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Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995. MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor. ‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Music From Memory are excited to present the first compilation of works by British electronic pioneers MLO aka Peter Smith and Jon Tye. Titled ‘Oumuamua’ and second up in the Virtual Dreams series, the compilation is an in-depth artist focused release containing twelve thoughtfully selected tracks that touch on highlights from the duo’s discography as well as newly (re)discovered music drawn from a vast archive of unreleased pieces, sketches and extended jams recorded between 1993-1995. MLO’s ambient explorations began when Pete and Jon, having first met in rival punk bands during the late ‘70s, found themselves with unlimited access to an incredibly well-equipped studio, having been hired to produce an Icelandic pop star’s record in the early ‘90s. Particularly charmed by the Korg PS 3300 and an Emulator 2, Smith and Tye were also deeply fascinated by outer space and set about developing a musical landscape informed by both this new state of the art musical equipment and what lay beyond the Earth’s limits. Painting with a palette informed by classical minimalism, new age and the works of Cluster & Eno; the duos primary colours were drones, sustained tones, washes, calming tides, gentle temple bells and soft angelic voices with flickering glimpses of percussion and drums that hinted at the possibilities of a dance floor. ‘Oumuamua’ is a collection of music to get lost-in, a wander down the mazed, mirrored corridors of the subconscious. Peaceful, flowing, fresh-water patterns, drawing the listener toward a mediative, inner space. Not strictly ambient, rather the music rests temporarily within the boundaries between drum ‘n’ bass, library music, soundtracks and Techno. Or how Jon Tye himself puts it: “It really feels like music from a different place, a different time, made by different people.”

Mix Mup & Kassem Mosse mark a decade since their rudely offbeat debut with a 19-track, 1hr+ payload of woodcut drums and groggy samples tessellated in beatdown mode for fans of Theo Parrish, STL, Actress Back in 2012, MM/KM’s s/t maiden voyage was a staple round our ways, beloved for its odd bag of skewed grooves. After leaving us with only a 3-track EP ‘Have You Seen Them’ in the interim, the German duo return with ‘Ich sehe Vasen’, or ‘I See Vases’, making up for the big pause in duo production with a heavy satisfying session of loping, peg-legged rhythms, off-the-cuff keyboard lines and hiccuping ambient wobbles that feel right back at home amid the screwballs on TTT. The expanded run time of ‘Ich sehe Vasan’ allows for a far mazier and demonstration of their intuitive, lo-fi style, peppered with numerous beatless nuts and bolts that join the up the club workouts like a game of snakes and ladders on K. Roll the dice and expect to encounter the haziest, Theo Parrish-like Detroit house one minute, then trip down wormholes of lush ambient, or whirling percussive derives the next, popping out along the line at wheezing Actress-like grog, all primed for slinging on at the afters to regular calls of “what the fuck is playing, man?” until the sun goes down again.

Rare Pleasure is Mndsgn's third album to be released on Stones Throw Records. Following 2016's Body Wash, this album truly shows the artist's evolution from his roots as a heralded beatmaker to vocalist, songwriter and arranger. Though he began writing for the album in 2018, the final recordings took just a week in studio with the help of trusted collaborators: Swarvy on bass, guitar and as Musical Director for the sessions, Stones Throw label mate Kiefer Shackelford on keys, drum work by Will Logan, the blessed percussion of Carlos Niño, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson on strings, and accompanying vocals from Fousheé and Anna Wise.

