Suche:perception

Her Shadow offers dreamy pop music with moonlight melodies, heavenly hooks and Lynchian twists. The ethereal soundscapes come to life in a dream noir universe oozing with catchy choruses, Morricone motifs and vintage sounds interweave with state of the art production. The birth of Her Shadow was inevitable. Old friends, guitarist-songwriter Tomi Henttunen (Royal Lips) and keyboardist-lyricist (Kuolemanlaakso) had a versatile but very different background in making music but a shared obsession with Twin Peaks and Lana Del Rey. The original idea in 2016 was to combine the best of both worlds, and spice up the mix with film noir and dream-like elements – to make music that they love, but had never done before. They recruited the enigmatic singer Anna Carolina (Royal Lips), drummer extraordinaire Toni Ronkainen (Kuolemanlaakso) and producer-engineer Jaani Peuhu (Swallow the Sun, Lord of the Lost etc.), and recorded a four-song demo. They instantly got signed to Svart Records, and started working on their debut album. After five long years of hard work, it is finally ready to be released upon the world. As they say, good things come to those who wait: The Ghost Love Chronicles will be released on November 11, 2022. The album was produced by musical and visual mastermind Henttunen, mixed by Sampsa Väätäinen (Ismo Alanko, Neøv etc.) and mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Paradise Lost, Opeth etc.). The songs range from the mellow Motown mood of Fifth Season to the modern pop banger Kinda Love You, from the Morricone-inspired Vigilante to the nightmarish haunted house thriller What Hides in the Dark and from eerie playfulness of White Lane to ghoulishly beautiful Devil Inside. It remains to see, if The Ghost Love Chronicles will grow into a hit album or a cult classic, but it sure has the potential for both. Slip into something comfortable, open the doors of your perception and enter realm of Her Shadow. HER SHADOW Anna Carolina – lead vocals Tomi Henttunen – guitar, bass, keyboards Markus Laakso – keyboards, backing vocals Toni Ronkainen – drums and percussion Harri Hyvönen – live bass Otto Daavitsainen – live guitar

Her Shadow offers dreamy pop music with moonlight melodies, heavenly hooks and Lynchian twists. The ethereal soundscapes come to life in a dream noir universe oozing with catchy choruses, Morricone motifs and vintage sounds interweave with state of the art production. The birth of Her Shadow was inevitable. Old friends, guitarist-songwriter Tomi Henttunen (Royal Lips) and keyboardist-lyricist (Kuolemanlaakso) had a versatile but very different background in making music but a shared obsession with Twin Peaks and Lana Del Rey. The original idea in 2016 was to combine the best of both worlds, and spice up the mix with film noir and dream-like elements – to make music that they love, but had never done before. They recruited the enigmatic singer Anna Carolina (Royal Lips), drummer extraordinaire Toni Ronkainen (Kuolemanlaakso) and producer-engineer Jaani Peuhu (Swallow the Sun, Lord of the Lost etc.), and recorded a four-song demo. They instantly got signed to Svart Records, and started working on their debut album. After five long years of hard work, it is finally ready to be released upon the world. As they say, good things come to those who wait: The Ghost Love Chronicles will be released on November 11, 2022. The album was produced by musical and visual mastermind Henttunen, mixed by Sampsa Väätäinen (Ismo Alanko, Neøv etc.) and mastered by Jaime Gomez Arellano (Ghost, Paradise Lost, Opeth etc.). The songs range from the mellow Motown mood of Fifth Season to the modern pop banger Kinda Love You, from the Morricone-inspired Vigilante to the nightmarish haunted house thriller What Hides in the Dark and from eerie playfulness of White Lane to ghoulishly beautiful Devil Inside. It remains to see, if The Ghost Love Chronicles will grow into a hit album or a cult classic, but it sure has the potential for both. Slip into something comfortable, open the doors of your perception and enter realm of Her Shadow. HER SHADOW Anna Carolina – lead vocals Tomi Henttunen – guitar, bass, keyboards Markus Laakso – keyboards, backing vocals Toni Ronkainen – drums and percussion Harri Hyvönen – live bass Otto Daavitsainen – live guitar

"Most of this record was created in the shadow of COVID and deep in the maw of Melbourne’s 2020 long winter lockdown. It is a meditation on the nature of connection.

Restricted to a 5km zone, one of the only people I saw outside my family during this time was my old friend and teacher, Ania Walwicz. We met in the overlap between our zones on the waterfront near Docklands to walk and talk on bright, cool winter afternoons. Those conversations became large in my thoughts when Ania suddenly passed away in September. Her voice was in my head as I worked on this music, trawling through threads of ideas, recordings made on my phone, and thoughts jotted down in notebooks.

Ania’s practice as a writer relied on ‘automatic’ processes. Her work was informed by everything she had read (a lot) but it was created in the manner of dreams. In a state where the subconscious might bubble up and the words arrange themselves into meaning bearing forms that resonate more than represent. I thought a lot about that as I made this music. I recorded everyday using the trumpet, my old Revox reel-to-reel, a couple of synths, a harmonium I lent from a friend, and whatever else was around. I worked mostly on just diving a little deeper each time I sat down to it.

Through the simple process of exhalation, I explored my relationship with the trumpet, which has been through so many twists and turns. I let the tones produced by my breath unfurl on long tape loops and degrade beyond recognition through pedal and plugin chains, until the only imprint of the initial gesture remained.

My process also involved long bike rides during which I’d listen to the work of previous days on ear buds, gliding through familiar streets made slightly strange by the absence of people and movement. Often my rides took me along Footscray Rd next to the port, and as I washed down towards Docklands past the old boat moorings I stopped pedalling to coast. The sounds from my darkened studio mingled with the low rush of air past my helmet, the click and whirr of my bike gears, a squalling bird, a whooshing car. And I remembered my last conversation with Ania. Sitting in the late afternoon sun, squinting against the light that raked across the water, she was telling me about all the different words for they have for blue in Polish and Russian, and how words don’t just change our perception of things, but also actually change the thing being perceived.

As I rode home that afternoon, I felt like anything was possible. "

Peter Knight

Brilliantly unclassifiable ambient midi-jazz salvo from Brazil’s Gabriel Guerra aka Guerrinha - member of PAN/Future Times' Lifted ensemble and lynchpin of the Rio De Janeiro underground. Very highly recommended noir sleaze x fantasy lounge music somewhere on the spectrum between Gigi Masin, Spencer Clark, 0PN, Flanger and Koji Kondo’s iconic video game soundtracks.

Deployed as the third release on the expertly curated confuso editions, ‘Cidade Grande’ sees Guerra unfurl an immersive and deeply enveloping variant of lounge jazz noir intersecting Japanese city pop, classic video game soundtracks and future-primitive kosmische signatures in a way that defies easy categorisation. Guerrinha colours outside the lines in swirling, exquisitely trippy designs that are as easy on the ears are they are hard to fully fathom over a single sitting.

Mirroring a strain of jazz music’s evolution from sophisticate lounge soundtrack to more psychedelic lustre when musicians found acid and Brazilian styles in the ‘60s, Guerrinha slants the paradigm thru the prism of late ‘80s midi with a c.21st suss that coolly echoes hauntological takes from Spencer Clark & James Ferraro to Leyland Kirby, and Eli Keszler’s electro-acoustic jazz proprioceptions, as much as emotive Kenji Kawai soundtracks. There's a complete lack of cynicism in his approach, and dense, hypnotic tracks like 'Venda Casada Village' and the moving 'Kafta Hoje' sound so completely straight-faced it's impossible not to respect the flex.

