Techno News

Long time following Bewwip's footsteps, the encounter between us was only a matter of time. We cannnnnot overstate our love for this elusive artist and we bring it proudly. Welcome sir 4rd. A+++ stuff for those who know.

Ruutu Poiss returns to International Major Label with two evolutionary,
spacetime bending dance floor hitters.
The Estonian sound artist revisits the psychedelic approach used for his first 7" release on the label (Halli / Uttu, 2016), expanding his refined palette with the use of modular synthesizers.

Pull / Push holds extraterrestrial, contemporary techno music. Off-kilter, but very effective.
These two powerful gems could easily be described as 'heavy' or 'weighty', but that seems very unfitting here. Where Pull immediately entraps us in a soaring vortex, Push takes a long intro
to launch us hard into a compelling stratosphere.

THE ONLY DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ONE AND NONE IS N

TRANS HUMAN OBJECT
(THO) ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
THE SUPERIOR FUNCTION*
X1N SAYS:
////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////IN THE VAST SURFACE OF ALL MATHEMATICAL EQUATIONS, ONE CAN SENSE EVENTS WHICH SEEM TO COME FROM OTHER DIMENSIONS - RIPPLES AND PATTERNS. THE ZERO POINT NINE INFINITE NUMBER LINE NEVER REACHES ONE, YET IS ONE, NONETHELESS. 0.9999... READ THAT SEQUENCE LIKE A MANTRA. A MANTRA OF DEATH. ////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////
“I TALK IN ALPHA NUMERALS”

denotes “end”. No more messages to follow.

Chra is the artist moniker for Austrian Christina Nemec (Bray, Shampoo Boy). SEAMONS is the latest missive in her ongoing exploration of suffocating abstract audio. At once designed and falling apart SEAMONS is rough and crude, a stumbling and staggering electronic expedition where nothing presents itself explicit in intent. It’s a tense obscure record that teases you into it’s peculiar vortex from it’s suggestive nature of exploring the enigma beyond it’s haunted facade.

VICIOUS WATER REGIMES stutters along as an ‘ugly’ mass of grey electronica. CAST(O)RO shines from light from the depths with it’s occasional foray into glistening tones. COLONIA MARINA SERENELLA is a dank squelching backdrop for a dark age. CAST twists tension with flickering electronics chaotic in their perpetual design of order confronting inevitable collapse. LET SHARKS SLEEP is not only a great title but a mind tickling adventure of descending/rising digital dance that builds in intensity with it's relentless repetition. WIDOW WALKS gallops and creaks along a path veiled in whispers. ENGE lunges through time with an air of deep uncertainty. SEAMONS hovers on the outskirts, crawling out of the speakers with endless surprising turns, few of them comfortable.

SEAMONS is progressive ambient, not the kind that makes you escape, but rather one you can't escape from. SEAMONS crawls into the very guts of sound to uncover and unravel the uneasy and unsettling underbelly within.

Featuring the music score from Shelley Parker's performative collaboration with Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome and Peder Mannerfelt's brazen version of an iconic piece of American minimalism, the fourth instalment for the Decouple Series aligns around the desire to create music from the simplest set of sounds, and to make the most of joy and fun from basic elements.

Shelley Parker opens with LET THE BODY, a collaboration with choreographer and dance artist Fernanda Muñoz-Newsome. The work considers what emerges through disorientation and reorientation around pleasure and permission in the body, positioning dance as a form of political expression. Entirely composed from recorded sounds of the dancer's bodies moving in space, the three tracks represent an excerpt of the longer performance originally commissioned by Arnolfini Bristol 2016 and recently programmed and performed at I.C.A. London 2020.

On the flip side Peder Mannerfelt throws an unsettling adaptation for Roland TR-909 of the well- known classic 'Music for Pieces of Wood'. Far from being any sort of academic gesture this recording comes from a rather profound Steve Reich phase (pun intended) of the Swedish producer in which a score, found by chance, of this iconic piece was deciphered thru a DAW and transformed into sound by an equally iconic drum machine. The process of mechanization—a founding concept of the original composition—finds in MUSIC FOR PIECES OF 909 a new magic dimension, unironic and full of meanings at the same time, confirming Mannerfelt's acute take on experimentation and Reich's genius in a singular movement.

'Sing the Gloaming' is the latest collaboration between Simon Kirby, Tommy Perman and Rob St John.

Rob St John is a member of Modern Studies (FIRE Records). Tommy Perman is an artist/musician/designer and former member of the FOUND collective.

'Sing the Gloaming' features guest vocals from Kenny Anderson (King Creosote), Nerea Bello, Aidan Moffat, Emily Scott (Modern Studies), Su Shaw (SHHE), Hanna Tuulikki and Andrew Wasylyk.

