on this record with no context,” Khot says. “It is completely fueled, adapted, and created with thematic, visual, and choreographic content in mind.” And yet even without those components, the experience of listening to PYLON III is haunting, compelling, and ultimately redemptive.

ALBUM RELEASE
Pylon III
ARTISTS
Nordra 3
LABEL
Sige Records [43]
AVAILABLE FORMATS
SIGE 071 LP LP September 04, 2020
GENRES
Electronic Industrial

The awaited annual collection of Pushers from all over the world finally lands in this pandemic scenario.
A storytelling of 18 tracks, from ambient to electro.
NON SUMMER COMPILATION -

The release will be available from September in a limited series of 30 transparent red tapes series + digital download code.
Compiled by Asymmetrical
Mastered by Giovanni Inglese at FAUNA53

One of the most important artists in the development of the Horo sound, Astral Projection is the first full length ASC album for the Horo label. Astral Projection follows on clearly from 'Imagine The Future' with the development of the Grey Area sound progressing and becoming intrinsic to a large majority of ASC's current work. But this LP is not a Grey Area addendum, Astral Projection is a luminous artistic statement from a sonic perfectionist who the term 'sound designer' was made to define. An accomplished and much respected ambient producer, ASC weaves his talent for soaring emotive soundscapes with his undeniable rhythmic prowess across a cohesive 12 track sonic voyage that again accomplishes a rare goal in todays electronic music landscape - a commanding listen from beginning to end. Very few artists are as prolific and consistent as ASC, but we are confident Astral Projection will be revered as one of his finest moments in years to come.

Voiron debuts on Analogical Force with 'Drill'n'Voiron EP'. 5x Tracks where the 'fake Parisian' continues to blur the lines between genres through his own interpretation. Expect braindance blah blah blah inspired cuts so turn on those smoke machine and welcome to Voironland.

This music is a tribute to two major sources of inspiration: Dada and the German krautpioneers Cluster. Somewhere out in the periphery, we meet with a common idea that everything has a sound, and that all sounds can be music.
Dada and kraut were born at a time not unlike our own. Both "movements" were a grimace at the sight of everything absurdity. It was a time steeped in aggression, political bitterness and scandals. Against logic. Against reason.
In umf, the sounds float freely without rudder. Here are percussion from distant countries. 70s synths and a noisy mellotrone.

Lucid Dreams is the self-titled, new project from Jason Luxton aka Overlook, which also features close friends Dean Warburton, Joe Theobald & the vocal talents of Manuela Marchis. With Shades of post-punk, trip-hop and film score dynamics, The Lucid Dreams EP is an immersive multi-genre listening experience that travels through murky underworlds and dream-like hazes.

From 'Stone's Throw' to 'Hallucinogenics' the ‘Lucid Dreams’ EP plays more like an LP, with a narrative amalgamating the different moods created by Luxton to present something that feels clear and complete in its vision.

ALEXANDRE BAZIN​ is a member of the ​Groupe de Recherches Musicales​, better known as the GRM, for which he writes documentaries about music for the radio. He is passionate about experimental music and more specifically acousmatic music created by members of the GRM, such as Bernard Parmegiani, Francois Bayle and Guy Reibel. Due to his background as a classical and jazz pianist, Alexandre Bazin is also passionate about instrumental music by the likes of Steve Reich, Erik Satie, Brian Eno ... This album attempts to synthesize these two worlds that are so dear to the composer, either in symbiosis or in opposition to one another with simple and loose melodies as its main theme. The use of analog synthesizers and acoustic sounds are at the heart of the composer's creative process. His music has already been heard thanks to Umor Rex Records in Mexico and the Moogfest festival in the USA.

