Suche:the sublimi

Following on from recent works for 12k, The Trilogy Tapes, and Important, Far More Decentralized is a new collection of subtle, enchanting pieces from Tokyo-based sound and visual artist Akhira Sano. Working with electronic, instrumental, and concrete sounds, he crafts immersive assemblages of long overlapping tones and blurred resonance, cut through with textural crunch and hiss. The resonant bell-like tones of opener ‘Kouai’ invite the listener in, calling up the warm sound palette of ambient classics like Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music for Nine Postcards, but leaving any sense of compositional anchor behind for a free-floating harmonic drift. Woven through this seductive tonal cloud is a wavering stream of white noise and tactile pops, its textural grit threatening to derail the calmly reflective pool of pitched sounds, but never quite doing so. Each of these seven pieces occupies a similarly ruminative harmonic space while possessing its own identity. On ‘Neow’, lush tonal swells form around fragmented samples, touching on the techniques of early 2000s glitch artists like Ekkehard Ehlers. ‘Orbv’ is particularly subtle in its combination of rippling back-masked tonal wash, almost subliminal suggestions of field recordings, and distant traces of raw electronic interference, as if a Toshimaru Nakamura recording is playing through an open window across the road. ‘Margin’ weaves together a skein of wistful slow-motion melodies while untraceable, resonant clinks and ambiguous static washes rise gradually to the surface. In comparison to his recent Phase Contrast for Recollection on 12k, recognisable instrumental sounds are a rarity here, yet a hand-played feeling is present throughout. On ‘Teens’, filtered electric guitar tones reminiscent of the melancholic miniatures of Andrew Chalk float over aqueous burbles, bringing the album to a magisterial close. In the crowded field of contemporary electronic music tending toward ambience, Sano is a distinctive voice. Like his elegant abstract paintings, here seemingly static surfaces of unhurried calm reveal rich interior worlds of subtle activity and gentle chaos. Where much contemporary ambient music aims for an almost stifling cleanliness of tone, Sano breathes life into Far More Decentralized through the acceptance of imperfection, accident, and rough edges. As the artist himself says, ‘In a world where everything can be made perfectly, I think it’s a beautiful and primal act to touch the fragile and imperfect’

A hidden gem of Uruguayan music, Los Terapeutas's second album, released in 1990, is an original take on candombe and its hypnotic groove, blending pop songcraft with expansive soundscapes, never losing their rhythmic pulse. Los Terapeutas is a band of songs, where new wave, candombe beat, funk and rock were mixed in a unique way, with a strange frontman who had traces of Eduardo Mateo, Damo Suzuki, Frank Zappa and David Byrne. "Candombe del no sé quien soy" is related to what the group did live at that time: looking for a state of hypnotic hanging with their songs. The playing of the candombe drums was obviously an inspiration to look for that trance state, as was the music of Mateo and that of Opa, but influences can also be traced from the rhythmic experiments of German band Can of the 70s. The album was released in the late 1990s, a complicated time for Uruguayan music. The album was released on vinyl, a format that was losing weight compared to the CD. They would not release an album together again until 1997. In the 2000s, Los Terapeutas slowly expanded their audience, while also leaning towards a more electric sound. The new generation of Uruguayan musicians recognized the pioneering work of the band and Alberto Wolf was seen as a kind of godfather by several of the rock groups that were beginning to become massive.

Repress!

In the mid-1970s, a force of nature swept across the continental United States, cutting across all strata of race and class, rooting in our minds, our homes, our culture. It wasn’t The Exorcist, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, or even bell-bottoms, but instead a book called The Secret Life of Plants. The work of occultist/former OSS agent Peter Tompkins and former CIA agent/dowsing enthusiast Christopher Bird, the books shot up the bestseller charts and spread like kudzu across the landscape, becoming a phenomenon. Seemingly overnight, the indoor plant business was in full bloom and photosynthetic eukaryotes of every genus were hanging off walls, lording over bookshelves, and basking on sunny window ledges. The science behind Secret Life was specious: plants can hear our prayers, they’re lie detectors, they’re telepathic, able to predict natural disasters and receive signals from distant galaxies. But that didn’t stop millions from buying and nurturing their new plants.

Perhaps the craziest claim of the book was that plants also dug music. And whether you purchased a snake plant, asparagus fern, peace lily, or what have you from Mother Earth on Melrose Avenue in Los Angeles (or bought a Simmons mattress from Sears), you also took home Plantasia, an album recorded especially for them. Subtitled “warm earth music for plants…and the people that love them,” it was full of bucolic, charming, stoner-friendly, decidedly unscientific tunes enacted on the new-fangled device called the Moog. Plants date back from the dawn of time, but apparently they loved the Moog, never mind that the synthesizer had been on the market for just a few years. Most of all, the plants loved the ditties made by composer Mort Garson.

Few characters in early electronic music can be both fearless pioneers and cheesy trend-chasers, but Garson embraced both extremes, and has been unheralded as a result. When one writer rhetorically asked: “How was Garson’s music so ubiquitous while the man remained so under the radar?” the answer was simple. Well before Brian Eno did it, Garson was making discreet music, both the man and his music as inconspicuous as a Chlorophytumcomosum. Julliard-educated and active as a session player in the post-war era, Garson wrote lounge hits, scored plush arrangements for Doris Day, and garlanded weeping countrypolitan strings around Glen Campbell’s “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” He could render the Beatles and Simon & Garfunkel alike into easy listening and also dreamed up his own ditties. “An idear” as Garson himself would drawl it out. “I live with it, I walk it, I sing it.”

But as his daughter Day Darmet recalls: “When my dad found the synthesizer, he realized he didn’t want to do pop music anymore.” Garson encountered Robert Moog and his new device at the Audio Engineering Society’s West Coast convention in 1967 and immediately began tinkering with the device. With the Moog, those idears could be transformed. “He constantly had a song he was humming,” Darmet says. “At the table he was constantly tapping.” Which is to say that Mort pulled his melodies out of thin air, just like any household plant would.

The Plantae kingdom grew to its height by 1976, from DC Comics’ mossy superhero Swamp Thing to Stevie Wonder’s own herbal meditation, Journey Through the Secret Life of Plants. Nefarious manifestations of human-plant interaction also abounded, be it the grotesque pods in Invasion of the Body Snatchers or the pothead paranoia of the US Government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with the herbicide paraquat (which led to the rise in homegrown pot by the 1980s). And then there’s the warm, leafy embrace of Plantasia itself.