The release has been reviewed by The Wire (who also ran a feature on the trio's collaborative work) and has been played by Hannah Peel as part of her 'Night Tracks' show on BBC Radio 3.

The trio's previous collaborations include 'Concrete Antenna', a sound installation in the landmark tower at Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop which was an album of the week on BBC Radio 3's 'Late Junction' and was also played by Stuart Maconie (as part of The Freak Zone - BBC 6 Music) and Gideon Coe (BBC 6 Music) amongst others.

And then came the Visitations.

The fifth opus of the Worst Records library could appear as an audiobook for transcendental meditations. If the idea of trance-induced state is no surprise in the music we deliver to the world, this new album by Ricco goes beyond. The pair formed by Gil.Barte, head of Kump Records, and HLM38, in charge of house Notte Brigante, dare to offer a sinuous collection of mantras melted in light, silver dust anddarkness. Each track navigates through ritualistic slow beats, drum'n'bass-ish half tempo incantations and other mystic hybrid forms not so far from Kode 9esque or Shakletonists reminiscences, just to name a few. The titles evoke a spiritual diagonal, from biblical to Islamic worlds and arcanes, passing through Persian tradition and obscure references hard to decipher. Several interludes, leading to the final Prelude, stand as resting rooms to drown the listener into purifying darkambient, where glitches of enlightenment and distants sounds from nature slowly disappear in divine drones. You now hold in your hands a keyholder to somewhere else, a sonic ally through everyday chaos, and spells to protect the soul. Let yourself loose in enchantment.

The debut album from Sardinian composer Blinkar Fran Norr covers a rich, atmospheric and melancholic stretch of territory. Metaphors For Things was born from composer Andrea Garau's own personal experience of the world today, brought to life through currents of powerful sound and an always shifting but ever-pensive state.

The album aims to express the negative conflicts and diseases often seen in people and modern society, capturing thoughts, emotions and feelings that can generate internal conflicts, anxieties and fears.

Mastered by Rafael Anton Irisarri and featuring artwork by Noah M / Keep Adding, Metaphors For Things will be available on transparent, colored smoke gatefold vinyl and digital download.

At long last, Boston’s Isabella Koen delivers her long-in-the-making debut album of raving mutant body music, Trance riffs and industrial synth topographies forged with raw and brooding industrial sound design that marks her out among N. America’s most interesting new producers of electronic music. Big tip if yr into Jasss, Helena Hauff, Gesloten Cirkel, AFX...
Spanning proper techno artillery, Trance riffs and noise excursions, ’Melody Depleted’ expands on the ruffcut but classy ideas put forth on her tapes and 12”s for the likes of Peder Mannerfelt Production, Börft and Jacktone over the past half decade. It serves a broad but singular showcase of her ability to generate club punishing rhythms, barely-tamed electronic noise and surprisingly sensitive ambient space probes that revel in electronic music’s capacity to evoke fine spectra of technoid feelings with a say it-without-saying-it instrumental finesse.
In an emotive arc that takes in crude, rushy rave futurism (‘Im Laughing’) thru to dark, bolshy industrial tekkers (‘The Harm That I Dream For You’) and an outstanding nine minute finale of deep distance ambient hypnagogia (‘Hypnic Jerk’), Isabella’s first album most deftly transposes a sense of pre-millenial late ‘90s techno warehouse dread into a world dealing with its own register of worries. And like the work of Jasss, Nkisi or Helena Hauff, Isabella proves highly adept at translating the most vital, if elusive, aspects of her reference points with a totally fearless, up-to-date but timeless swerve.
Big hitters like the Peder Mannerfelt-esque breakbeat techno ballistics of ‘Roll Doll’, the wide-eyed, doomy trample of ‘Organ’ and the Stingray-meets-Colin Stetson styles of ‘Take One And Two’ share space with full on EBM techno boosters in ‘Send’ and ‘Mind Tear’, while the roiling synth noise of ‘Mnesia’ and the Drexciyan organism of ‘Through The Kitchen’ diffract her vision into adjacent areas of experimentation that make for a murkily transfixing album experience rather than a collection of rave tools. It’s a dead gritty course for lovers of electronic dance music that gets direct to the feet and leaves bits between your teeth.