It’s a hugely trippy listen, at once calming and eerily evocative, with a wipe-clean palette of deft midi orchestrations that conjure flashbacks to soundtracks for everything from Twin Peaks to Sharky & George or Patlabor, but with more opalescent depth, dancing around motifs in holographic designs that mark the uncanny valley of perception.

Black & Opaque Silver vinyl. ZZK Records Presents Uji's TIMEBEING. A prehistoric tribe dances around the fire. Young revelers lose themselves on a packed dancefloor. Explorers fly a rocket toward another galaxy. In the TIMEBEING universe, these things are all connected. From the earliest days of humanity, people have strived to expand their reality beyond the limitations of the here and now and have used technology to make it happen. Their methods and machines may have changed across the centuries, but the drive remains constant, vibrating through history and occupying a space where time loses all meaning. "The art of making music is the art of manipulating time," says Uji. "I have had experiences where time shifts dramatically; sometimes it slows down to a halt, while moments seemingly become infinite. This is where the magic happens. This is when the fabric of what we call reality begins to show its seams." An Argentinian electronic producer and ethnomusicologist, Uji has been navigating those seams for more than two decades, initially as one half of the pioneering duo Lulacruza, but more recently with his own solo work. TIMEBEING continues that lineage, but also elevates it, taking shape as a interdisciplinary multimedia journey that includes a new album, an accompanying short film, an immersive live show and the birth of a new decentralized community of like-minded artists, creators, seekers, and dreamers. Mesmerizing and deeply psychedelic, the TIMEBEING LP certainly reflects the rich sound palette of Latin America and its intersection with various strains of electronic music but Uji taps into traditions both musical and spiritual that can't be hemmed in by borders and boundaries. Transcendence is the goal, and the album moves through fantastical spaces that may or may not exist: a metallic jungle, a Balkan spaceship, a cloud that morphs into a tumultuous whirlpool. All the while, Uji criss-crosses history, consulting elders and futurists alike as he throws open the doors of perception and pens a new mythology about what it means to be human. Some of that mythology takes shape in the TIMEBEING film. Written by Uji himself, the eight-part opus has been brought to life by Jazmin Calcarami, who makes her directorial debut following years of working as an experimental make-up artist with the likes of Björk and Cirque de Soleil. On stage, the transportive TIMEBEING live show is set to premiere at the Artlab Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, where it will be debuted as a part of a weekly residency this spring. More than just a concert, it's a dazzling theatrical experience, complete with dancers, costume changes, arresting visuals and even an on-stage "ship" (shaped like mollusk) where Uji himself will perform. "What we see on the surface, is only that the surface," says Uji. "There is so much more. Music is the bridge and the possibilities are limitless." Track listing: 1. Mito 2. Oropo 3. Truenatruena 4. QuemaQuema (feat. Nyaruach) 5. Kinto 6. Lunay (feat. Zola Dubnikova) 7. Flechas 8. Sirios (feat. Kristine Barrett)

'Transplant Rejection’ is the second in a trilogy of cassette albums released via Muscut in the latter half of 2022. The work of Estonian artist and IDA Radio co-founder Robert Nikolajev, this collection of seven ‘almost’ dark ambient tracks embody the melancholy of autumn whilst hinting at the forthcoming eternal winter. A man with many hats, Nikolajev operates on the fringes of the leftfield house underground for labels such as Incienso, Collect-Call and Sad Fun as well as being one half of the sporadic DIMA DISK act with Ragnar Rahouja. Eschewing the more rhythmic side of his productions for this Muscut tape, Nikolajev taps into the fictional soundtrack atmospheres the label is known for and brings his own brand of wistful, introspective world-building by way of machine harmony to the now Tallinn based imprint.



There’s a lo-fi, grainy quality running throughout the collection, a kind of sepia-toned nostalgia that envelops the listener and disorientates any perception of time or place. Buried vocal fragments sit in the mix on ‘Stifled’ alongside decaying synthesiser drones whilst ‘DDM’ channels an edgy post-rock dirge with its use of sagged bass guitar. Overall, an inspired look into the more ‘at home’ side of this increasingly prolific Estonian artist.

Third time's the charm - here comes the third vinyl release of TDS Records. The label's original artists formed a two-person formation under the name: Z1B2. ZOL and n-2b together wrote three tracks, commemorating their subjective perception of the last years, sublimating life into ambient technodub melodies. All three tacks are examples of sentimental minimalism, with a simple techno groove. The fourth track is a closing remix by krisz deak which delivers a very optimistic vibe that will make your feet move.

Time and duration are core themes in the work of both William Basinski and Janek Schaefer, and this long-distance collaboration took a suitably long gestation of eight years from start to finish. In that time, our collective perception of time has at times become disorienting. " . . . on reflection " remodels that instability as an exquisite work of art - one that is unmoored by time or space. Limitation breeds creativity, revealed as an expression of minimalism and close focus. Deploying a delicate piano passage from their collective archive, Basinski and Schaefer weave and reweave in numerous ways, forging an iridescent flurry of flickering melodies. The sounds of various birds heard from late night windows on tour can occasionally be heard throughout, ricocheting off mirrored facades, reflecting on themselves as they continually reshape their own environments with song. " . . . on reflection " looks backwards, a bustling revelry of positive emotions heard through the aging mirrors of memory. It is a celebratory meditation where sound shimmers through time like the light of the sea's waves glistening as it folds and unfolds upon itself. Created 2014-2022 between L.A. & London. Mixed at Narnia, Walton-on-Thames. For Harold Budd.

Produced by Laurel Halo and released via Norway's respected Smalltown Supersound label, Anja Lauvdal's first solo release, From a Story Now Lost, is a gorgeous musical essay reflecting on time, its perception, and lost histories rediscovered. Finally exploring her own voice after more than a decade of collaborative improvisational playing - starting at her time in jazz conservatory in Trondheim - the album is a jewel of subtle beauty and innovative detail. A freeform musician on piano, synthesizers, and electronics, Lauvdal's discography stretches back to 2013 and includes her participation in a myriad of ensembles and collaborations exploring the limits of sound and music in many forms, including noise, jazz, and more. Following her move to Oslo after graduation, she became deeply embedded in the music community there, touring with Jenny Hval as well as playing on her records. When pandemic hit and isolation was the norm, Lauvdal began working on her own, recording her improvisations in an attempt to capture something new for herself. Connecting to Laurel Halo via Smalltown's founder Joakim Haugland, the acclaimed American artist agreed to work with Lauvdal in shaping her solo record, becoming integral to its creation through all of its stages. Lauvdal credits Halo as a deep listener and gentle "thought-provoker", who contributed ideas as well as helping to shape the finished versions (Halo also worked alongside Rashad Becker on the final mix of the album). Together, they found a method of recording Lauvdal's improvisations, making small loops from those, feeding them back into the synthesizers, and making synthesizers out of the improvisations, which Lauvdal would then re-improvise with. She describes the end result, "like seeing different pieces of time around in the universe." While the record is based on Lauvdal's improvisations, some tracks were inspired Agathe Backer Grondahl, a Norwegian classical pianist and composer from the latter half of the 19th century. Lauvdal notes that Grondahl is not widely known, although her best friend Edvard Grieg is still considered Norway's most famous composer. Yet now, partly through Lauvdal, her story resurfaces and persists. "From a Story Now Lost means the story is still there," Lauvdal explains. "It hasn't gone anywhere even though nobody heard it, or maybe you're hearing it for the first time. And actually it was told a long time ago - maybe you weren't ready to hear that story at the time." This hints at the limitless nature of her music, as well as its new emotional texture. Direct in its vulnerability, immediate in its tenderness, From a Story Now Lost is a sophisticated evocation over restrained artistry spilling over with meaning.

repressed !