“My mom had a lot of plants,” Darmet says. “She didn’t believe in organized religion, she believed the earth was the best thing in the whole world. Whatever created us was incredible.” And she also knew when her husband had a good song, shouting from another room when she heard him humming a good idear. Novel as it might seem, Plantasia is simply full of good tunes.

Garson may have given the album away to new plant and bed owners, but a decade later a new generation could hear his music in another surreptitious way. Millions of kids bought The Legend of Zelda for their Nintendo Entertainment System back in 1986 and one distinct 8-bit tune bears more than a passing resemblance to album highlight “Concerto for Philodendron and Pothos.” Garson was never properly credited for it, but he nevertheless subliminally slipped into a new generations’ head, helping kids and plants alike grow.

Hearing Plantasia in the 21st century, it seems less an ode to our photosynthesizing friends by Garson and more an homage to his wife, the one with the green thumb that made everything flower around him. “My dad would be totally pleased to know that people are really interested in this music that had no popularity at the time,” Darmet says of Plantasia’snew renaissance. “He would be fascinated by the fact that people are finally understanding and appreciating this part of his musical career that he got no admiration for back then.” Garson seems to be everywhere again, even if he’s not really noticed, just like a houseplant.

SDEM’s debut LP for Mancunian electronic music imprint Skam Records.

VORTICES 9 tracks continue SDEM’s current prolific flow after a steady series of drops via his own
MEDS label & other like-minded operators (CPU, Opal Tapes, Seagrave, Superpang etc..)

Informed by hiphop & computer music and steeped in Northern England's post bleep+bass
mutations, VORTICES operates in its own lane, rooted as much in the by-hand manipulations of
musique concrete and free improv as the studio-as-an-instrument innovations of electro, hiphop, dub and bass weighted electronica.

Evolved out of hardware jams, the pieces showcased here crackle with emotion and colour,
repeated plays reveal suggested and subliminal depths. Neither shackled to the grid nor enslaved to linearity, the LP expands & finesses SDEM's dynamic & forward facing approach

Ivan Pavlov aka CoH characterizes his latest solo work,Radiant Faults,as “the recording of a dialogue,” rather than a set of compositions. Crafted using a rare new synthesizer,the Silhouette Eins, Pavlov’s first encounter with the instrument across a long, late night session resultedin a continuous set of textures, patterns, and subliminal melodies. Atsome point during the process, he realized he was not alone: “It was as ifsomething was speaking to me through the gear–the feeling was very intense.No matter how determined and specific I attempted to be, theresults were something else. They felt like 'responses.’ This instantly reminded me of ELpH.

Ivan Pavlov aka CoH characterizes his latest solo work,Radiant Faults,as “the recording of a dialogue,” rather than a set of compositions. Crafted using a rare new synthesizer,the Silhouette Eins, Pavlov’s first encounter with the instrument across a long, late night session resultedin a continuous set of textures, patterns, and subliminal melodies. Atsome point during the process, he realized he was not alone: “It was as ifsomething was speaking to me through the gear–the feeling was very intense.No matter how determined and specific I attempted to be, theresults were something else. They felt like 'responses.’ This instantly reminded me of ELpH.

Zwar ging das New Yorker Trio einst in den Indierock-Kindergarten und wurde gar von Sonic-Youth-Schlagzeuger Steve Shelley entdeckt, vom Noise der frühen Tage findet sich in seinen letzten Arbeiten aber herzlich wenig. Von Album zu Album entwickelte man sich beständig weiter. Nach dem melancholischen "Misery Is A Butterfly" überraschten sie beim 2007er-Longplayer "23" mit faszinierend-hypnotischen und höchst elektronischen Sounds. Auf ihrer mittlerweile dritten Veröffentlichung für das Label 4AD betören Kazu Mazino und die italienischstämmigen Zwillingsbrüder Amedeo und Simone Pace mit einer weiteren Soundvariante in ihrem opulenten Klangkosmos, welche die elektrisierende Atmosphäre ihrer Stücke auf den Punkt bringt. "Penny Sparkle" entstand 2009 mithilfe des Produzentenduos Van Rivers & The Subliminal Kid (Glasser, Fever Ray) in New York und Stockholm. Die wundersame Stimmung eines tiefen schwedischen Winters prägte das Album nachhaltig. "Penny Sparkle" ist schillernd, dunkel und schön.

Seit den 1990ern ununterbrochen erfolgreich, ein Superstar in Frankreich, asl Solo-Künstler und auch Songschreiber. Dies ist Pascal Obispo's 14. Album mit bislang nicht veröffentlichten Songs. Aufgenommen in seinen Studios in Paris, Frankreich. Produziert von den beiden New-Wave-Jazzern Fred Nardin und Max Pinto. 17 Titel auf Doppel-Vinyl und 14 auf CD. Auf dem Album sind als Gäste Giordana Angi, ein französisch-italienischer Star, und Alexia Gredy, eine junge französische Liedermacherin, mit dabei. Das Album zum ersten Mal gemeinsam mit Pierre-Dominique Burgaud geschrieben, der jetzt mit Alain Chamfort zusammenarbeitet, aber auch für seine Arbeit an Le Soldat rose und Gaëtan Roussel bekannt ist. Begleitet wird er von berühmten Musikern wie Manu Katché und Laurent Vernerey und einem Gastauftritt von Gautier Capuçon. Es ist ein Album mit Liedern, die sich um das Thema der sublimierten oder demontierten Schönheit drehen. Aufgenommen und gemischt von seinem Partner Youri Benaïs und gemastert von Miles Showell in Abbey Road, ist "Le beau qui pleut" eines der poetischsten Alben von Pascal Obispo.

“It just feels good to scream at the top of my lungs,” admits UNITYTX vocalist Jay Webster. “And not even at anyone. Sometimes you just need to scream.” Truer words have rarely been spoken in the context of recent history, and on their debut Pure Noise LP, FERALITY, UNITYTX confront the last few years head-on with a blistering cocktail of car crash energy, sludgy horror-show macabre, industrial metal sheen and sinister subliminality. Produced by Andrew Wade (A Day To Remember, Wage War), FERALITY follows the band’s 2019’s Madboy, their first EP for Pure Noise that elevated the Dallas-based quartet (Webster, guitarist Ricky Cova, bassist Kendrick Nicholson and drummer Jonathan Flores) onto tours with the likes of Silverstein, The Amity Affliction and Poppy and shone a spotlight on the genre-bending sonic blend UNITYTX have been building in the underground since 2014.