The singular musical spirit Joseph Deenmamode aka Mo Kolours presents an exciting new body of work. A catalog of critically acclaimed records, including his self-titled debut (2014), ‘Texture Like Like Sun’ (2015), 2018 album ‘Inner Symbols’ and three companion EPs, established Deenmamode as a prodigious musician and vocalist. Pitchfork extolled his “hypnotic, tribal-infused dance grooves”, DJ Mag appreciated the “colourful celebration of soundsystem culture”, and Resident Advisor advocated that “no one sounds quite like Mo Kolours”. Musical analogies were drawn by The Guardian as “The best album Curtis Mayfield never made with A Tribe Called Quest and Lee Perry” and Mojo as “like Marvin Gaye produced by J Dilla”. Five years ago, Deenmamode moved to the Japanese countryside. Far away from familiarity, he contemplated his place and further questioned his identity. “I had none of my ‘own’ people around. I had time to really find what makes me tick musically. Japan has helped me go back to those subconscious leanings, really go deep, and reflect the aspects that make up my story”. The tracks on ‘Original Flow’ have been constructed from sessions, improvisations and soundbites captured around the world during this time; collecting contributions from musicians including Deenamode’s brothers Reginald Omas Mamode and Jeen Bassa plus Andrew Ashong, Charles Bullen, Dwaye Kilvington, Eddie Hick, Stefan Asanovic, Myele Manzanza, Ross Hughes, and Tom Dreissler. Deenamode says “I’m proud of this album’s creative process. Coming from a tradition of scouring through hours of records, I wanted to create my own samples, to find that perfect loop that no other producer could put their hands on. I decided to invite a group of friends and acquaintances, who also happen to be incredible musicians, to a studio in Crystal Palace to improvise based on some loose ideas I had. We spent all day, and recorded everything”. ‘Original Flow’ is an album of UK street-soul nouveau, future indigenous jazz fusion, Rasta Segga, Nyahbinghi jazz, Malagasy Hebrew hip hop. While retaining a spirit of exploration and improvisation, it sees Deenmamode grow and flex beyond beat tape brevity, expanding composition and stretching his musical muscle to play live with other musicians. Themes of empowerment, overcoming adversity, and mental liberation coexist with notes from ancient history, futurism, and science, as well as musings on family and togetherness. ‘Magik Momentum’ springs from a discussion that features at the start of the song, an inspiring mentor answering a question from Deenmamode about improvisation and what role it plays in life when planning and manifesting the future. ‘Rockets to Mars’ questions the lack of care for the billions of people with nothing, while governments plan to explore space. “This sparked a comparison in my mind to a Sonny Okuson song that I would reference when performing. Okuson’s song talked of the lack of resources in many communities in the world, while governments go to the moon”. He says the music behind ‘The News These Days’ is “possibly my favourite on the album”. Looped like he would a late sixty jazz-fusion sample, there was nothing added and the track was complete within a matter of minutes. “It was the first and best moment from the entire Crystal Palace session”, he adds. The album’s contrasting title track with minimal instrumentation played solo by Deenamode. While frustratingly searching for gems in past recordings, he thought in a burst of ego, “I don’t need no-one else to make a dope beat!” picked up his ravanne, (the traditional frame drum of his fathers home-land of Mauritius), pressed record, and started to play. He says, “In my thoughts were the rhythms of the Nubians in Upper-Egypt and Sudan, the swing of the huge drums played by Mauritanian women, of-course the Sega beat of Mauritius, and the ever inspiring beat of James Yancey”. Driven by UK broken beat, Cuban congas, Nigerian and Mauritian inflections, ‘Love Vibration’ follows the concept that all emotions carry a vibratory frequency and pays homage to the frequency of creation and the power of love. The two part ‘Tatamaka’ tells of the history of Deenmamode’s ancestors, the maroons of Mauritius. “We are people who managed to run from our oppressors and find refuge in a corner of the island called ‘Le Morne’ where they could not reach us. One bloody day they came in numbers to re-capture, to revenge. Many of us chose to jump to our deaths, rather than be taken back into subjugation. The poem by Creole Richard Sedley Assonne says; “there were hundreds of them, but my people, the maroons chose the kiss of death over the chains of slavery”. Tatamaka was the name of a famed maroon leader who was murdered for claiming his, and our people’s freedom. The song is the imagined journey of escape and freedom by an ancestor of the maroons of Le Morne”. Born in the west midlands and raised on the traditional sega music of his father’s Indian Ocean homeland of Mauritius alongside records by the likes of Jimi Hendrix, Santana and Michael Jackson; his influences expanded with late 90s jungle and drum and bass nights in Bristol, experiments at art college in Camberwell, and the rich culture of Peckham, “at the time we called it the Afro Quarters of London” says Deenmamode, adding hip hop, dub, soul and soundsystem styles to his individual sound. He explains, “I love drum music, from hand-drums to 808s. I love music from the ancient past, heritage music, indigenous music, traditional music passed down from the beginning of time. Music from the body, hand claps, grunts and foot stomps. Music with audible depth, busy, bustling, highly charged. Music from the soul, the music from beyond. I love music from the islands and the mountains. The music of the streets, hustle music, alleyway beats. Club music”. He describes the creative process as thinking in images. “The visual world and the world of sound seem to intermingle in my thought process. When I play the drum with my eyes closed, a world of imagery dances and moves with beat. Improvised drumming feels like I am listening to what I want to hear, rather than trying to play what I want to hear. Following the rhythm and finding new pathways to walk within the patterns is what I experience. In this way I often feel I am just a listener, instead of the player”.