Nahash lands on Shanghai’s SVBKVLT label with his debut album, a frenetic re-mapping of dembow and junglist blueprints made in the image of the label’s wild and thrilling programme, featuring a collaboration with Osheyack plus remixes from Elvin Brandhi, Gabber Modus Operandi and DJ Plead.
Following a crazy run of releases from 33EMYBW, Gooooose, Slikback & Hyph11E, GMO and others, ‘Flowers of the Revolution’ almost feels like an updated mission statement from the label; a wild and futuristic tangle of opposites inspired by the legacy of U.S. interference in South American politics, deploying a rhythmic energy that feels angry and vital.
It’s an Amen-heavy landscape disrupted by a world of incongruous sounds like some colossal babushka doll revealing layer after layer of angular and liquid rhythmic structures, from the symphonic strings and clipped gun reloads on opener ‘The Horns’ to the adrenalised dembow mutation “A Secret Christian Influence” and the more brooding sci-fi swagger on ‘Pluie Éternelle’
On the remixes, Elvin Brandhi enlists Kanja from Nyege Nyege Tapes’ soon to be unveiled Duma project for a brilliantly unhinged sci-fi jamboree that reminds us of the wildest and most exhilarating end of the DHR spectrum, Gabber Modus Operandi turn ‘A Secret Christian Influence’ into a stripped, prism-pushing KuduroXGabber fantasy, and DJ Plead provides the biggest highlight here on his closing ‘A Better Future’ refix; a widescreen, sub-heavy anthem with signature Mahraganat drums and fucking amazing sidechain pads that makes for an almost misty-eyed finale to the dance.

Nídia flashes peak time dancefloor chops on a club-ready partner 12” to her superb 2nd album.
Where the album explores slower, melodic taraxho and R&B, Nídia’s 12” is built strictly for the rave with four tracks of proper dancefloor shapes made in her own style of electrifying body music compatible with heat from Nigga Fox to Nazar and the kind of style you might hear in a Shannen SP set.
‘Chef’ boots off royally with militant snares and rave fanfares locked to a churning technoid flow somewhere between Kuduro, Baile Funk and EBM trance, while ‘Hard’ rolls out on a stentorian, rictus march recalling vintage UKF, and ‘Jam Master’ strikes up high intensity trance riffs synched to industrial strength rhythms a la Nkisi, and the tumbling drums of ‘Munun’ sidewinds off along rhythmelodic vectors recalling a tempered Shackleton piece or a prime, deep Peder Mannerfelt workout.

R&S present the eponymous, debut, full length album transmission from Lost Souls Of Saturn.
Epic in scope, time and space, this multidimensional mind trip is for fans of Mark Leckey's 'Fiorucci Made Me Hardcore', David Morales' Red Zone dubs, Don Cherry's 'Organic Music Society', The Orb's 'Ultraworld' and KLF's 'Space' and much more besides.
This ambient house masterpiece combines flavours gathered from across the galaxy, stewing them up into a delicious primordial soup. Old sci-fi soundtracks, acid, free jazz, avant garde, musique concrete, world music and more all whirl around an underground-dance-music axis.
Primarily LSOS are Seth Troxler and Phil Moffa, plus further opaque participants congregating to combine music, imagery, and storytelling into an inextricably linked whole, all wrapped-up in a philosophy of their own making.

SYNTAX Electronix (Valencia, Spain) continues with its second release based on Electro tunes.

Berlin, spring 2020

Written and produced by KTL, Stephen O'Malley & Peter Rehberg

Recorded & mixed at MOM Paraverse Studios, Berlin, March & May 2020

Engineer : Andi Toma (mix), 2nd Engineer : Constantin Carstens (recording)

Mastered at Zino Mikorey Mastering, Berlin, May 2020

Cover art : Nina Hartman, Untitled Capsule, 2020 (Resin, paper, toner, pigment)

Photographed by Joe Levenworth

KTL photograph : KM

A new timley studio album from the duo of Peter Rehberg and Stephen O'Malley. Recorded and mixed during an unexpected extended stay in Berlin when the borders of the world suddenly closed. The claustrophobic urgency of this scenario is seared into the colossal vibrations set into this vinyl release.

Unlike many of their releases this is a studio record made unto itself as opposed to the many soundtracks they have made for theatre works and the like. It also stands as one of their most fully realised releases to date.

Proceedings are launched with The Director. Sitting somewhere between contemporary classical and doom this is a sliding and menacing mass of sound, more Masque of the Red Death than The Decameron. Silver lining is an alarming swooping buzzing track, looming and lowering only to rise and descend again. A delicate play with the Shepard-Risset glissando manifesting a delirious swarm of sound. Lee's garlic orbits into a short fragmented zone with bursts of harsh feedback and crashing fx, all manner of audio enters and is discarded with an underlying sense of despair and frustration. Proceedings continue on Side B with Tea With Kali where a calmer plateau is embedded with oscillating guitar and fluttering electronics. Beating sine waves envelop the listener in a meditative thought piece of sound. Frostless concludes this epic dispatch as a subtle and gentle foray into twitching electronics as a light buzzsaw drone swirls as around your mind.