Last year Low End Activist mapped out the depth and breadth of his sound with the Hostile Utopia album on Sneaker Social Club and now he returns with a fresh payload of future shock-outs from the grimy depths of his sound well. Recent times have seen LEA releases tipping towards MC guest spots but on this EP he’s turning inward with three varied, mutant workouts for soundsystem immersion.

‘Sent West’ makes no bones about its inspiration from the tough, boxy end of early dubstep, but as ever the kink in the Activist’s sound comes from the detail around the rhythm and his embrace of off-centre textures. ‘Neurosis’ plumbs even further down in its dogged pursuit of infinite subs and dystopian atmospherics, offering the kind of subliminal, wayward stepper to tweak nervous minds to distraction. ‘Dry Chat, Wet Rag’ stretches out on the B side with a phantom dub pulled from rad-blasted wastelands, caked in slime and tough enough to withstand any fallout.

Calling to mind the introspective, evocative work on the likes of Engineers Origins EP, this is LEA using the hardcore continuum to tell his most murked-out tales.

SDEM’s debut LP for Mancunian electronic music imprint Skam Records.

VORTICES 9 tracks continue SDEM’s current prolific flow after a steady series of drops via his own
MEDS label & other like-minded operators (CPU, Opal Tapes, Seagrave, Superpang etc..)

Informed by hiphop & computer music and steeped in Northern England's post bleep+bass
mutations, VORTICES operates in its own lane, rooted as much in the by-hand manipulations of
musique concrete and free improv as the studio-as-an-instrument innovations of electro, hiphop, dub and bass weighted electronica.

Evolved out of hardware jams, the pieces showcased here crackle with emotion and colour,
repeated plays reveal suggested and subliminal depths. Neither shackled to the grid nor enslaved to linearity, the LP expands & finesses SDEM's dynamic & forward facing approach

Dennis White, Charlie May, and Dave Gardner return with their second outing as Quiet Places on A Strangely Isolated Place, expanding upon their deep and suitably hypnotic long-form compositions across four continuous sides of wax.

Minimal in context and retaining the untitled track approach, the trio of producers, well versed in a variety of music styles between them, leave the music and the subliminal messages contained within as the descriptor.

Finding moments of melody amongst the wide landscape of abstract sounds and samples, is the only glimpse of reality you’ll find down here.

A1 - Interconnected

Taking the reigns again for his latest solo EP, Aural Imbalance opens in style as Interconnected blends delicate keys and ambient soundscapes swirling together creating a sumptuous, serene intro before brisk amen patterns gently roll their way into the mix, filtered perfectly and set over silky, graceful 808 undertone bass, transporting your mind across the oceans to distant shores - while equally catering for the discerning dancefloor.

A2 - Solitude

Aural Imbalance showcases all aspects of his incredible production journey on Spatial with Solitude, an anthemic, almost spiritual track with enveloping escalating swathes of powerful somber mood ambience, set upon finely crafted rousing drum patterns which punctuate proceedings perfectly. Solitude is a track which lives long in the memory - it is an experience you will identify with on your own level, within, as the title suggests.

AA1 - Subliminal Messages

A melancholic, unnerving amtmosphere introduces Subliminal Messages, shaped with enchanting synthwork and light hi hats, accentuating a mournful audio landscape. As the tightly constructed breakbeats unfold, immersive sub bass adds depth and presence to the mix and the listener is taken on a meditative voyage to the inner spirit, challenged to understand and reflect.

AA2 - Sentience

Closing the EP, Aural Imbalance shakes things up again as Sentience carves a more upbeat vibe, a beautiful addictive earworm melody composed with gently refined keys instantly grabbing the attention. Filtered breaks are slowly introduced before announcing themselves fully, a sublime drum loop layering a dynamic percussive energy as the catchy melody captivates us throughout.

In the words of Bill Brewster - DJ History

‘At the turn of the 1990s, there were few more successful New York house producers than Victor Simonelli. Under a dizzying array of aliases – Solution, NY’s Finest, Groove Committee, Critical Rhythm and Cloud 9 being amongst the better-known – the Brooklyn-born DJ/producer delivered a string of underground club hits during the city’s early ’90s house boom.’

BTG presents “Victor Simonelli: The Early Years Vol 1” a collectors edition double Vinyl release - 2 X 12’s in each Vol

Launching the first Behind The Groove collectors edition vinyl series is New York’s finest Victor Simonelli with ‘The Early Years Vol 1 & 2’ double Vinyl releases. Featuring seminal house tracks such as Cloud 9’s ‘Do You Want Me’, Solution’s ‘Feel So Right’, Instant Exposure’s ‘Wanna Be With You’ and rare mixes of Raiana Page and EZ-AL, this collection brings together classic and rare Victor Simonelli cuts that reflect the early raw energy and buzz of the New York House scene. With ‘Vol 2” scheduled to follow shortly after, this is the most comprehensive collection of rare Simonelli cuts that firmly establishes his esteemed role in 90s House Music as well as introducing new fans to his inimitable sound.

Victor Simonelli is one of the early kings of NYC sampling In house music. The real deal - Victor danced at the legendary David Mancuso’s Loft sessions and developed a serious appreciation for good music. He interned for Arthur Baker at his renown Shakedown Studios (where Arthur worked with the iconic Afrika Bambatta on the seminal dance floor ’Planet Rock’ track) and went on to release hugely influential releases on seminal NYC labels 4th Floor and Nu Groove. Victor’s music was championed by the hugely celebrated iconic House Music DJ pioneers, Larry Levan and Tony Humphries at Paradise Garage & Zanzibar/WBLS/Kiss FM respectively.

Revered as a New York house heavyweight and prolific producer since the turn of the 1990s, Victor Simonelli grew up in Brooklyn, NYC, nurtured by a music loving family, with an avid record collecting father who also worked as a local party DJ. He took music lessons in piano, drums, guitar and bass, before discovering his first love, tuning into NY’s Radio Mix Shows on WBLS, WKTU and WRKS,98.7 Kiss FM) where he discovered the art of mixing and in his own words, ’I just simply got lost in the music’.

Graduating from NYC’s Centre For Media Arts, Victor got an internship in the legendary producer, Arthur Baker’s Shakedown Studios. Soon graduating to editing, mixing and then producing he worked for artists David Bowie, Quincy Jones, Debbie Harry, Sinead O’Connor and Talking Heads. Teaming up with fellow NYC producer Lenny Dee to become the Brooklyn Funk Essentials, they released records ‘Critical Rhythm’ and ‘Subliminal Aurra’ on 4th Floor before Victor went solo as Groove Committee releasing the classic ‘I Want You To Know’ on the legendary Nu Groove Records. Paradise Garage legend, Larry Levan broke ‘I Want You To Know’ rocking 2 copies on his last tour of Japan whilst King of NY House Music,Tony Humphries broke Victor’s new ‘Feels So Right’ across New York on his WBLS/Kiss FM Mastermix show and at his legendary Zanzibar club sessions. It was only a matter of time before Victor’s name became synonymous with quality House music ensuring a worldwide platform for his productions.