Founded in 1977 by Berris (operator), Wolfman (selector) and Jagger (mike man), Man Fi Bill and Killer, Moa Anbessa International has established quickly as one of the UK top sound systems of the late 70s early 80s. Based in Battersea (SW London), after having made its first steps with Lord David Hi Fi, Moa Anbessa International played successfully until 1981 the main sounds of the time like Jah Shaka, Coxsone, Fatman, Front Line, Stereograph, Jah Tubbys, Quaker City, Mafia Tone, Quantro or Jungle Man. In 1980, the Moa Anbessa International label released his first production recorded in Jamaica.

Moacir Santos was a Brazilian composer, multi-instrumentalist and educator who never became as well known as his peers, including Bola Sete and Baden Powell. While he collaborated on songs with Nara Leão, Roberto Menescal and Sérgio Mendes among others, he privately taught artists who went on to become highly successful global bossa nova singers and songwriters.

In 1965, he released Coisas (Things, in English), which combined the new Brazilian beat with big band jazz. The album didn't attract much attention when it was released, but over time it was heralded as the first to create such a fusion. He moved to Los Angeles in 1967 with hopes of writing for the movies. While he achieved that goal, much of his work was uncredited. He continued to give lessons in L.A., where he met Horace Silver and recorded three albums for Blue Note in the 1970s. Santos died in 2006.<br></p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/FhyoSK9F-6g?si=mdIPyfaUFa-y5XXc" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>

An air of ancient ritualism cloaks Modern Love’s midnight meeting between UK producer MOBBS and French-Egyptian spellcaster Susu Laroche, carving out a channel between hexed trip hop and shoegaze that’s one part DJ Screw, one part MBV, operating within a long shadow of influence cast by Curve, Leila, Cocteau Twins, Nearly God.

Clasping chiral energies on their debut collab, MOBBS brings a history spanning shadowy production work for big name artists to the grimly stylised vein of performance art and musick explored by Susu Laroche, an Egyptian-French with strong binds to chthonic contemporary London. 

Their maiden sacrifice heightens the senses to blends of monotonic, sandalwood scented incantations and carpet-burned downbeats swept in slurred dub. Songs are subtly variegated in tone to spell out shifting plays of light evoking bedsit antechambers and warehouse innards lit by iPhone candle or extractor hood and emergency light bulbs on their last lumens. 

It's music that's as elaborately serrated and blemished as early MBV, but positioned in a vastly different cultural landscape, drawing from hip-hop, drone, psych and basement noise. The pair’s range of cultural obsessions maintains a precarious balance between shadowy histories and an asphyxiating present; all too often, when the past is projected it's thru a mollifying, nostalgic lens, so their critical, prudent hybrid sound is a vital, chilling corrective.

From the bell-ringing, chain-rattle jag of ‘Throne’ thru the sleepwalker drift of ‘Roam’, and concrete plangency of ‘Forest’, the marriage of MOBBS’ illusive textures with Laroche’s feel for analog image and film (as evinced in her art for the likes of Blackhaine and Mica Levi) imprints their sound in gauzy layers that leave fleeting impressions on the mind’s eye. At their heaviest, Laroche’s arcane declarations descend in impressive enactments, undressing the excesses of over-glossed trip hop to reveal and revel in the sound at its starkest, sexiest, for new waves of washed up souls.
 