Wareika invite us to their „Harmonie Park“, a place created by the love of improvisation. At the park, poles have shifted already! Florian Schirmacher, Jakob Seidensticker and Henrik Raabe, all full-time musicians, tuned their instruments to introduce us to this parallel universe. It.s about the various possible perceptions of one single moment. Loops and sequences, subjected to virtual tempo changes, without leaving the Bpm scale. In the park, everything is always in the flow. Jazz / Techno / Funk / House, all elements that appear / dissapear throughout the composition. Wareika manage to bring all this together effortlessly, without even thinking in those categories. The deeper you get into the park, the more you get absorbed by the dynamics of interlaced, polyrhythmic modulations. Luckily the groove acts like the park ranger, showing you around while
taking care no one gets lost in hypnotic structures waiting on the way. At the end, this pulsating soundcluster leads into the great river named bassline, leaving us quite harmonized..... !! This release comes in a special format !! We made „Harmonie Park“ available in 4 parts on 2x12“ Vinyl

A prehistoric tribe dances around the fire. Young revelers lose themselves on a packed dancefloor. Explorers fly a rocket toward another galaxy. In the TIMEBEING universe, these things are all connected. From the earliest days of humanity, people have strived to expand their reality beyond the limitations of the here and now_and have used technology to make it happen. Their methods and machines may have changed across the centuries, but the drive remains constant, vibrating through history and occupying a space where time loses all meaning. "The art of making music is the art of manipulating time," says Uji. "I have had experiences where time shifts dramatically; sometimes it slows down to a halt, while moments seemingly become infinite. This is where the magic happens. This is when the fabric of what we call reality begins to show its seams." An Argentintian electronic producer and ethnomusicologist, Uji has been navigating those seams for more than two decades, initially as one half of the pioneering duo Lulacruza, but more recently with his own solo work. TIMEBEING continues that lineage, but also elevates it, taking shape as a interdisciplinary multimedia journey that includes a new album, an accompanying short film, an immersive live show and the birth of a new decentralized community of like-minded artists, creators, seekers, and dreamers. Mesmerizing and deeply psychedelic, the TIMEBEING LP certainly reflects the rich sound palette of Latin America_and its intersection with various strains of electronic music_but Uji taps into traditions_both musical and spiritual_that can't be hemmed in by borders and boundaries. Transcendence is the goal, and the album moves through fantastical spaces that may or may not exist: a metallic jungle, a Balkan spaceship, a cloud that morphs into a tumultuous whirlpool. All the while, Uji criss-crosses history, consulting elders and futurists alike as he throws open the doors of perception and pens a new mythology about what it means to be human. FOR FANS OF: Floating Points, Four Tet, Oneohtrix Point Never, Actress, Nicola Cruz, Dengue Dengue Dengue, Nicolas Jaar, Mount Kimbie, Mucho Indio.

Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She's lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she's funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians. Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they'd continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created Inner World Peace, a collection of Greta's songs changed and sculpted by their time together. While Kline's musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she'd loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite "droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality," as well as "'70s folk and pop" as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their "ambient" or "psych" album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline's penchant for concise pop, Inner World Peace finds its balance. The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn's Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC's aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine. The mood board for "Magnetic Personality" has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with "K.O." in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says "Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files." On tracks like "F.O.O.F." (Freak Out On Friday), "Fragments" and "Aftershook," the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy. An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don't miss. When on Inner World Peace they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they're coming deeper into their own. Inner World Peace excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering "Empty Head" Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline's point of view. Says Greta, "To me, the album is about perception. It's about the question of "who am I?" and whether or not the answer matters. It's about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don't leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?" - Katie Von Schleicher

Several things happened before a warm day when I met the four members of Frankie Cosmos in a Brooklyn studio to begin making their album. Greta Kline spent a few years living with her family and writing a mere 100 songs, turning her empathy anywhere from the navel to the moon, rendering it all warm, close and reflexively humorous. In music, everyone loves a teen sensation, but Kline has never been more fascinating than now, a decade into being one of the most prolific songwriters of her generation. She's lodged in my mind amongst authors, other observational alchemists like Rachel Cusk or Sheila Heti, but she's funnier, which is a charm endemic to musicians. Meanwhile Frankie Cosmos, a rare, dwindling democratic entity called a band, had been on pandemic hiatus with no idea if they'd continue. In the openness of that uncertainty they met up, planning to hang out and play music together for the first time in nearly 500 days. There, whittling down the multitude of music to work with, they created Inner World Peace, a collection of Greta's songs changed and sculpted by their time together. While Kline's musical taste at the time was leaning toward aughts indie rock she'd loved as a teenager, keyboardist Lauren Martin and drummer Luke Pyenson cite "droning, meditation, repetition, clarity and intentionality," as well as "'70s folk and pop" as a reference for how they approached their parts. Bassist/guitarist Alex Bailey says that at the time he referred to it as their "ambient" or "psych" album. Somewhere between those textural elements and Kline's penchant for concise pop, Inner World Peace finds its balance. The first order of business upon setting up camp in Brooklyn's Figure 8 studios was to project giant colorful slides the band had made for each track. Co-producing with Nate Mendelsohn, my Shitty Hits Recording partner, we aimed for FC's aesthetic idiosyncrasies to shine. The mood board for "Magnetic Personality" has a neon green and black checkerboard, a screen capture of the game Street Fighter with "K.O." in fat red letters, and a cover of Mad Magazine that says "Spy Vs. Spy! The Top Secret Files." On tracks like "F.O.O.F." (Freak Out On Friday), "Fragments" and "Aftershook," the group are at their most psychedelic and playful, interjecting fuzz solos, bits of percussion, and other sonically adventurous ear candy. An internal logic strengthens everything, and in their proggiest moments, Frankie Cosmos are simply a one-take band who don't miss. When on Inner World Peace they sound wildly, freshly different, it may just be that they're coming deeper into their own. Inner World Peace excels in passing on the emotions it holds. When in the towering "Empty Head" Kline sings of wanting to let thoughts slide away, her voice is buoyed on a bed of synths and harmonium as tranquility abounds. When her thoughts become hurried and full of desire, so does the band, and she leaps from word to word as if unable to contain them all. As a group, they carry it all deftly, and with constant regard for Kline's point of view. Says Greta, "To me, the album is about perception. It's about the question of "who am I?" and whether or not the answer matters. It's about quantum time, the possibilities of invisible worlds. The album is about finding myself floating in a new context. A teenager again, living with my parents. An adult, choosing to live with my family in an act of love. Time propelled us forward, aged us, and also froze. If you don't leave the house, who are you to the world? Can you take the person you discover there out with you?" - Katie Von Schleicher

Jan Anderzén and his partners celebrate the transcendental power of ecstatic music. Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa is the first Kemialliset Ystävät album in four years. It is the result of chance enhancing online collaboration methods, desire to get lost in the sound archives and the high art of meticulous editing. The album title is from visions of rivers running down from Heart of Darkness to the City of Joyful Noise. If contemporary music is a high speed train passing by then KY's music would be an orgy of light under a railway bridge.