In the early 90s alongside his own productions, Victor Simonelli worked on high profile projects, including James Brown’s album, “Love Overdue” BeBe and CeCe Winans single featuring Mavis Staples “I’ll Take You There” and Quincy Jones’ “I’ll Be Good To You” featuring Chaka Khan and the legendary Ray Charles. Never straying too far from his clubland roots, Victor worked with Danny Tenaglia on his classic “The Harmonica Track”.

DJ gigs across the world started flooding in and Victor found himself recording for a dizzying array of labels including Tribal America, Sub-Urban, Bassline, King Street Sounds and Vibe, under a wide range of aliases. He also produced, wrote and remixed for artists such Nile Rodgers (Chic), Afrika Baambata, Hall & Oates, Frankie Knuckles, Kerri Chandler, Madonna and Michael Jackson. Famed for his own productions “It’s So Good” by Creative Force, “I Know A Place” as Sound Of One - the first release on Roger Sanchez One Records -, “Dirty Games” as well as the “Street Players Vol 1 EP”, Victor went on to set up Suburban Records with Tommy Musto and Bassline Records with two other partners. Notable releases on this label include “Do You Feel Me”, Connie Harvey’s gospel inspired, “Thank You Lord”, Urban Blues Project’s “Deliver Me”, Colonel Abrams “Not Gonna Let”, and Mone’s “Better Way”. Never ceasing to produce, DJ, run his own label and host radio shows like Groove Lift, Victor has worked with virtually every NYC producer and has nurtured a next generation talents including Angel Moraes, Jazz ‘N’ Groove, Urban Blues Project, Harlem Hustlers, Jay Jay and Julius Papp. Victor’s releases have also been used on M&S’s “Salsoul Nuggett” hit and Eddie Amador’s underground smash ‘House Music’.

In the late 90’s Victor launched his new Westside Productions, notable for the “Latin Impressions 1 & 2” releases, opened up a studio in Italy as he found himself increasingly working in Europe and now divides his time between New York and Italy. Suffice to say his unique sound of uplifting and spiritual music has kept him at the forefront of House Music and he is credited as one of its leading exponents with his string of classic releases and remixes.

Behind the Groove, branches out from its digital platform to embark on a programme of releases from the iconic pioneer producers of House Music. Esteemed for their high quality features and mixes that continue to explore, celebrate and venerate the contributions of highly respected, scene-shaping Labels, Artists, DJs and Special Events, BTG seeks to bring these talents and tales to the attention of the wider community. Unlocking the stories surrounding the pivotal roles they played and continue to play today in shaping the underground music scene we have come to know and love.

BTG presents “Victor Simonelli: The Early Years Vol 1” a collectors edition double Vinyl release, released on May 12th 2023. ‘Vol 2” follows on May 26th 2023 . These releases are the most comprehensive collection of rare Victor Simonelli cuts that firmly establish his esteemed role in 90s House Music and introduces new fans to his carefree sound.

One of the most notorious hatemongers in movie history is Captain Ahab from John Huston’s 1956 classic Moby Dick. His manic monologues cast a spell on generations of viewers. Berlin based musician and sound artist Jan Jelinek has now turned the voice of Ahab into a musical instrument.

Faitiche presents Jan Jelinek's soundtrack for SEASCAPE – polyptych, an audio-visual software developed in collaboration with Canadian new media artist Clive Holden in 2022.

SEASCAPE – polyptych is based on image and acoustic source material from Moby Dick. While Holden works on manipulating film sequences, the voice of Ahab plays a central role in Jan Jelinek’s soundtrack. The dynamic volume and tone of the captain's speech control a synthesizer system that turns Ahabs voice into ten abstract soundscapes.

In this production the voice gives the impulse and controls things but is not the sound of spoken word itself that we hear. Only occasionally can snippets of speech be heard so that syllables or sounds are recognisable. Instead we hear compositions made of hissing, soundscapes and eruptive sounds. The atmosphere is dark and sinister. Still every piece has a clear sonic structure and follows an understandable dramatic composition. This music is abstract but not overwhelming. Quite the opposite, SEASCAPE – polyptych is an invitation to listeners to let themselves be carried by the stream of sonic events. Although part of a media art work, the soundtrack can be enjoyed without any of this connecting superstructure. It works with no previous knowledge. But what happens when one does know that it’s the sonic waves of a human voice that is controlling a network of synthesizers?

If you want to hear Ahab, you will hear a choir of Ahabs in every piece of sound. The subliminal threatening as well as the conjuring Ahab. Finally the Ahab who whips up his crew and tears them with him into their downfall. The majestic „on the quay now, waiting and watching“, the oppressive “drawn towards the whirlpools center” - they are all music as well as sonic discourse.

Limitiert auf 1.000 Exemplare!

Die schwedischen Progressive Death Metaller SCAR SYMMETRY haben die Wiederveröffentlichung von vier ihrer klassischen Alben angekündigt. Pitch Black Progress (2006), Holographic Universe (2008), Dark Matter Dimensions (2009) und The Unseen Empire (2011) werden alle am 14. April zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich sein.

Limitiert auf 1.000 Exemplare!

Die schwedischen Progressive Death Metaller SCAR SYMMETRY haben die Wiederveröffentlichung von vier ihrer klassischen Alben angekündigt. Pitch Black Progress (2006), Holographic Universe (2008), Dark Matter Dimensions (2009) und The Unseen Empire (2011) werden alle am 14. April zum ersten Mal auf Vinyl erhältlich sein.