The interplay of sources (guitar, electronic equipment (hardware, software, speakers) is so entwined it's often difficult to discern who is doing what amongst the broad sound field. KTL VII is instrumental music as visual narrative resulting in an exquisitely crafted release full of sophisticated and sublime illusory effects.

Deep space electro-techno tracks by Estrato Aurora. He drops this solid 4 track ep in the Spanish NNY label. Magnificent productions ranging from immersive building tracks to fierce electro cuts with touches of ambient and dub. A proper tracks selection for body and soul!

"On this seven track album we hear MinaeMinae (alias Bastian Epple) playfully scurry through his dense soundscapes on a tightrope. The sounds lying somewhere on the crossroads of psychedelic trance, exotica, ambient and melodic dance music – veering further off orbit with nontypical rhythms and dystopian percussive patterns.

MinaeMinae understands musical material similar to documentary footage which he would cut up, repitch, and rearrange freely. Most of his tracks are a mix of analog, synthetic sounds and recordings of ethnic percussion and guitar. Recently Bastian began experimenting with modular synthesis and self made tape echoes - seeking a more reduced and minimal composition style compared to his earlier quite whimsical tunes.

Growing up in a small village in southern Germany, Bastian was never interested in kitschy folk sounds that everyone would mindlessly clap and sing along to, rather he took solace in the time he would spend delving into patterns and repetitions that pleased him. His guitar strumming and what sounded to his mother like a young Philip Glass on a cheap Casio keyboard encouraged little Epple to continue on this self-taught path of developing his musical language. He then started to experiment with a tape recorder and layering sounds with non-musical samples, which his former village friends found too weird – then to eventually working with a small freeware DAW. Bastian went on to study Media Art at the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe – initially enrolled in music but the frustration and doubt of not being able to produce the music he wanted led him into film and documentary media. During his studies, Bastian was living with Florian Meyers (Don’t DJ) for several years where they would philosophize life and music into the wee hours – he encouraged Bastian to start sharing what he’s been quietly working on all these years and slowly emerge from this anonymity which eventually led to his first release on Human Pitch last fall.

Disproportionate forms, color changes, backdrops weaved into the foreground, all lay the dense earth for Gestrüpp through Benjamin Kilchhofer’s artwork."

A stunning 17-minute-drumming-trip from feathery spheres through bold grooves to a dense thundery finish by Simon Popp and Sebastian Wolfgruber, the two drummers known for channeling World Music, Afrobeat and Jazz drumming in solo projects and with Munich-based Jazz quintet Fazer.
The B-side holds a rework by fellow Munich producers Zenker Brothers. The Ilian Tape heads and notorious audiophiles put their drum machines aside and weaved the recordings with layers of mystic synths into a tingling organic IDM tune.

Warning! This record contains traces of acid and spaced out tripping techno!
Classic unpredictable SW. goodness straight outta SUED: Detroit hitek soul & UK broken beat vibes meet subtle swinging & warm sounding lo-fi house. Artist Info: - SW. is one of the heads behind SUED records - his album from 2017 got voted by Rolling Stone Magazine to the top 20 electronic music albums of the year - this year he is releasing also on Kimochi and a famous label from Salzburg - his past remixes were on Kimochi, Acid Test, Klasse Wrecks, Bright Sounds, and Kalahari Oyster Kult

3x12"


We're celebrating our 30th release and we have done it in a big way, gathering a handful of like-minded friends, close and far!. This triple vinyl album contains a selection of 12 catalog tracks, receiving free and stunning treatment from masterminds like Venetian Snares, Samuel Kerridge, OM Unit, DgoHn, Plaid, Etapp Kyle, Dwaallicht (WISP), Humanoid (FSOL), EOD, Konx-Om-Pax, Radioactive Man and Anthony Baldino. Not many words are needed except this powerful release expands the AF sound palette from different approaches, making it, undoubtedly, in one of our essential records of the year. Packed in gatefold deluxe sleeve designed by Geometric Love studio.

Like the Grass documents and reimagines a warm summer's evening in Basel, Switzerland, in June 2018. Four musicians convened: Johannesburg composer and bow expert Cara Stacey, South African violinist and composer Galina Juritz, German harp player Antonia Ravens and Swiss guitarist and sonic explorer Beat Keller.

Together they improvised using a graphic score titled "Luhlata njengetjani" ("Green like the grass" in the southern African Siswati language), inspired by the rivers of eSwatini, blackbirds in the parks of Basel and the evocative, red-flowered umcinci or erythrina tree. The South African umrhubhe mouthbow's dense harmonics folded around skittering, fractal violin loops; temperate swells of guitar were punctuated by agitated harp pings and the hearty thuds of Ugandan and Mozambican lamellophones.