A band member Lars Mattila experiences the music of Alas Rattoisaa Virtaa in spatial terms:

"There are worlds accessed only through our auditory system. I hear a Wunderkammer of freestanding sound objects. Rhythms like sequences of seemingly random stuff laid out on the forest floor: a pair of thrones, a Henry Moore sculpture, a watermelon, two thrones, a Moore sculpture, a melon... I trust the path to go on even if I can't see behind the hill. There's motion, wether it be drunk driving or super human rapid eye movement. The sheer amount of detail makes it impossible to take everything in at once. One's perception and shifting focus reshape the experience on each listen. I remember my visit to Cappella Palatina in Palermo where Normann architecture, Arabic arches and Byzantine dome form a harmonious whole. Various cultural and spiritual influences are recognized as equals. The sense of space also brings to mind the end scene of The Lawnmower Man when the dude is trying to escape the virtual world."

“Final Departure” is the debut album by J-Shadow, a widescreen vision expanding out on an event horizon before us. Built using influences from London’s rich electronic, pirate radio and black music lineages (jungle, grime, hip-hop, electronica etc), the album twists and turns, lifting listeners up towards a more ethereal plane. “I see beauty in the complexity of life from the cosmic scale to the quantum,” he explains. “From all that we can observe, this world stands as a uniquely multifarious sphere in which we just happen to exist.” “I love to take ideas and attempt to conceptualise them into an audible expedition,” he explains. “I find that music serves as an extraordinary medium to project my perception of the universe.” “Sometimes I will reach for certain influences and deconstruct them into an amalgamation of conscious experiences that reflect my vision of how I see the world.”

South-east Turkey born DJ, sound artist and producer Banu uses music as a political tool. For her, the strong message carried through sound is a vehicle to express emotions as well as a means of fighting against oppression. Using participation, social design, ecology, feminist and queer theory to create multimedia installations with sound as a main element, Banu‘s practice is closer to contemporary art and activist spaces than the club realm.

Banu‘s debut album TransSoundScapes is an exercise in female solidarity between her as a migrant woman and her sisters from the trans community, where an artist from one marginalised group is showing support towards her trans sisters, using her platform to help them amplify their voices and building a bridge towards a mutual understanding of femininity.

Conceptually, TransSoundScapes comes in continuation of Banu‘s previous research-based work, using music as a positive tool for change while working with various marginalised communities. The album originated from the very real experience of being confronted with verbal harassment in Berlin on a daily basis, particularly aimed at her transfeminine friends and companions. As a queer woman of Turkish and Kurdish origin, Banu did not only observe the verbal aggression directed at her friends, but also understood most of the insults shouted in languages such as Arabic. Seeing how she got signifi cantly more verbal violence directed at them when in company of trans people made a lasting impression on her, so she wanted to try and use her relative privilege to amplify transfeminine voices through her music.

Coming from a very conservative family, making music has been her lifelong dream. It was the moment she had the opportunity to work with the iconic Arp 2600 synthesiser (a younger sibling to Eliane Radigue‘s infamous 2500 machine) that all her disparate interests came into place to create an empowering soundscape with the aid of analogue drum machines. TransSoundScapes has a very full, porous sound, where every element that comes into play sounds soft yet clear. Across the 7 tracks, Banu conjures pounding subterraneous bassy techno („Surgery“), slithering tentacular EBM („First Time“) and pulsating cavernous soundscapes („Harem“), where oversized dancefl oor elements are woven with poetic spoken word passages, resulting in sensusous yet political anthems. Banu artfully merges loosely related genres such as techno, electro, dub and sound poems into a sound that is at once deeply personal and extremely compelling.

All of the tracks are collaborative efforts, Banu seeing the process as an exchange of care and shared experiences, while integrating research into her writing process. The lyrics in „Transition (part 1+2)‘‘ are an adaptation of Sara Ahmed’s “Living a Feminist Life”, while „Surgery“ was born out of series of interviews with trans people, channeling the metallic sounds of a surgery room to refer to society‘s perception of transness as a medical condition. Tracks like „First Time feat. Patricia“, „Harem feat. Prince Emrah“ or „We feat. Aérea Negrot“ document her encounters with various trans women, centering their life experiences while also developing a deep dialogue through the process of making music together.

The darkest and perhaps the most emblematic track is ‚‘Bianka (In Memory Of)‘‘, dedicated to the late Bianka Shigurova, a 22-year old Georgian actress found dead in her apartment. It was her Tbilisi photographer friend George Nebriedze who told her Bianka‘s tragic story, whose death is suspected to be an assasination due to transphobia. Banu chose one of Nebriedze‘s analogue photos of Bianka as the album‘s cover art.

Unlearn is the long awaited fourth album of DJ and producer 2econd Class Citizen. It marks the artist's return back to the newly relaunched label Equinox Records. Their previous collaborations achieved high acclaim for their genre bending fusion of hip hop, electronica and folk music.

The new album is an exploration of an artist journeying beyond their conventional confines. It is a musical adventure peppered with vintage samples concerning the perception of reality and our struggles with conforming to a broken society.

Unlearn is the most musically accomplished work of 2econd Class Citizen to date. As one would expect the drum programming, scratching and production is on point. Several tracks feature soothingly melodic and energetic passages of jazz saxophone from Leroy Horns and electric guitar riffs provided by long term collaborator Paul Drury.

2econd Class Citizen, real name Aaron Thomason, resides in Brighton, UK. He is also a painter and visual artist fascinated with abstraction and the chaos of mixing colours. His musical approach on the new LP draws many parallels to this creative process. An original painting from the artist forms the albums striking cover.

Equinox Records is run by DJ Scientist in Germany. The Unlearn project marks the 51st release and provides the perfect launch vehicle for the dormant label to rise again. The vinyl release of Unlearn as well as the single Be Together signify the first stops in a release plan which will please fans of the label.

FEEDBACK:

"Woah! It's sounds rad! Really heavy and cinematic!"
Kid Koala

"A dark and deep dive into a world of dense and diced samples and moody muted melodies. Would sit well next to Shadow's freakier forays into fractured funk. Or Format's last psychy LP, for sure."
DJ Moneyshot of The Allergies

"I love it. The new treatments with the additional instruments sound great, especially the horns. Glad to see that Equinox is back in action. Dope cover art."
Dday One

"It sounds like 2econd Class Citizen has been at a mountaintop retreat studying and meditating and came back with some superpowers."
Buddy Peace

Jonathan Fitoussi & Julie Freyri are Model Alpha. 8 years on after their first album Dimensions, Perceptions is the duo's second album and was entirely composed on analog synthesizers.
Model Alpha is inspired by electronic artists such as Kraftwerk, Laurie Spiegel, Manuel Göttsching or early Detroit techno productions. An elegant blend of synthesizers and drum machines including remix by Chloé (Thévenin).

Widely regarded as the poet laureate of the punk era (from his early career fronting the Stranglers to his transition as a solo artist), Hugh Cornwell has built a substantial and singular body of impressive solo albums. His tenth solo opus, Moments of Madness, continues his illustrious output by experimenting with musical genres as his enviable reputation as a wordsmith resounds across this album's songs.

Self-produced, and playing all of the instruments himself, Moments of Madness' ten incredible tracks finds Hugh flexing his musical muscles with a stripped down, offbeat, reverberating sixties vibe ringing from the seductive melodies and lyrically distinctive perceptions that are indelibly stamped with Hugh’s trademark imagination. Vocally and lyrically a career-best, Hugh has never sounded so good on his tenth solo album.