Devon Church ist ein aus Winnipeg, Manitoba, stammender und in New York City lebender Singer-Songwriter. Er war viele Jahre lang Multiinstrumentalist, Co-Autor und Produzent des Dreampop-Duos Exitmusic, dessen Album Passage 2012 bei Secretly Canadian erschien und von Pitchfork als "aufrührerisch, cineastisch und manchmal brillant" beschrieben wurde. 2018, im selben Jahr, in dem Exitmusic ihren Abgesang The Recognitions auf felte veröffentlichte, brachte Church sein Solodebüt We Are Inextricable ebenfalls auf felte heraus, das die texturalen elektronischen Elemente, die er während der Exitmusic-Jahre genutzt hatte, in den Dienst eines Songwriting-Stils stellte, der in der Folk-Rock-Tradition verwurzelt ist. Nachdem Church 2019 in den gesamten USA aufgetreten war (im Vorprogramm von Orville Peck, Adam Green, Kirin J Callinan und Black Marble), machte er sich an die Arbeit, um sein neuestes Werk, Strange Strangers, aufzunehmen, während er in einer Scheune im ländlichen Pennsylvania Zuflucht vor der globalen Pandemie suchte. Das größtenteils selbst produzierte Album klingt, als hätte Eno aus der Apollo-Ära Phil Spector auf halbem Wege zu den Aufnahmen von Death of a Ladies Man die Regler (und die Pistole) entrissen. Die atmosphärischen Elemente von Churchs früheren Produktionen werden auf dem Album sublimiert und in den Dienst von bandgesättigtem Gesang, Combo-Orgeln und Gitarren gestellt. Seine Stimme, die seit seinem Debüt selbstbewusster und zurückhaltender geworden ist, ist immer noch irgendwo zwischen einem lakonischen Lee-Hazelwood und einem rauchigen Tom Waits, aber sie wird bei Stücken wie dem intensiv melodischen und treibenden "Flash of Lightning in a Clear Blue Sky" deutlich ruhiger. Die engelsgleichen Backing Vocals von Churchs Partnerin, der Künstlerin Ada Roth, verleihen dem Bariton des weltmüden Erzählers eine Aura von traumhafter Leichtigkeit. Wenn Roth in gedämpften, an Hope Sandoval erinnernden Tönen in den Vordergrund tritt und einen Text wie "We're so bored of the apocalypse" vorträgt, nehmen die Dinge eine subtil bedrohliche Wendung in Richtung Pop-Surrealismus. Ein Sinn für kosmischen schwarzen Humor hat sich in Churchs Texte eingeschlichen. Strange Strangers leiht sich den Titel von dem Öko-Philosophen Timothy Morton: "The strangeness of strange strangers is itself strange, meaning the more we know about an entity the stranger it becomes."

Nach dreijähriger Abwesenheit meldet sich die Band stärker denn je zurück mit dem neuen Angriff "Showdown".

Dieses Album sprengt alles, was ROTN bisher an musikalischem und künstlerischem Schaffen zu bieten hatte, bei Weitem.
Es vereint in Perfektion alle Elemente, die den Erfolg der Band ausmachen: Abgefahrene Grooves gemischt mit kraftvollen Riffs, unterlegt mit dem bereits bekannten Flow von Vithia, sublimiert durch
Eva-B's epische Soli, und das alles verpackt in ihrem einzigartigen japanischen Shonen-Manga-Universum.

Abgemischt von Johann Meyer (Gojira) und gemastert von Ted Jensen (Sterling Sound), bietet "Showdown" auch eine exzellente Produktion. Die Songs sind so vielschichtig, dass du zum Groove mitspringen, zur Härte headbangen und zu den Hardcore-Breakdowns moshen willst.
Beim Thrash-Riffing zermalmst du dir fast den Nacken, die Refrains singst du reflexartig mit und bei den messerscharfen Soli herrscht Gänsehaut-Alarm.
Wenn es eine Band gibt, die durch ihre Originalität, ihr Universum und ihre Musik hervorsticht, dann sind es zweifellos Rise Of The Northstar.










[j] b5. Rise [???]

Nach dreijähriger Abwesenheit meldet sich die Band stärker denn je zurück mit dem neuen Angriff "Showdown".

Dieses Album sprengt alles, was ROTN bisher an musikalischem und künstlerischem Schaffen zu bieten hatte, bei Weitem.
Es vereint in Perfektion alle Elemente, die den Erfolg der Band ausmachen: Abgefahrene Grooves gemischt mit kraftvollen Riffs, unterlegt mit dem bereits bekannten Flow von Vithia, sublimiert durch
Eva-B's epische Soli, und das alles verpackt in ihrem einzigartigen japanischen Shonen-Manga-Universum.

Abgemischt von Johann Meyer (Gojira) und gemastert von Ted Jensen (Sterling Sound), bietet "Showdown" auch eine exzellente Produktion. Die Songs sind so vielschichtig, dass du zum Groove mitspringen, zur Härte headbangen und zu den Hardcore-Breakdowns moshen willst.
Beim Thrash-Riffing zermalmst du dir fast den Nacken, die Refrains singst du reflexartig mit und bei den messerscharfen Soli herrscht Gänsehaut-Alarm.
Wenn es eine Band gibt, die durch ihre Originalität, ihr Universum und ihre Musik hervorsticht, dann sind es zweifellos Rise Of The Northstar.




















[j] b5. Rise [???]

- 180 GRAM AUDIOPHILE VINYL
- INCLUDES INSERT
- 30TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE LEGENDARY ALBUM
- REMASTERED AUDIO

Fishbone was one of the most distinctive and eclectic alternative rock bands of the late '80s. With their hyperactive, self-conscious diversity, goofy sense of humor, and sharp social commentary, the group gained a sizable cult following during the late '80s.

Truth and Soul is their second album, originally released in 1988. The album features a wide array of genres including punk, ska, reggae, soul, funk, elements of hard rock and blues. Truth and Soul contains a cover version of Curtis Mayfield's Freddie's Dead', originally from the soundtrack of the film Super Fly and it is the first single of the album.

Three other tracks were released as singles Ma and Pa', with a video directed by Mike Lipscombe, Change' and One Day'.

The album was awarded four-out-of-five stars in 2004's The New Rolling Stone Album Guide. Music critic Tom Moon called the album one of his 1000 Recordings to Hear Before You Die' and Robert Dimery listed it as one of his 1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die'.

This year we are celebrating the 30th birthday of Truth and Soul. The album is finally available again on vinyl and includes the original insert with lyrics and liner notes.

Auf ".5: The Gray Chapter" zeigen die Maskenmänner aus Iowa, was sie drauf haben, und präsentieren gleichzeitig ihren aktuellen Drummer Jay Weinberg.

Musikalisch orientiert sich das Album weniger an seinem Vorgänger "All Hope I Gone" als vielmehr an Slipknots musikalischen Wurzeln zur Zeit von "Iowa" (2001) und "Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses" (2004).

Mit hohen Chaftplatzierungen und guten Reviews reiht sich ".5: The
Gray Chapter" deshalb in die Liste der Slipknot Klassiker ein.