This joyous, unfettered outpouring criss-crossed between southern Africa and Europe, forwards and backwards, for the following two years. The fruits were unpicked and rewoven into new mosaics by Cara, Galina, and two of our favourite recording artists, Object Agency and Hello Skinny.

Recorded as part of Cara Stacey's studio residency in Basel, Switzerland, supported by ProHelvetia Johannesburg.

The Evolutionary Process Of Metaphor Records Has Minimally Modified A Perfectly Defined And Structured Development, Its Genetic Inheritance Is Evident From Minute Zero With An Iron Personality Thanks To A Compact, Particular And Invariable Style, Although With This Sixth Installment It Suffers A First Migration To The Physical Support, A Single Exchange That Does Not Differ In Anything With Its Artistic Tendency And Its Initial Approach.

Lars Huismann Is The Last Link Of The Biological Transfer That Emerged In The Preliminary Steps Of Metaphor Records, And The First Commitment Of The Record Company To Inaugurate The Division Dedicated To Vinyl Format. The German Producer Is Perfectly Integrated Into The Dna Of The Label With An Industrial Reference That Emphasizes The Great Control Of This Artist To Create An Infinity Of Harmonic Lines, And Above All, Exuberant Percussions.

Francois X presents Irregular Passion Reshape, a 12 track LP that re-works his album of the same name, due for release in November on Demented XXX. The original full length LP, released in 2018 explored themes of euphoria and melancholy. Entertaining the listener with sensual atmospheres and unpredictable fervour, all designed to mirror the emotions and intensities of nightlife. With Blade Runner-esque soundscapes and bassy club tracks, Francois X played with a variety of genres and references, holding the piece together with cinematic and hedonistic atmospheres. Francois X has invited an accomplished list of friends and artists, both established and newcomers, to re- imagine the album tracks for Irregular Passion Reshape, building a community of like-minded producers that boldy represent what XXX is all about. From Bjarki's frenzied IDM exploration of breaks and golden era dubstep on 'Blurry Youth', to Anthony Linell aka Abdullah Rashim's experimental reshape of 'Down Under'. The collection marks a beautiful transmigration of the original work, embodying the diversity and myriad influences in Francois' own music. 'I wanted a complete rework of my album, containing a wide range of musical directions. A good representation of what XXX is all about. The important thing for me was to have some real transformations on my original material, in a way its a complete new album.'

Amnesia Scanner announces Tearless, the Berlin-based duo’s second LP. As Amnesia Scanner founders, Ville Haimala and Martti Kalliala watch their icy home country of Finland thaw, the staggering scale of political recalibration and the worldwide climate crisis to come blows open old norms. This album reflects what it feels to experience Earth at a time when collapse is emerging as the prevailing narrative.


The musical scope of the record is expansive, with guest vocalists—the Peruvian artist Lalita and the Brazillian DJ/producer LYZZA—descending into a vast uncanny valley of sound. Tearless follows the 2014 AS Live [][] mixtape, 2015 audio play Angels Rig Hook, two EP’s for Young Turks, and their 2018 debut album, Another Life (PAN).



“There’s a looming sense of radical change,” they note, connecting the present to a fin de siecle horror and curiosity regarding what new world is being ushered in. Someone called Tearless a “breakup album with the planet.” To which Amnesia Scanner responds, on the LP’s closing track: “Youwill be fine, if we can help you lose your mind.”


With the crossfader on Tearless sitting closer to pop than abstraction, so too does the audience for this record widen in scope. Listening through: Opener “AS Enter” sets a sombre tone until the fucking riffs of the second track(the titular, Lalita-helmed “Tearless”) make clear there’s plenty of roaring to come. A feature from metalcore band Code Orange on “AS Flat” follows, along with “AS Trouble” (feat. Oracle, the third, machinic ghost-member of Amnesia Scanner) and together they hit as black-metal-gaze dirges. At the album’s midpoint, Lalita returns for the beautiful, operatic breakdown of “AS Acá” (released as a single in 2019), before “Call of the Center” guides listeners through three club ready tracks—the grain-processed dembow of “AS Too Late” and “AS Going” with LYZZA, and then the ambientheadbanger “AS Labyrinth.” Closing “Tearless” is the sadboy grunge of “AS U Will Be Fine” with a clear statement of intent: doom, despair, insanity, absurdity, it’s all natural, all cathartic, and all OK. Refuse like the ‘90s and party like the ‘20s—if that seems senseless, you are doing it right.