A high watermark and a modern-day masterpiece, Moments of Madness is being tipped as the most significant album of Hugh’s career.

Limited Arctic Moss coloured vinyl LP version. New solo LP from The Stranglers' Hugh Cornwell, Moments of Madness is an album of acute, pithy, and witty observations and social commentary across ten singular songs!

Widely regarded as the poet laureate of the punk era (from his early career fronting the Stranglers to his transition as a solo artist), Hugh Cornwell has built a substantial and singular body of impressive solo albums. His tenth solo opus, Moments of Madness, continues his illustrious output by experimenting with musical genres as his enviable reputation as a wordsmith resounds across this album's songs.

Self-produced, and playing all of the instruments himself, Moments of Madness' ten incredible tracks finds Hugh flexing his musical muscles with a stripped down, offbeat, reverberating sixties vibe ringing from the seductive melodies and lyrically distinctive perceptions that are indelibly stamped with Hugh’s trademark imagination. Vocally and lyrically a career-best, Hugh has never sounded so good on his tenth solo album.

A high watermark and a modern-day masterpiece, Moments of Madness is being tipped as the most significant album of Hugh’s career.

Aurora Records is proud to present asamisimasa's latest album with two
pieces by composer Trond Reinholdtsen – Unsichtbare Musik (Invisible
Music) and SPASTIL (Late Style)
After nearly twenty years of collaboration, this is their first collaborative release.
Reinholdtsen is among Norway's most prominent composers of his generation
and has a significant international position with a long list of commissions on his
resume. asamisimasa has premiered seven works by Reinholdtsen at festivals
such as Donaueschingen, Ultima, Huddersfield, and Darmstadt. Being a prolific
voice within the experimental opera and music theatre scene, Reinholdtsen has
previously only released two works on CD. With this release asamisimasa wishes
to shed a light on his instrumental chamber music. This is the ensemble's fifth
portrait album, their second on Aurora Records. "Unsichtbare Musik" was
commissioned for a concert at the Berliner Philharmonie in 2009, and explores
the relationship between language and music, between words and sonorous
representation. The piece challenges both the act of listening, our perception of
musical sounds, and the attempt to conceptualize musical impressions and
experiences. Composed ten years later,"Spatstil" is based on the semantic
analysis of "Unsichtbare Musik" and the ensemble's performance history with this
work. "SPATSTIL" marks a clear, yet ironic distance from the previous piece
through a dystopian self- criticism. The pieces have a unique sonorous
sophistication and aims to inspire philosophical reflection as well as aesthetic
pleasure. The aim is that the album can contribute to a reflection on music's
conditions today by focusing on the solitary and secluded listening one does at
home.
asamisimasa was founded in 2001 by musicians who shared an interest for
experimental music. Since then the ensemble has won two Spellemann Awards
(2012, 2015) and premiered more than 80 new pieces and toured all over Europe,
USA and Asia.

Black White Splatter Vinyl

When two musicians intensively work together for a period of time, at some point the whole becomes greater than the sum of its parts. If Paul Boex and Dave Miller hadn't already reached that status under their Abstract Division moniker, they certainly have now, with the release of Midnight Ensemble, their first full length album.

Those who have followed the duo since their early days of playing dj-sets together, know that it's hard to define their style anywhere beyond techno or even electronic music, as it is ever evolving and always dependent on the time of the day or night. When listening to this album, the resemblance between their unpredictable selection behind the decks and the eclectic range of subgenres on this album is more obvious than ever before. Midnight Ensemble could be interpreted as an ode to nightlife; a reminiscence of all that happens between dusk and dawn, captured and compressed into about one hour of music. An hour in which they so delicately time their changing of styles and tempos, always reading the room and always being one step ahead of the crowd.

This album is a reflection of that skill, starting its journey with soothing, moodsetting ambient, followed by timeless pieces of Detroit and dubtechno. A daring electro cut providing a refreshing break from the four to the floor tradition, only to be followed by the stripped down sound the duo is so comfortable with.

The final minutes consist of experimental breaks, one last banger to pull out the last bits of energy that is left and a beautiful outro, which concludes the allnighter vibe. There are no open endings, it doesn't make you want to stay in the dark forever. Rather it makes you want to close your eyes one last time before walking outside to see the sun come up again before going home, overwhelmed and satisfied.

Keith Fullerton Whitman brings his 3-part Generators series for Japan’s NAKID label to a close with a third and final instalment that ravishes the senses with hybrid analogue/digital systems tekkerz.

Hazing into a solemn start of floating organ and slurred drums, the first part fizzes into action with pranging irregularities, tentatively allowing the system to voice varying pitches and nimble rhythms that resemble balletic footwork plies as much as classically-trained instrumentalist flurries. It’s deeply trance-inducing, meditative gear that over the course of 25 minutes slowly gains momentium and complexity, first adding robust arps to complicate the structure, treading the finest line of chaos and discipline. In time, those arps turn themselves into a rhythm track, landing somewhere between Whitman's earliest junglist works as Hrvatski and a sort of plucked rhythmic minimalism that reminds us of Mark Fell’s Sensate Focus, gliding on natural, brownian motion and flux of texture, punctuated by what sound likes a plucking of a drum machine from the inside-out.

In part 2 the mood pools and diffracts in slow-fast meter, bristling ruptures of atonality that send limbs flailing one way and then another, adding subs for a dimensional shift that’s rhythmically fractured but always grounded at the low registers. The wavy embroidery of Whitman's machines trigger each other in endlessly fascinating forms of gyring workshop ballistics and dub reverberations.

A special bonus piece ‘Meakusma (Generators, Soundcheck)’ is the most curious of the lot, with a lone clarinet heard in the air, perhaps a serendipitous inclusion form someone else’s soundcheck, lending an enchanting depth perception to his frolicking bleeps.


[a] 1 | MEAKUSMA [Generators] (190606) Part 1
[b] 2 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Redactions] (190606) Part 2
[c] 3 | MEAKUSMA [Generators, Soundcheck] (190606)

Their third studio album Driver (CD is Available from Epitaph). Lead track “Sober” examines how people’s perception of each other change and deteriorate over time, especially in the wake of a relationship gone sour. On Driver, co-produced by Stevie Knipe and Kyle Pulley (Shamir, Diet Cig, Kississippi), Knipe delves into the emotional space just beyond a coming-of-age, where the bills start to pile up and memories of college dorms are closer than those of high school parking lots. Ultimately seeking the answer to the age-old question posed by every twenty-something; what now? Over the course of 10 tracks, Knipe sets out to soundtrack the queer rom-com they’ve been dreaming of since 2015. Driver incorporates an expert weaving of sonic textures ranging from synths and shakers to ‘00s-inspired guitar tones which convey a loving attention to detail. Lyrically, Knipe radiates an unmistakable honesty mixed with a level of wit and a sense of humor producing intimate yet relatable indie pop songs. Adult Mom began as the solo project of Stevie Knipe at Purchase College. Adult Mom now falls between the playful spectrum of solo project and collaborative band with beloved friends and musicians Olivia Battell and Allegra Eidinger. Since forming in 2012, Adult Mom has released ­ve EPs and two full-length albums; Momentary Lapse of Happily (2015), and Soft Spots (2017). Knipe writes clever and intimate indie pop songs that o‑er a glimpse into the journey of a gender-weird queer navigating through heartache, trauma and subsequent growth.