Impatiently returning to the golden age of Ecuadorian musica national, this second round of retrievals is more of a selectors’ affair: less reverent, more free-flowing, with more twists and turns. There is no let-up in musical quality, maintaining the same judicious, heart-piercing balance between emotional desolation and dignified endurance, the same bitter-sweet play between affective excess and musical sublimity.

This time around, the woman steal the show. Laura and Mercedes Suasti were child stars, with an exclusive Radio Quito contract. Unlike nearly all the men here, they lived long and prospered: Mercedes died last year, at the age of 93. Gladys Viera and Olga Gutierrez both came to Ecuador from Argentina. To start, Gladys plugged the scandalous new Monokini swimwear; Olga performed for visiting British royalty in 1962. Olga was glamorous but tough. She would make little of the amputation of one of her legs: ‘I don’t sing with my leg.’ She is accompanied on our opener by quintessentially reeling, sultry musica national: haunted-house organ, twinkling xylophone, Guillermo Rodriguez’ heart-plucking guitar-playing, and lilting, dance-to-keep-from-crying double-bass. ‘Sometimes I think that you will leave me with no memories,’ she sings, ‘that you hold only disappointments in store for me… In the future your love will search me out, full of regret. By then it will be too late, there will be no consolation, only disappointment awaiting you.’

Other highlights include the two contributions of Orquesta Nacional: Ponchito Al Hombro, like an off-the-wall forerunner of the Love Unlimited Orchestra, beamed into the tropics from an unknowable time and space; and the tone poem Atahualpa, a mystical yumbo invoking Quito’s most ancient inhabitants, the Kichwa. Also the tremulous, gypsy-flavoured violin-playing of Raul Emiliani, who arrived in Quito from Italy, suffering PTSD from the Second World War; the inscrutable, sardonic experimentalism of organist Lucho Munoz; and the mooing and whistling of Toro Barroso — school of Lee Perry — in which a muddy bull dashes home to his darling chola, fearless, full of desire.

Lavishly presented, with a full-size, full-colour booklet, with transporting art-work and expert notes. Luminous sound, by way of Abbey Road, D&M and Pallas.

Re-release for the first time on vinyl for this album originally from 2004 on Daft Records. “Behind The Sun” marked the return of Dirk Ivens after five years focused on other projects (The Klinik and Sonar). This time in collaboration with the Spanish musician Rafael M. Espinosa (Geistform) and with production skills of Eric van Wonterghem (Monolith, Insekt). All gained experience by Dirk shapes this album in a perfect way and the Dive-typical sobriety is not long in coming on every track with a sense of electronic menace, shown through a blaze of squeaks, hisses and subliminal aggressiveness. “Behind The Sun” is a first class work and Mr. Ivens once again confirms his exceptional position in the EBM-industrial scene.

Limited edition of 500 numbered copies on double orange vinyl record, gatefold and printed inner sleeves. Includes all original album tracks plus a bunch of extras taken from the “Frozen” EP recorded together with Diskonnekted, the complete “Lies In Your Eyes” EP and the rare song “Lost Horizon”.

Hidden Worlds are everywhere around us. Some may emerge,
materialize in waveforms.... and let you look a little deeper. 3
Ambient and Dub influenced Deep House and Electronica
tracks. Mastering and Cut at Dubplates & Mastering, Berlin.

Originally premiered in its earliest state at Tate Britain by William Bennett and Mary DeBlois in 2010, the SIXTEEN WAYS OUT magnum opus reflects over a decade's work of compositional refinement and elaborate studio expansion, and is the first Cut Hands release since 2014's highly-acclaimed FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD on the Blackest Ever Black label. The end result is a mystical showcase of musical esoterica, its seventeen tracks fusing the most arcane elements of subliminal extralinguistics, avant-garde transformational hypnosis, and dark self-help secrets. You will never hear anything quite like it. Available on 180gm vinyl and CD. CD version includes beautiful 12page booklet with expanded texts.

Limited edition reissue of this legendary, rare and dreamy electronic ambient new age album.

Originally created and released in a small edition in Japan back in 1987 by the mysterious musician/ magician Shiho. The album features floating shimmering synthesizer textures. It's unique and extra ordinarily serene with shifting tone colors and spatial textures bringing the listener to a special magic place. It's as beautiful as it captivating. There's also a haunting edge to parts of the album sounding like what could originally have influenced David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti when they composed the soundtrack to the original Twin Peaks series. Shiho who loves to make improvisational music began studying classic piano at the age of five. She says she gets inspiration from the celestial realms but she never considers melody. She draws a musical picture. Creativity is the unfolding of the unknown realms within the self. Through our chosen ways of expression, each of us is daily creating a unique universe, a unique environment.

The universe created by each and every being in endless repetition are messages of the universe. The breath of this music, expressed from my present environment, flowing through a myriad of places as environmental music is my expression of The Body Is A Message Of The Universe. Part of the album also saw a limited US CD release in the late 1980s which is hard to come by today.

Although Shiho Yabuki continued her career in Japan, both as a musician and magician and became a pioneer of healing music in Asia, for most western listeners it was like Shiho was one of those mysterious artists who puts out an album and then is never heard from again.



Tracks: Tomoshibi / Samadhi / Winterland / Tenshingoso (Earth, Wind, Fire, Water and Spirit) / Forestland / Tawamure/Cosmic Dance / Energy Flow/Ki No Nagare (The Way Of The Energy Flow)

Swedish Meatballs Vol 2 - The Psychedelic Hard Rock
Underground 1970-1977
Way-out heavy psych mindblowers with blistering guitars and pounding
drums! Sweden " heaven and hell
Strictly limited edition of 500 copies only. Comes with a striking day- glow
coloured sleeve and a massive 16- page booklet cram packed with photos and
previously untold stories. Subliminal Sounds swings open the portals to the long
lost, ultra-rare, or previously unreleased, music and history of these loud and hairy
underground hard rocking champions. Possessed zit covered Viking teens going
berserk and blasting loud and heavy sounds at youth halls making the stoner kids
go meatball crazy. Mini skirt moose hunters. Mid-70s communal people parks
hedonistic punch- drunk all- night benders. Local biker club bacchanalias with
fierce lesbian bikers make out on stage as the band's rambles on. Heavy metal
greasers in their imported American muscle cars chicken racing with ice bears.
Hard rock glam rockers accompanying XXX live shows and a previously unknown
connection to all mighty Bathory goat. All in a day's work for the Swedish
Meatballs. This is a tasty new release in our series: The Swedish Hard Rock
Underground " A Smorgasbord of Heavy Sounds !