OCEANS :
"Oceans" ​was written for Marimba, Piano and Buchla Music Easel, in 4 movements around the theme of the Ocean. Simple and loose melodies, played on piano and Buchla. They rotate around the marimba which evokes breathing and the rhythm of the swell. Suspended melodies reminiscent of Generative music although in this case they are an improvisation around a simple motif. Through its title and movements, this work evokes a reflection around climate change and our relationship to Oceans: water, breathing, the repetition of movement, but also its immensity which reminds us of our limits. The piece was performed by Alexandre Bazin on Piano, Buchla Music Easel and Marimba as well as Gabriel Benlolo on Marimba, a member of the Radio France Philharmonic orchestra.

THE DESERTER :
Not escaping a situation to flee but to be physically freed from it. The response manifests itself through the breath, heartbeat and the act of running. Beyond a moral necessity, it becomes a physical necessity that cannot be contained. Your natural defenses provoke this sudden urge. Your body cannot be contained through inaction. Our bodies in action escape all control, in order to free ourselves from the time that is limited to us. A piece for percussion, electric organ and Buchla Music Easel.

DREAM-LAND :
A piece that borrows its titles from Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. In the spirit of the GRM’s acousmatic works, such as "L’Enfer" by Bernard Parmegiani or "Suite pour Edgar Poe" by Guy Reibel. Alexandre Bazin, a member of the GRM, wrote music inspired by this mysterious, perhaps imaginary land, at the edge of the human spirit, where a lonesome traveler walks among the shadows, advancing through harsh and hostile nature, "Out of space - Out of time ”. An Earth that evokes purgatory, loneliness and introspection. The aridity of the landscape creates an explicitly vertiginous map where one crosses paths with past memories, lonely angels and an idol named Night. The aridity of the landscape is interpreted through the EMS synthi’s electronics, ideal for its attack, brightness and deep bass sounds, like "Mountains toppling evermore into seas without a shore". The piece ends with a sound recording made in the middle of winter on a deserted beach in the French Landes region during a storm.

In recent years, the Turkish drone-pop composer Ekin Fil (born Ekin Üzeltüzenci) has been refining her talents in the realm of the film score. Since her first recordings that were published by Root Strata and Students of Decay, she has always exhibited a preternatural ability to express the saddest of emotions through sound. Once channeled through the lens of a gauzy shoegazing smear of guitars and voice, she has peeling away layers of her ephemeral songs to reveal their emotional core. That compositional process that works so well for her award winning film scores informs the soft-focus tenebrous pieces of her 2020 album Coda.

It’s true that any number of these pieces on this album could announce the finale to an emotionally draining movie, but Ekin sculpts the entire album as a whole, dissolving one perfectly tempered piano motif, an impressionist ambient plume or a sibilant vocal melody into another. Just at the threshold of perception, she occasionally invokes cascades of distant noise that easily can be interpreted as the ominous premonitions for natural disasters - incoming storms, earthquakes, or tidal waves. This subtle disquiet amidst the introspective melancholy furthers the emotional weightiness of Coda.

Her somber, blissful compositions have considerable gravity of their own in the constellation of Grouper, Felicia Atkinson, and Harold Budd. Mastered by James Plotkin.

Steering away through an independent countercurrent from the most pompous and overtly atmospheric alumni of the Berlin School, and the far out yoga classes from New Age, but still very psych militant, we get the concise and thorough sound of “Fluido Tiempo”. Through sort-of-short tracks we unveil possible references such as JD Emmanuel or Amoon Düül taken to realms such as urban commuter trance or empty city vagabondage. Subterranean electronic synthesizer music is well known for its penchant for the loner, the living room wanderer and the night tripper but it has rarely seen a proposal this emotional. Deeply imbedded in the fertile in radical ideas Cassette Culture, Sima figures out sounds to communicate human emotions such as melancholy, uncertainty, absence or loss.
This first reference by Paco León’s solo alias -he usually practices kosmische gymnastics with his band Güiro metts Russia- is a very nice surprise that will delight Cortini or Fitoussi fans.