Tracklist: 1. Passenger 2. Wisconsin 3. Breathing 4. Berlin 5. Sober 6. Dancing 7. Adam 8. Regret It 9. Checking Up 10. Frost

DJ Swamp brings you Wearing My Mask EP!

Alongside Decadent Records and Ruined Vibes - with a hologram sleeve cover!

Limited edition BLACK 7inch vinyl.

4 tracks
Skip proof scratch tool section
5 lock-groove beats
Lock-groove tone
Lenticular hologram cover

Decadent Records recording artist, USA DMC Champion 1996, also known for his work with Beck, Death Grips, Ministry and The Crystal Method, DJ Swamp is the inventor of the highly imitated skip-proof scratch tool.

He was also in the DJ documentary “Scratch” ,The movie “CLOCK STOPPERS”, and 2017 movie “Banger.” Swamp began mastering his DJ skills more than 25 years ago. In 1996, his rookie year, he took the title of USA DMC Champion. Being true to his nature in an arena that was predominantly influenced by a very hip hop-esque culture, Swamp stepped up to the decks looking like some kind of junky punk. He was well received by the audience despite his counter-culture appearance because he exhibited skills that defied perception and already possessed a stage presence that many of his contemporaries still lacked. The finale came when he closed his set by freakin’ Deep Purple’s ‘Smoke on the Water’ and then smashing his records.
Notorious for mischief, while he’s on the turntables his shows are highly anticipated by those who know that they can expect to see something spectacular.

LESKY and Waywell unite again. The German Lofi heavyweight and
the UK guitarist are back with the sequel to their 2021 EP Whitecaps”.
A perfect soundtrack to pool parties, imaginary beach cruises and late-night bonfires. Their album is called “Mesame”, which is Georgian for “the third”.
The title draws on the Indian concept of the third eye chakra that provides higher consciousness and perception beyond ordinary sight and refers to the psychedelic influences surrounding the album sound. “Mesame” will be released September 9th digitally and on LP, consisting of 6 brand new tracks and all tracks from the “Whitecaps” EP. The album artwork created Tim Paschedag.
The two expats LESKY and Waywell met in Tbilisi, Georgia where they
shared a studio space. Waywell’s deeply soothing guitar riffs and LESKY’s crisp production make for a perfect hybrid sound of cosmic lofi paired with a subliminal yacht rock vibe, called Lofi Yacht Pop. LESKY was born in Leipzig but moved to Georgia beginning of 2021 to pursue music full-time.
Creating his own soundscape fusing mellow neo soul keys, trap infused drums and samples flipped beyond recognition, he has released three EPs and the full-length album “Meraki” on Melting Pot Music. Furthermore several projects on renowned labels like Blue Note Records/Astralwerks and Lofi Girl. Waywell has been self-releasing singles and one EP since 2017.

2022 Repress

Second Woman is the collaborative project featuring Turk Dietrich of Belong and Joshua Eustis of Telefon Tel Aviv.
Josh and Turk have been friends for over 17 years, having met in New Orleans in the late '90s through mutual friend and future collaborator, Charlie Cooper. The duo have been working on music together on and o since that time.
The concept of Second Woman began with the idea of taking tropes from footwork, dub, house, and techno, and twisting these ideas into something kaleidoscopically liberated from the grid. Their work first materialized with two LP's and an EP on John Elliott and Peter Rehberg's Spectrum Spools.
Second Woman tweak the perception of time and space within the audio field into something ASMR-inducing and ultimately satisfying to listen to. Both Josh and Turk experience ASMR in response to certain rhythms and sounds, and e ort was made to incorporate these triggers into the music, hopefully for other people to experience as well.
With Apart / Instant, Second Woman present their signature sound as well as a new, more measured dimension to their work.

Brighton sextet Opus Kink share their debut EP ‘‘Til The Stream Runs Dry’,
via Nice Swan Records (Sports Team, Pip Blom, FUR, English Teacher).
• Partnering up with the cult indie label for their first extended release, the
enigmatic collective - comprised of Angus Rogers, Sam Abbo, Fin Abbo, Jed
Morgans, Jazz Pope and Jack Banjo Courtney - lend a blend a dizzying
array of influences in their ever-evolving enigmatic style, producing an
experimental patchwork of explosive material that’s consistently earned
widespread plaudits since bursting onto the scene.
• With EP lead singles ‘I Love You, Baby’, ‘The Unrepentant Soldier’ and ‘Dog
Stay Down’ attracting praise from all corners of the press landscape (NME,
DIY, So Young, Dork, Clash, Gigwise), not to mention countless BBC 6
Music (Steve Lamacq, Lauran Laverne) spins, the six-piece are clearly
primed for a busy summer.
• Having already ticked off live dates alongside labelmates Malady and
Mandrake Handshake, in addition to a sold-out headliner at London’s
legendary 100 Club last month, the band have a slew of festival appearances
lined up in the months to come, as well as shows with FEET and Bull.
• Detailing their EP, Opus Kink stated: “You may begin by dipping one stained
and rancid toe, but you know that once those waters have been tasted
there’s only one way to go - into the stream, away down the valley like
flotsam and windfall. Here lie six songs of bad love, ill winds, possession,
stagnation and earthly delights.”
• “Horn-fuelled filth-funk, where punk & jazz combine in grimy circumstances” -
NME
• “A land where growled-jazz meets the blues in a showdown to end all
perceptions of genre… Opus Kink have succeeded in turning listeners on
their head” - So Young
• “A frenetic groove-filled glimpse of what’s to come” - DIY
• “Intense blast of guitar pop” - Clash
• “There is a sense that they are still only just beginning to hit their stride” - M
Magazine
 Tourdates - August 20 Beautiful Days, September 28 Oslo London, 29 Record
Junkee Sheffield, 30 YES (Pink Room), Manchester.

Trapped Animal Records are proud to present for the first time on vinyl, Stars and Rabbit's 2020 smasher 'Rainbow Aisle'. Remastered at Metropolis to lacquer and cut to 300 Purple Stripe 180GSM 12"s this is a very special package from Indonesian household names, Stars and Rabbit! // Press quotes : Alternative Fruit, UK - This fun and catchy album is laid back to back with classic numbers which each have a soul of their own. A friendly rock 'n' roll delivery mixed with classical melodies and homely closeness allows us to hear this band in person from wherever we happen to be. // Analogue Trash, UK - Reviewed (Little Mischievous) There’s a joy and innocence at the heart of Little Mischievous that is delightful and infectious, in large part down to the fun, rollercoaster vocals of Elda Suryani. Sounding like a cross between Nina Persson and Björk, her livewire performance is the perfect foil for Didit Saad’s equally electric lead guitar melody and the briskly bouncing arrangement. // Reviewed Naked King - They make up the central core of the song, as soft synths and lush strings wash in and out of perception, combining to confect a sweet sense of serenity. Though contemplative, Naked King looks outward and also seeks to engage the listener: the children’s choir and assertive guitar solo bringing the song to a euphoric crescendo, with Elda Suryani’s performance directing the song to ever greater heights. // Antenna, Japan - Stars and Rabbit were captivated by a variety of songs that sublimated 90s introspective alternative rock, mainly in Europe, such as Sigur Rós, Radiohead and Portishead. On one occasion, listeners like "Little Mischievous" show light guitar pops that can sing a long, and "Attic No.7" shows a jazzy, dark side like a trip hop. // Atwood Magazine, UK - Elda Suryani and Didit Saad make up the group and both employ signature rhythms and harmonies onto each song of theirs, and “Little Mischievous” is no exception with its slick guitar riffs and tantalizing vocal performance. // Beehive Candy, UK - Their new LP, Rainbow Aisle, a full spectrum of colors, showcasing their knack for groovy electro rock as well as intimate acoustic confessions. // Big Takeover, US - Wow, such a vocally and lyrically intriguing number! Yet again, there’s the ’90s alt-rock feeling, but the vocals are yes, mischievously impish; a teeny-tiny bit like SOAK vocally, but with a grainier, deeper timbre.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "It is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff my inner community wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so this album was a form of giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