Swedish Meatballs - The Psychedelic Hard Rock
Underground 1971-1977

Beatservice Records are thrilled to present the hotly-anticipated third album from Oslo-based production maestro, Third Attempt. 'The Novel Sound' follows on from the widely acclaimed 'Beats From The Quarantine' album released in April 2021, and further compliments the young artist's deserved reputation as one of the dance underground's most exciting talents to emerge in recent years.

Third Attempt (aka Torje Fagertun Spilde) has been dazzling us with his far-reaching music since arriving in the Beatservice fold with 'Shoreline' back in 2018, and since then his ever-evolving repertoire has continued to serve up immaculate sonic surprises. The fast-rising 23-year old artist has wasted no time making his indelible mark, displaying a frenetic work rate alongside an impeccable ear for constructing compelling leftfield grooves.

'The Novel Sound' opens with the rolling deviance of 'Freak Out', where a dusty string sample makes way for vocal samples, scratches, and searing sirens permeating a bass-heavy groove, setting the tone magnificently for the music that's primed to unfold. Next, we arrive in the mid-tempo chug of 'Age Of Steam'. Evolving over a crisp, club-ready rhythm, heavy funk guitars, dancing keys and distant vocal stabs cascade over driving bass before soaring strings herald the arrival of a slick breakdown section. The icing on the cake arrives as bubbling acid joins sensational horn motifs, breaking down once again for a starry-eyed beatless passage that leaves us yearning for a reprise.

'My Girl' features amorous vocal samples hovering over an irresistible disco beat, with alluring rhythm guitars and dreamy e-piano chords setting the scene for rousing horns to blast off into blissful summer skies. Before we've found time to catch our breath, 'Nu Funk' arrives with snappy hip hop samples scratched over tight beats and a delectable bass guitar hook. The groove pauses for dubbed-out space delays to echo into the night before a singing lead guitar joins the rhythm elements to burst back into life, with flute motifs, elegant strings, and otherworldly sweeps elegantly meandering across the panorama.

Set over a groove that arrives like a cool summer breeze, 'Sunbeam Symphony' drifts over soul-soothing chords, weighted bass and slick, rolling beats. Hypnotic keys guide us into position as the drums build energy and the bass notes power us forward. Third Attempt's dextrous keyboard solo dazzles momentarily before subsiding for a dub-infused break, with spaced-out vocal chops and rising sweeps building tension before the groove resumes and the virtuoso solo once again majestically soars. Maintaining the sun-kissed meditations, 'Definite' effortlessly floats through waves of thick bass, funk guitar chops and elegantly fused samples, with seductive chords, hypnotic horns and laser-tight drums combining to create a near overpowering dream state.

The heavy trip-hop rhythms of 'Nightfall' enrapture the listener as rich chords discreetly beckon, with cascading congas, mysterious melodies and exotic refrains building before the glorious lead vocal appears like a hyper-luminous flash of light. The chords disappear into the nothingness, before the carefully selected sample of 'Working Man' drifts in to fill the empty space. Smokey drums soon arrive, joined by weighted bass, foggy chords and an enigmatic whistle lead, fusing to conjure a half-lit world lifted from the pages of an evocative film noir novel.

The enlivening tablas, glitchy effects and saucer-eyed sweeps of 'Greed' hide subliminal messages casting a knowing eye over the consumer-driven society and self-help culture that pervade our society, before we arrive at the album's charmed finale. 'Last Winter Of My Childhood' yet again manages to transport the listener into a gently hallucinatory realm, with drowsy bass notes, tripped out pads and emotive strings building to a profound and rush-inducing crescendo.

'The Novel Sound' once again sees Third Attempt dextrously merging expansive musical aesthetics that fuse trip-hop, funk, soul and disco to deliver a sound that – although endowed with vintage sensibilities – feels proudly up to date. Continuing his breathtaking development in dazzling style, the album feels destined to echo over blissed-out sunsets, back-room excursions and twilight skies for many years to come.

AI-32 signals the arrival of ‘The Fifth World Recordings’, by Son of Chi (Hanyo van Oosterom) and long-term collaborator Arthur Flink. A tribute to the late Jon Hassell, who passed away in 2021, the album connects a deep running thread that goes back to the source of Chi project. Carrying on from where Hassell left off, the album takes inspiration and references from his Fourth World music concept and the ancient Hopi tradition of Native America. Illuminating the subliminal space of the arising Fifth World, Son of Chi pays respects to an inimitable force in contemporary music. 

Hassell’s ‘Dream Theory in Malaya’ forms a touchstone to Hanyo van Oosterom’s musical journey, which soundtracked long, deep and reflective periods living in the cave of the Kallikatsou (Patmos, Greece) back in the early 80s. This period resulted in Hanyo’s track as Chi - ‘Hopi’ - in 1984. Hanyo met Hassell shortly after in 1987 at his “The Surgeon in the Nightsky” concert in Rotterdam - it wasn’t until twenty years later that Hanyo invited him for two magic nights of “Instant Composing Sessions” with the Numoonlab Orchestra (with a host of other artists) at the LantarenVenster, the very same stage where Hassell had performed in 1987 and also where Chi did their first live performance. 

Dreamful, mysterious, prophetic, the Fifth World Recordings features the quiet yet elaborate sound of Chi awash with rich instrumentation, field recordings, and old stories by the firelight. Sketches were created with drones, loops, and soundscapes, with which Arthur Flink (also a member of the Numoonlab Orchestra) jammed on trumpet. Channelling Hassell’s idiosyncratic style, floating melodies and lyrical improvisations are parsed into the mix, where Hanyo has processed and manipulated the recordings, also referencing Hassell’s exotic scales and unique harmonics.

Additionally, the wah Bamboo flute at the closing piece is an homage to the works of Chi co-founder Jacobus Derwort (1952-2019). For this piece Hanyo used his first bamboo flute he made at the cave of the Kallikatsou in 1984. Arthur Flink answers in counterpoint with the wah trumpet, almost like the intuitive communication of the nightbirds..