For over a decade, Max Ravitz has been obsessively working in his home studio, crafting electronic music under various guises. His primary solo project, Patricia, has been a mainstay in New York's DIY electronic music scene, with releases on labels such as Opal Tapes, Nona, and Ghoslty's Spectral Sound imprint. Over the course of 10 songs, Maxyboy presents a more varied stylistic approach than past Patricia releases, shifting away from some of the `lo-fi' sounds he's known for. With clear nods to electro, acid, IDM, and techno, Maxyboy puts on display Ravitz's eclectic range of influence-- from collaborators and contemporaries, to classic innovators alike. Titled after his family's childhood nickname for him, Maxyboy serves as a window to Ravitz' range of musical interests. "Myokymia," "Downlink" and "Crushed Velvet" highlight Ravitz's penchant for intricate drum programming; while album closer Ctenophora hints towards his drumless sensibilities. Ranging from driving and somatic ("Dripping," "Turtle Funk"), to ambient ("Julia Set") to acid ("Dew Point," "Dr. Oetker's Ristorante"), each song carries an evocative, questioning quality-- something any listener can enhance for themselves by closing the eyes and letting the sounds course through.

Over the years, American composer Rafael Anton Irisarrihas become ubiquitous within the spheres of ambient, drone and electronic music. Whether it’s through Irisarri’scelestial long-form albums or his lauded audio engineering credentials for countless artists and labels, Irisarri’s consistent dedication to his craft never wavers from the forefront.

While Irisarri’s compositions typically field an array of modern ambient overtones threaded through oceanic symphonies with tape loops, bowed electric guitar and vast washes of overdriven sound, his recent debut album for Dais Records, Peripeteia, portray these common themes giving way to metal and classical influences that emphasizes Irisarri’s melancholic tendencies. These unique overtures, coupled with his signature layering of distortion and bleached-out textures, fabricate an audible environment that would seemingly be at oddswith, yet gracefullycomplementeach other. In Irisarri’s own words, “My previous works internalize any exterior forces or circumstances, while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that approach, focusing on the personal in order to tell a wider human story.”

The emotional depth found throughout Peripeteia is impeccably on display with the track, Mellified. A collaboration with Spanish composer Yamila, the choral arrangements bring to mind the sacred music of Arvo Pärt, while her voice combines the Andalusian “Cante jondo” style with medieval modes, almost drowning in layers of octave fuzz distortion and dystopian synths patterns. On Arduous Clarity, the bright arpeggiating melody that churns throughout, offers the initial glimmer of optimism in an otherwise decaying tale of personal turmoil. This encouraging glimpse is short lived however, as the song Refuge/Refuseseemingly plummets into the mourning depths of somber despair. A chorus of voices steadily crawls from its desolate terrain –a sea of broken spirits, eternally resigned to strain and bellow their final lament. Fright and Control, a piece which is equally soul churning, seems to possess a satisfying resolve, as if after years of searching, one’s very salvation has been laid to rest through the acceptance of mortality and the enlightenment in death. Irisarri’s complexity is utilized to a forcible success, slowly pulsing throughout the foreground of his audience, further emphasizing the impending dread of resolve.

Artist statement: "Peripeteia is about the last few years, sudden reversals in fortune, illness, and comforting mortality. These sudden changes in personal life mirrors the sociopolitical transformations happening at a larger global scale in countries all over the world. Previous Irisarri works internalize exterior forces/circumstances while trying to make sense of the world. Peripeteia reverses that narrative, focusing on the personal to tell a wider human story."

The things we love will one day disappear - first slow and then so quick. Born from the slow burning affirmation of the things we hold and they're dissolving nature as every day gets shorter. We are the collective.

All music written, produced, recorded & mixed by Drew Sullivan.

Reemerging from the threshold of the cosmic vortex, Black Lodge returns with another sonic artifact that is charged with vigorous chaotic energy, known as EXPERIMENT_ZERO. Accounts of the radiant object's origin are as mysterious as the raw energy that utters from its core. Following a close study, the guardians of the portal suspect that "Experiment Zero" was a primordial experiment rooted in the slam jack pits and DIY warehouse rituals of ages passed. A sonic dialog constructed of various languages, spanning from roots-house jak to bare-knuckled electro are revealed across the artifact - a revolutionary tale that surpasses the constructs of ephemerality, with a refusal to be ignored. Across the release the listener is confronted with fearless acid lines that are underscored by a tone of revolution, and sets the stage for a human voice that switches between modes of a sharp and mutated presence. The power of such sonic objects are both celebrated and rejected by various tribal societies. It is all dependent on the belief structures and traditional histories of its members. Those that belong to the cult of Ron Hardy, Mad Mike Banks, Traxx, and JTC will welcomingly be drenched in its riotous energies. It is for the dedicated, not the light-hearted. After further research it has been discovered that, Experiment Zero is the product of Dona, aka Dj Plant Texture and Mike Tansella Jr. of Son of Traders, both products of the ancient mercantile city of Bari in Southern Italy. Previous works from these artists have been featured on Creme Organization, Gravitational Waves, Unknown to Unknown, and Illian Tapes. All sonic experimentation was recorded in one take to capture the raw energy of instantaneous collaborative sound craft operating in flux. Black Lodge's 4th release is sure to find a space in the music collections of those seeking to travel within the uncanny portals that unforgivingly defy the status quo. Mastered by: Alex J Michalski Label design: Kosmik Pressing: Deepgrooves (NL)