"Art is awe, art is mystery expressed," writes Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. "Art is somatic, even if it is experienced cerebrally. It is felt." The central mysteries of Smith's ninth studio album, Let's Turn it Into Sound, have to do with perception, expression, and communication: How can we communicate when spoken language is inadequate? How do we understand what it is we're feeling? How do we translate our experience of the world into something that someone else can understand? For Smith, a self-described "feeler," the answers are inspired by compound words in non-English languages, translation, sculptural fashion, dance, butoh, wushu shaolin, and other forms of sensory and somatic experience. Just like fashion uses lines, shapes, colors, textures, and silhouettes to communicate on a sensual level separate from the conscious mind, Let's Turn it Into Sound strives to use sound to communicate what words alone cannot. "The album is a puzzle," Smith says. "It is a symbol of receiving a compound of a ton of feelings from going out into a situation, and the song titles are instructions to breaking apart the feelings and understanding them." The energized "Is it Me or is it You" comes from traversing the gaps between how you see yourself and how another might see you, through a filter of their own projections. The hushed sense of revelation that brackets "There is Something" refers to the feeling of walking into a room and being subconsciously aware of the dynamic present. All the while, Smith interprets these feelings through sound. This auditory interpretation process, driven by earnest curiosity, led Smith to record some thoughts and questions that popped up along the journey in Somatic Hearing_a booklet which accompanies the album. Over three frenzied months, recording alone in her home studio, Smith allowed herself to pursue new experiments to accompany her usual toolkit of modular, analogue, and rare synthesizers (including her signature Buchla), orchestral sounds, and the voice. She created a new vocal processing technique, and gave herself permission to pursue a pacing that felt intuitive, rather one that followed typical song structures. She walked around in the windiest season with a subwoofer backpack and an umbrella, listening to the low end of the album amidst 60mph gusts. She listened to herself, and, in doing so, to an inner community which suddenly opened to her. Underlying the album is a dynamic relationship between what Smith describes as six distinct voices, each a multifaceted storyteller. By acknowledging these characters, she was acknowledging her whole being: the woven plurality of self, the complex process of noticing and resolving inner conflicts, and the joy of finding harmony in flux. "I started to feel so embodied by all of these characters. This is all the felt, unsaid stuff my inner community wants to communicate but it doesn't have the English language as its form of communication, and so this album was a form of giving space to let it talk and not judge it and just let it play." By not adhering to expected song structures, each song feels even more like a conversation, with each character getting to express themselves in full.

Rose City Band is celebrated guitarist Ripley Johnson. A prolific songwriter, Johnson started Rose City Band to have an outlet to explore songwriting styles apart from Wooden Shjips and Moon Duo, where he is often not the lead songwriter. Rose City Band allowed him to follow his musical muses as they greet him and not be bound by the schedule of bandmates and demands of a touring group. Stepping out from behind the psychedelic haze that envelops his other output, Rose City Band"s lean yet richly textured arrangements lay bare the beauty of his songcraft. On Earth Trip, Johnson reveals more of himself than ever before, coloring the project"s country-rock twang with a melancholic, wistful undertone. It charts a journey of personal growth and introspection with surprising honesty, from pining for summers spent with friends to meditations on space, stillness and the splendor of the natural world. It continues Rose City Band"s celebration of summer warmth and the great outdoors, seen from a new vantage point, and with newfound appreciation for the freedom and joy that nature provides. Earth Trip was written during a period of sudden shocks and drastic lifestyle changes for Johnson. Forced to cancel extensive touring plans for 2020, the guitarist found himself home for an extended period for the first time in years. No longer in constant motion, he was able to experience and enjoy the simple pleasures of home life, of being in one place: hikes in nature, bathing outside, and waking with the dawn. Forming new connections to his surroundings, from tending to a garden to sleeping out under the stars, Johnson found hope and healing in a more mindful relationship with the natural world. Themes of recalibration and finding personal space are equally mirrored in Earth Trip"s lean production. Recorded at his home studio in Portland and mixed by Cooper Crain (Bitchin" Bajas, Cave), Johnson makes deft use of space while experimenting with new sonics. Shimmering pedal steel, woozy harmonica melodies, and stately piano enhance the album"s introspective tone without ever clouding arrangements. Psychedelic elements that nod to Johnson"s other projects and influences still appear throughout, but hover at the edge of perception, a subtle halo adding colour and texture to Johnson"s songwriting rather than taking centrer-stage. He elaborates: "I told Cooper I was trying to capture that feeling when you take psychedelics and they just start coming on - maybe objects start buzzing in the edges of your vision, you start seeing slight trails, maybe the characteristics of sound change subtly. But you"re not fully tripping yet. He got the idea right away and his mix really captures that feeling." Johnson"s lithe guitar playing throughout treads a fine line between country and cosmic, taut melodies spiralling out into long reverb trails or free-form solos buoyed by a breeze, radiating summer warmth. Through its daring honesty and masteful arrangements, Earth Trip cements Johnson"s place as a singular songwriter of inimitable skill. It"s message of mindfulness and our interconnectedness to the environment expands on a long country and blues music tradition that draws a symbiotic relationship between storyteller and the land, capturing the beauty of the natural world while also emphasising our responsibility in preserving it for future generations

New full length album of Franck Vigroux's uncompromising signature sound of colossal electronic music. Atotal gathers material from Franck's latest live A/V of the the same name. Working with his long time visual partner Antoine Schmitt, ATOTAL is an audiovisual performance aiming to reconstruct in order to better deconstruct the processes of imposition of will by repetition and absolute synchronism, to propose a breach to a potentially life-saving decoincidence. The total work of art, when pushed to its paroxysm of absolute coincidence of the perceptions of a captive spectator, is similar to the techniques of mental manipulation of totalitarian regimes, proceeding by annihilation of the critical mind, repetitive semantic pounding, subliminal messages. The ideal of a deterministic universe of Newton in which everything rationally stems from its causes, in which everything is predictable like a totality for Laplace’s daemon, where everything can be considered already written, has been undermined in the infinitely small of the uncertainties of Heisenberg which tell us that it is impossible to know everything about a particle, in the quantum mechanics of Schrödinger which reveals to us that the looker affects the looked-at, and in the infinitely abstract of Gödel’s incompleteness which explains to us that certain things are literally unexplainable. The show ATOTAL slips into these flaws and, like a clinamen of Lucretia, deviates the visual and audio atoms from their destiny. Mastering by Denis Blackham. Artwork by Mostafa Khaled

Rebecca Goldberg wrote TROIS CENT TROIS as an auditory postcard with musings from a late-summer road trip across France in 2021. On TCT Rebecca sonically guides us through the emotion of new adventure and the risks involved during a time of global uncertainty.