Limited deluxe edition of 999 copies - 2xLP comes with a gatefold sleeve
and a massive 20-page booklet cram packed with photos, memorabilia,
and in-depth liner-notes of the wild tales from back in the day
Subliminal Sounds proudly presents ALEXANDER LUCAS! The long- lost music
and history of the groundbreaking and legendary Swedish hard rock/proto-metal
band active between 1969 and 1976. This mind-blowing 2 LP set contains their
extraordinarily rare self- financed 1973 single Speed/ Svarta Skogen (The Black
Forest) that was issued on the custom record label Efel, plus tons of killer
previously unreleased recordings. A dream come true! The thoroughly researched
booklet documents the band's long history, including their early incarnations and
different line-ups. The pioneering young group performed an extreme number of
gigs with their amps cranked up to the max at youth halls all over the country, and
it was through performing their skilled, innovative, raw hard rock that ALEXANDER
LUCAS became very popular and influential among the long-haired stoner teens,
eventually graduating to bigger venues. ALEXANDER LUCAS is the latest sizzling
heavy meatball in our tasty series "The Swedish Hard Rock Underground: A
Smorgasbord of Heavy Sounds!"

Brown Marbled Vinyl

Tresor Records are proud to reveal the outcome of a new collaboration between two of techno music's most remarkable artists, Maedon and Adam X. The Lion & The Ram is a unique and exciting hybrid of industrial, rave, and hypnotic techno sounds. This LP marks the full debut for both artists on Tresor Records, with Adam X having appeared for a remix of Neil Landstrumm in 1997. Both Berlin-based, Maedon and Adam X have worked tirelessly over the forced Lockdowns, finding a kindred spirit in locating and sculpting the most badass kick. This album is undoubtedly an impressive representation of the range of kick drum synthesis, from thunderous impacts to carefully tuned pulses.
The duo's competitiveness over kick drums has led to a masterpiece of mesmerising techno. Across the thumping drums and sparse, mechanical soundscapes,
every track on the album follows a journey into the dark and unknown.
Tracks grow with increasing power sourced from dystopian samples, such as Human Replacements, "people are being duplicated, there is something missing". It reflects the stifled time we all spent, haunted by uncertainty, cooped up and seeking expression. Corrupt Pigs emphasises this with the refrain, "welcome to the land of fuck". Crunching bass and rusty percussions gather as a herd, like a rallying call to signify that, at last, we may let loose. With its unrepentant rhythms and ruthlessly brutal sound design, The Lion & The Ram discharges Maedon and Adam X into daring new terrain.

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.

Kristian is a new anonymous project on Figure Music, exploring a different kind of sound that is based on subtly nuanced live jams and oriented towards a slightly more raw house and dubby-related style.
Opener Doubtful makes a strong first impression as Kristian weaves together lush, cheerful chords with a tight yet rolling bass momentum, carrying the track forward effortlessly. In stark contrast, Dry Dub is groove reduced to its bare essence. A straight-up drum track made of
sparse elements that confidently unfold their subliminal power over time.
The flip holds cuts that really want to spring to life. Swirly, dubbed-out sounds create a colorful and dynamic palette, rapidly changing in movement and direction. Insider riffs on heavily animated, filtered synth action, while closing track Worthiness goes deep and spacey, oozing with warm machine charm, squelching acid, and bubbly bass.

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

A return to form after the departure that was 1980's muddled Panorama, the Cars' Shake It Up bursts forth with a rich assembly of synthesizers, drum machines, electronic blips, and catchy melodies that make it an early 80s pop staple. Known the world over, the famous title track proves the band's arrangement skills were in perfect shape and set the stage for a record overflowing with memorable hooks and complementary rock riffs.

Shake It Up also plays witness to primary songwriter/vocalist Ric Ocasek's increased cynicism and biting wit. While the Cars never took a rosy-eyed view of romance, the songs here impart a newfound sense of sympathy, regret, limbo, and reservation. The beauty of the Cars – and all ten tunes here – is that the music suggests something else entirely. Such subliminal emotions and dynamic contrasts act as a magnet, and the band plays as if it's in on the secret.

Apart from the party vibe of the title cut, the Cars aim for deeper targets and smarter undertones. Shake It Up is defined by an urban edginess and modern feel that comes alive on tunes such as "Cruiser" and circular "I'm Not the One," a pop gem laded with stacked vocals and keyboard lines that double as a horn section. The band's arrangements have never been better – or more involved. Absent the cheesiness that would mar the group's late-period work, the songs ride on the strength of keyboard-heavy lines and layered harmonies. You will not be disappointed.

Recorded at the band's Synchro Sound studios by famed Queen producer Roy Thomas Baker, the album takes advantage of electronic textures and varying timbres in immersing the listener in accessible albeit abstract washes of sound. MoFi's engineers made sure to capture every note and nuance; this marks the first time that Shake It Up has been remastered in any way, let alone from the original tapes.

The “Tumult Hands” duet is made by Jacek Sienkiewicz and Jerzy Przezdziecki - the producers
whose composition has - to a large extent- defined the Polish techno music. Sienkiewicz - as
early as Recognition - started his adventure with music in the late 1990s. Subsequent records,
already under his own name, were released, among others, at Cocoon Records, Trapez, Klang
Elektronik and WMFRec. Przezdziecki started publishing a little later. Over the last two
decades, he has been presenting various types of electronic music, among others, as Praecox,
Epi Centrum and Jurek Przezdziecki.
“Tumult Hands” has two EPs on its account – “Tumult Hands EP” (2014) and “Tropic
Factory” (2016). Both were published by Recognition. So a full record was a matter of time.
The album titled: “TH” (Recognition, 2022) has been prepared for many years. The repertoire
was created mainly out of improvisation. As artists themselves say, “it is the result of
discovering and accepting a chance event.” For both producers, close contact with
instruments was important during their composition; the type of interaction between the maker
and an electronic device. Individual works have been maturing for a long time. Paradoxically -
the lapse of time did not cause them to be ageing but vice versa - allowed them to mature and
gain natural weight.
“TH” brings very diverse music. In part, it is the repayment of the debt that Sienkiewicz and
Przezdziecki incurred towards the most creative techno period, that is, the 90s of the 20th
century. The lovers of experimental dance music from before the quarter of the century will
easily capture in the duet’s themes the art of Cristian Vogel, producers known from the tin
series of Chain Reaction record company or early recordings of Richie Hawtin (Plastikman,
F.U.S.E.). This is a very similar, non-standard approach to sound structure and an original
approach to rhythmic structures. Minimalist melodies, accompanying e.g. the opening of the
“enter TH” or “pow” set, contribute to the composition an element of some sublimity and
metaphysical anxiety. Obviously, it is still the dance music but the duet - to some extent by
abandoning the club functionality (understood in the techno convention) - has given its music
a definitely sophisticated, artistic elegance.
Publishing cooperation between such important makers, as well as high quality of recordings,
leads us to see “TH” as something more than just another techno record. It is an event and an
electronic adventure that all lovers looking for dance music will appreciate.