Queried on his favourite word in the German language, Masayoshi Fujita will pick ‘getragen’ – without a sliver of hesitation. Further questioning will reveal that he loves the term’s semantic signifiers, its inherent sense of “expansive, deep, quiet and sombre.” And yet, ‘getragen’ leaves plenty of room for interpretation: depending on context, it might also indicate wearing apparel or the state of being carried – two more mundane interpretations that I would rather keep from him. Does Masayoshi’s own definition, however, apply to ‘Bird, Lake, Objects’? Only to a limited extent. Compared to previous Faitiche releases, ‘Bird, Lake, Objects’ is certainly the most ‘getragen’ of them all. Nevertheless, this is by far not the first association that comes to mind. From a distance, these tracks seem rather introspective, cautious even – and reflect the recording situation: deliberately pared down, reduced to a single microphone in space and a separate track for all other instruments, each movement and action is chronicled by the treacherous mike. This confronted me with some unexpected and unfamiliar problems. For example, we had to swap out the seating in the studio as my favoured chair had a characteristic creak. Other, external influences were proved our control: fire engine klaxons, street noise and footfall became part of the recordings and their improvisatory nature. Each movement required careful orchestration, fully aware of its irrevocable nature. Space itself was always present and an audible entity, except on ‘Stripped to RM’ (recorded without a microphone or vibraphone track). After extensive deliberations, we decided to forgo the vibes on this piece – a very similar version had already been released in 2008 (on the compilation ‘Enjoy The Silence’, Mule Electronic, 2008). Jan Jelinek, February 2010

* Mirae Arts (founded By Elbert Choi) Is A New Label Based In The Suburban Bowels Of El Cerrito, California, Usa. Elbert Choi, Originally From South Korea, Is Inspired By The Mountainous Landscapes Of Northern California And Is Focused Primarily On Releasing Music With Blissful & Natural Soundscapes.

* The Debut 12' Ep On Mirae Arts Is Called Prayers By The Lake, Produced By Seraphim Rytm. Seraphim Rytm, Based In Belgium, Is The Alias Of Damaskin, The Veteran Master Of Dark Hypnotic Techno Who Has Releases On Esteemed Labels Such As Unknown Precept, Noiztank, And 10 Label (japan). Damaskin Debuted As Seraphim Rytm With A Celestial Album Called Aeterna On Vancouver's Silent Season, Which Was Reviewed By Resident Advisor As Being 'deeper-than-deep Techno Shrouded In The Damp Atmospherics Of The Rainforest'. Prayers By The Lake Continues The Sonic Journey Into The Beautiful Complexities Of Nature And This Time Invoking Images Of An Isolated Lake Surrounded By Mountains In Seasonal Transition. The Ep Consists Of Three High-powered Ceremonious Tracks And Concludes With A Beautiful Ambient Closure.

* The Artwork Is By Landscape Photographer Cody Cobb Who Is Responsible For The Artwork On Haxan Cloak's Breakthrough Album, Excavation (tri Angle). Cody Has Also Worked For Labels Such As Permanent Vacation And 10 Label.

* 180g Vinyl Pressed At The Highly Reputable Gotta Groove Records, Cleveland, Ohio.

Following the reissue of the V-Neck EP Auto, Emote have sprung back to life with some lost DAT recordings of the band from the late 1990s.

These semi live recordings made at the Spike Studios in Fulham where a back to basics project and a deliberate move away, from computer programmed music.

The project was heavily influenced by the albums Drastic Season by African Head Charge and Get Up With It by Miles Davis. The tracks contain an array of random procession instruments ranging from African pianos to kitchen utensils, vintage synth tones and drones are provided by an Arp Odyssey and a Korg MS-20

The tracks where then recorded on to a 8 track real to real AKAI X-1810D

By the time the delayed Dub Fiction album came out in 2000 the duo had decided to go their separate ways and the project was abandoned.

Your record collection will have to be modestly far out not to find this record modestly far out!

Supported by Alex Night (Fat Cat Records) and Chloe Alice Frieda (Alien Jams)

Belgrade's 'Yes' is back with its 3rd release - a debut EP by Moscow-based producer Yssue.

"The Laughing Gas" is a five-track collection of heavily percussive dance floor belters. Contemporary, and contagious.