The first single, TROIT CENT TROIS, is a play of the French way to say Detroit and 3-0-3. Like Rebecca's previous work on Detroit Underground, acid is the EP’s predominant sound. The next stop, A2 track Le Détroits, is an acidic metaphor for the celestial beauty of the French countryside. Face A ends with The Perception of our Power, a Ghettotech cut that's full of Detroit-funky/beloved-in-Paris bounce.

Flip to Face B and bathe in the acid arpeggiation of the lead-off track Paradoxe du Plaisir (Pleasure Paradox in English), referring to the practical difficulties encountered in the pursuit of pleasure. The destination B2 track, What It Means (To Start Over in a Ruined World), waxes poetic on the explanation with throbbing percussion and call and response rhythms.

According to Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning, "Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensued and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself."

TROIS CENT TROIS was featured on Bandcamp’s “New and Notable” releases list and was highly regarded in The Wire magazine.

For the vinyl release, Rebecca designed a minimal black and white package with slanted black text reminiscent of France's directional local road signs. The vinyl is limited to 303 copies and each one is hand-signed and numbered.

**Hardcore, FWD dance music from two leading sound artists. Edition of 500, Mastered and cut by Matt Colton** Mark Fell and Gábor Lázár ratchet the game with their razor-sharp debut collaboration, 'The Neurobiology of Moral Decision Making'. As promised in the wake of Gábor's acclaimed vinyl debut, 'EP16', the duo have colluded on a full set of ten tracks, ranging from short synapse bursts thru to an uncannily emotive 12 minute masterpiece on the closing side. As the 10th release on The Death of Rave, it demonstrates the distance travelled since the early '90s paradigm shift of original rave culture, effecting a radical recalibration of meter and tone conventions in electronic/dance music, and by turns, acutely probing our perception of time and space. Essentially it's incredibly "funky", if "funk" is taken to mean syncopation or a play on tension-and-resolution. By utilising the grid-morphing potential of Max/MSP software, they unlock mutant ballistic patterns cleanly weaving between and recoding the tendons and ligament of techno, garage, footwork and hardcore with muscle memory-reprogramming impact. Kicks, claps and visceral chromatic stabs land at irregular, blind-spot junctures, acutely rewiring our sense of rhythmic anticipation and offering a thrilling new freedom of expression and dancefloor discipline in the process. It's a masterful step forward from Yorkshireman, Mark Fell's Sensate Focus output and SND classics, and, likewise, a logical leap from Budapest-based Max whizz, Gábor Lázár. If you're into Mumdance, Errorsmith, Lorenzo Senni, Autechre, Actress or SND; we'd say it's as essential as they come.

Bleed-Abide ist das vierte Full-Length-Album der Band, das auf eine Reihe erfolgreicher Singles folgt, die 2020 und Anfang 2021 veröffentlicht wurden.

Bodysnatcher spielen eine extrem brutale Beatdown- und Slam-Version des Deathcore. Mit ihrem Vorgängeralbum This Heavy Void katapultierte sich die Band in die extreme Metalszene und absolvierte eine Reihe erfolgreicher Tourneen mit Chelsea Grin, Lorna Shore, Enterprise Earth und Slaughter To Prevail.

Das neue Album zeigt die Band in voller Stärke und klopft an die Türen der zeitgenössischen Anführer des Deathcore-Subgenres.

'For the born Londoner the country ever remains an incredible mystery. He knows that it is there – somewhere – but he has no true vision of it. In spite of himself he Londonises it, suburbanises it; he sticks a gas lamp or two in the lanes, dots some largish villas of red brick beside them, and extends the District or the Metropolitan to within easy distance of the dark wood.' – Arthur Machen, Far Off Things

"This album is about influence, inspiration, perception & reality. Every song was written in an outside environment, so that I could observe the subjects that would become my subject matter. All too often in Hip Hop, reality is limited to that of the artists own, actual experiences. People Hear What They See is my attempt to liberate the MC from those constraints & allow reality to be penned other than my own. Listening to congressmen & lawyers converse on the steps of the supreme court inspired 'American Greed', Watching a couple argue over the phone in a bar inspired 'Maybes'. By having a visual representation of my subject matter, my hopes are that the listener will see them through the worlds & melodies of my songs."

Hypnagogia remains one of the most mysterious and haunting daily states of mind. Moments of revelation are wont to traditionally hit us particularly in the hinterland between dream and waking, It’s this particular headspace that’s very much the world of ‘Pö om pö’, the second Rocket Recordings released full-length record from Sweden’s equally mysterious OCH. Pö om pö (meaning ‘little by little’) is a journey further into inner space from ‘II’, the previous Rocket outing (which followed a 2014 cassette only release) What’s mapped out here is a trajectory on the kosmische continuum that touches on the terrain of late-‘70s Sky records style ambience, the more overgrown quarters of Swedish experimental prog and the sun-baked lo-fi DIY cassette culture of the US early ‘00s.Dwelling in a smoke-clouded glow that’s equal parts sunset gold and effects pedal red, OCH have here transcended all influences to creating a tapestry of potent psychotropic sound. A record in which new horizons open up beyond the small hours, and where primeval wah-wah-abetted skronk and mantric folk tinged repetition can collude to reveal new third-eye perceptions. Little By Little, Pö om pö , these forty minutes are here to bridge the chasms between conscious and subconscious, and in style.

DJ Swagger Minor Major Grand Schemes Nearing that halfway mark into 2022, you'd think Bielefeld's most illustrious producer DJ Swagger would have begun losing steam. Following a successful string of releases throughout the New 20's - consistently solid slabs on Thirty Year Records, ec2a, Timeisnow, plus killer collaborations with LUZ1E as DJ DOOM - the young musician pulls out his second full-length on his own GODDESS MUSIC imprint in the form of a slick, multi-genre double-pack: Minor Major Grand Schemes. MMGS is as much a refinement as it is an expansion of Swagger's stylistic bag of tricks, maneuvering through modern styles of club music, pop sensibilities and sleek production techniques that ticks off boxes for both DJs and casual listeners alike. You got your cheeky intros/interludes and your trap-pop miniatures; dusky UKG street devotionals and bonkers dubstep tools; sexy vocal features, clickity-clack percussion, and biiiig low-end. This is what DJ Swagger says about his new LP: This album is the most DJ Swagger sound yet. It wraps up all my influences from techno over hiphop to breakbeat and IDM. I had such a great time working on this and watching the process. I'm beyond grateful for the features and beautiful people that consistently helped me shape this piece of music. As said this is my very own project on my own label. Probably the largest project I ever started and drove to finish. Minor Major Grand Schemes stands for the balance between objective and subjective reality. Your perception of things mirrors on how you see them, feel them and take them for yourself. Minor major, so to say, important or not-so-important, grand schemes, means that things might get more or less important on how you value them. This is at least what I learned for myself doing a long-term therapy late 2020 into early 2021 against depression and OCD. As my view changed, so did my surroundings. As my surroundings changed, so did my view. I found that to be a really important and crucial lesson on how to deal with fear, anxiety and feelings alike. The toughest thing is to learn how to shift your mind towards another, more positive direction. That might take time, a lot of hard work and a strong will. Be sure that it is okay to ask for help, always. If I didn't get the help I got during my down times, I don't know where I would be now. This is why I decided on that name for this album. Consider yourself important and beautiful at any given time. Have fun and enjoy listening to Minor Major Grand Schemes.