Bunker 4016: Starting off this myriad of dream worlds with 'I wanna dance with you', perhaps the real new divine Donna Summer meets lady boy Marc Almond in a superhot-mixed new wave 80's electronic dance and supersoulseventies disco freak gospel orgasm? Plus some more funky dark whipping beats, add to all this some intense tragic portuguese poetry crying out all the pain and the love of creation, then finished off by the most self-destructive occult arcane darknesse of heavy electro bass industrial nightmare noise of 'mystic derwish or Shiva Sadhu drug-overkill dance' tracks, bringing, no, submitting and delivering all way out of the modern fake reality, yes, back to the cosmic source of all!

Two Detroit labels meet for a special compilation: Explorations in electro, 80's wave and sounds pressed on clear vinyl.

Multidisciplinary NYC artist Gavilán Rayna Russom launches her own label Voluminous Arts, dedicated to highlight electronic and experimental artists whose work challenges fixed categories of genre and categorization. Her aim is to create a platform for multidisciplinary work and events. The inaugural release being her second solo album as Gavilán Rayna Russom 'Secret Passage', following up last years 'The Envoy, an homage to the East Side Rail Tunnel in Providence, Rhode Island, and the friendships she made there.

In Rayna’s words:
“I grew up in Providence, Rhode Island in the 1970’s and 80’s. The booming jewelry and textile industries of the previous decades had pulled out by that point. The Italian mob ran most details of the day to day operations of the city. As kids coming up in that environment, before the internet, me and the people I hung out with didn’t know anything else and we worked with what we had to entertain ourselves. We found places that had been forgotten by market interests and made them spaces of creative community building. One of the most special of these places was the East Side Rail Tunnel. Running for almost exactly one mile beneath the city’s streets, the tunnel and nearby Crook Point Bridge were unsupervised autonomous zones where I tasted the possibilities of a world without surveilance. The tunnel was particularly important in my creative development because not only was it a marginal zone apart from monetized spaces of creative consumption, but it also had specific experiential properties. It had a bend in it which meant that when you got to the middle of it you were in complete darkness, and I learned quickly that when you spend enough time in complete darkness you start to hallucinate, which I liked. The acoustics were also remarkable; long natural delays and harmonic-reinforcing reverberances. Making any sound in there added layers of acoustic effects which made noises physical and fluid and, combined with the complete darkness, absolutely dissolved boundaries between internal and external experience. I started hanging out there when I was 14 and continued to return there regularly until development, gentrification and policing eventually made it inaccessible. By the mid ‘90s it was sealed off with progressively more impenetrable barriers. Nowadays it looks very different. This music is about some of the significant experiences I had in this beautifully neglected place and the people I had them with.”

SWIMS returns with their third release since last summer’s romance with London’s Kit Records which spawned two beautiful albums by Romeo Poirier and Electric Capablanca.

Leaving behind the soothing natural landscapes of the previous releases, Finomehanika is an intricate 42-minute machinist journey combining the frayed melancholia of Vladislav Delay’s recently reissued Multila, with the strangely real-sounding yet otherworldly mechanics of Autechre in their Confield era. However, Finomehanika sounds thoroughly unique. It makes heavy use of the piano and field recordings for depth and ambience. The line between synthesized sound and manipulated recordings blur to a point where one becomes the other. The often subtle use of field recordings prevents us from drifting too far into the abstract, keeping us grounded in a fragmented, confusing but familiar environment.

Finomehanika is Robert’s first solo release in 20 years since 2000’s Albumski on Phthalo. The sleeve was designed by Michael Tan known for his previous work with artists such as Blanck Mass and Dopplereffekt. The album features on piano Robert’s brother Miro, better known for his releases as Qwerty. The brothers also recently collaborated on 2019 album Na Vrućem Krovu by Robert’s art-pop band Marinada.

Mika Vainio about Tetra album: "This is how it sounds when bacteria sours milk to acid".

The first solo album of entirely new material in more than 15 years from DENNIS YOUNG (founding member of LIQUID LIQUID). This collection of instrumental pieces may surprise those familiar with his previous projects as it charts a new direction in his career. 12 tracks. Pressing of 300.

MANSUR is the newly initiated project by Jason Kohnen (ex-The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, ex-The Mount Fuji Doomjazz Corporation) joined by Dimitry El-Demerdashi (ex-Phurpa) and introducing Martina Hórvath on vocals. The sound of MANSUR navigates between the waters of musical fantasy and reality - it morphs and blends traditional instrumentation with modern day electronica.

Using kalimba, violin, cello, ney, erhu, zhonghu, jinhu, kemenche, dilruba, bansuri, rammerdam, double bass and various percussive instruments such as cajon, castanets, krotal and various organic shakers and drums MANSUR leads the listener into mystical and magical unknowns, that lie far past the realms of material perception. The result is a new unique sound which is at the same time warm, dark, misty, cosmic, mystical, cinematic and dynamic. It's an escapist journey.

MANSUR are starting this trip with the five-piece debut record called "Temple" followed by the debut album "Karma" in late 2020.

The globe-trotting Robert Millis returns to Helen Scarsdale for this beautifully fragile album of dissolved glass rendered as a collage of recontextualized minimalism. To astute listeners, Millis should be a household name due to his work in the unpredictably diverse Climax Golden Twins as well as his impeccable curations for Sublime Frequencies (collections include the Deben Bhattacharya: Men and Music on the Desert Road and Indian Talking Machine books). Hie previous solo work include Relief (released here on The Helen Scarsdale Agency in 2013) and The Lonesome High for the Sun City Girls’ Abduction Records in 2016. His scholarship into the hidden corners of music across the world has also earned him Guggenheim and Fulbright fellowships.

Related Ephemera is an album composed mostly from the hiss, the crackle, the surface noise of 78rpm shellacs and wax cylinders. “Horrifying,” Millis explains “is the concept to record collectors that vinyl degrades and can be easily damaged. however, initially records were considered ephemeral, especially 78rpm records. They were novelties. Fleeting. Entertainment.” Millis intends for the album to be a feedback loop whereby the patina of handling, playing, living with the record will circle back to the original source material. Furthering that metaphor, Millis amplifies and dilates feedback tones generated from his collection of vintage gramophones.

That said, Millis does cite the intrusion of exactly one field recording, a broken toy, and a few notes from a cello. But the construction of these rarified tones, crispy textures, ghostly rattles, and fluid resonance that ripples through all of Related Ephemera has its origins in the tactile nature of the vinyl medium. It’s hardly the stuff of sentimental nostalgia though. Related Ephemera is more an act of time travel, slipping backwards and forwards with the scratch of a needle (Watch out! What pre-recorded needle jump sound is not your turntable going haywire!). The emotional core to the album is that of a resigned melancholy, almost Bergman-esque in its starkness but not without a brief moment of dark humor.

Here is an album that aligns itself aesthetically with Nurse With Wound’s Soliloquy For Lilith, Philip Jeck’s more languid collages, and even some of Harry Bertoia’s sculptural atmospherics.

The vinyl was mastered and cut by Helmut Ehler at D&M Berlin, whose expertise was necessary given that part of the original compositions from Millis’ reworked surface noise were exceedingly problematic to cut. The D&M cut does temper the composition into a mysterious, diaphanous cloud; where the digital-only mastering provides a cascade of insects gnawing within your inner ear. Two facets. One piece of music.

Legendary UK graff writer and beatmaker REQ returns to vinyl for the first time in almost 20 years since his Warp and Skint releases. Classic b-boy break manipulation and scuffed electronics are infused here with all the mischief of Smudge's influence on his work in their ongoing creative collaboration. Sure fire remixes from The Fear Ratio (aka Mark Broom & James Ruskin) and rising star and Sneaker Social Club / Moving Shadow signee ETCH, who some many know is the nephew of JAS who REQ painted with in Brighton's TDK crew in the 90s… as JB said: "Bring on the juice".

Following his critically acclaimed 2017 debut album Apeiron, enigmatic artist Noumen, aka Andriy Vezdenko, returns to CPU with his second album 'Obscurium'.

Vezdenko demonstrates mastery in the studio again with his signature melodic, uneasy and challenging rhythms. Obscurium travels down a path seldom trod in experimental electronic music; thoroughly enjoyable and brimming with musicality.

Quintessential abstract electronics.

If you like Autechre's LP5 or Jega's Geometry you will love this.