A Day at United. The name practically says it all. An album recorded in a single day. No rehearsals. No second takes. Just Mocky and friends. Some instruments. Some songs Mocky sketched in the week leading up. Oh yeah, and a recording studio. United Recording, in fact. The legendary independent studio, financed by Sinatra among others. A refuge for artists seeking more control. Or maybe ‘less interference’ is a better way to put it. Because this is not an album about control. It’s about putting certain conditions in place — creative limitations, even — then letting go. Letting the magic happen. Letting the human happen. In an age of computer-led precision, this is an album about the struggle for imperfection.
“I’ve always been inspired by the story of Miles recording Kind Of Blue,” says Mocky, “going into the studio with Coltrane and Bill Evans, bringing melodies jotted on scraps of paper, and making an album in real-time.” Other precedents come to mind, as well. The Art Blakey model, for example. Drummer as composer -bandleader. Not that Mocky, who led the session from his drum kit, compares himself to the jazz greats. He doesn’t even call himself a jazz musician (any more than he calls himself an electronic musician or whatever else). If this is his ‘jazz album’, it’s because of the process that yielded it. There are no solos here — none of that jazz. Think of this as jazz composition.
The process began with a recording date: “I was like, wow, we can get the studio in 10 days? The same studio Sinatra recorded in and the same room where Ray Charles recorded the epoch defining 'I can’t stop loving you'? Ok, let’s see who can make it. So I started calling around. And when someone like Miguel [Atwood-Ferguson] confirmed, I could start writing melodies that reflected, say, his lyrical way of playing.” Mocky composed the songs in his head, mostly while strolling Lulu, his newborn, around Silver Lake. And to ensure a 'classic' quality of the record, Mocky got together with the legendary producer Justin Stanley (Prince, Beck Leonhard Cohen, Paul McCartney) who ended up recording and co-producing the album. Mocky finally ‘heard’ the songs the same time the others did. “When everyone was in position, the charts in front them, the sticks in my hand, it was the first time I actually considered what I was about to do on drums. It was free-styling. Hearing the songs as they were being recorded. Complete real-time.”
Looking back on the origin of the album, Mocky sees it as an extension of his free-flowing Mocky and Friends nights. Picture a revolving cast of collaborators and co-creators, convening on the rooftop of the Ace Hotel in downtown LA, making music in the moment. “I wanted to attain a level of intention that was different from anything I had done on an album before,” Mocky says. “Rather than playing all the instruments, I just drummed and let the ideas filter through this group of artists in real-time. If you multi-track or edit, the intention becomes a conceptual thing, considered and refined. At United, it was about this creative urgency. For me, it was waking up one day and, at the end of it, having an album done. It seemed like such a preposterous idea. Until I just did it.” 

Otherworldly beat science from the currently vibrant Washington DC underground. The heavily processed MCing of NappyNappa weaves in and out of the skewed electronics and stuttering percussion of Patrick Cain. Loosely affiliated with the Future Times crew and featuring contributions from Dolo Percussion (aka Max D). 

In the duo’s own words “a collaborative experiment in liberated sound, vision, and performance“, Model Home orbit in their own universe, with glimmers of light from distant galaxies refracted in their sound. The spirit of free improvisation pervades the tracks, a sound evolving from two artistic sensibilities bouncing off each other without a set plan and creating a third pathway to unknown worlds. 

One Year compiles tracks from 8 different self-released mixtapes made during an intense initial 12 month period of musical activity that birthed the project. Approached with the same archival sensibility that Disciples has brought to albums-that-never-were from Black Lodge, Bogdan Raczynski and His Name As Alive, but with the idea of creating a framework to present an underground NOW sound. A Jamaican style ‘showcase’ album for these outliers from the District of Columbia.

Further collaborative experiments in liberated sound, vision, and performance. This is the second compilation of tracks drawn from the Washington DC crew’s continuing series of self-released mixtapes, including an unreleased collaboration with Japanese post-punk icon Phew, plus guest appearances from Michael R Bernstein (Double Leopards/Religious Knives), and Mike Petillo (Geo Rip/Project U). The basis of the group’s sound continues to be the free form FX-warped flow of MC NAPPYNAPPA and the abstracted beats and synths of Pat Cain. Follows releases on Future Times, Don Giovanni, Purple Tape Pedigree, and the One Year compilation on Disciples.

Hajj’s Paris-based Dawn label delivers Modern Collapse’s debut album of dembow, drill and D&B tinted witch house-gothic. Leading down their unmarked path from Ronce’s frightening ‘Aquatics’ comp and the ‘From Dawn Till Dusk’ set that introduced us to Modern Collapse in 2021, ‘Usual Case Scenario’ serves to grasp the full scope of Gabriel De Sercey & Hugo Fabry’s slant on chthonic, contemporary club styles. To our ears they merge salient aspects of now-decade old witch house and ricocheting ballistics of ‘00s junglist breakcore with flourishes of ambient chamber classical and dembow that temper the emotions at the shadowy limen of club music’s sweatier peaks. The eight tracks are arranged with a underlying narrative thrust or arc that makes for an absorbing ride, bookending the session with particularly tender, cinematic parts of icy keys, vaporised vox and ambient subtlety, while the main body staggers between ruggedest UK-style dubstep (‘Gateway to Nihilism’), gothic chamber classical (‘Untold Subjects (Skit1))’, and scowling brukouts of dembow-rooted jungle/breakcore on ’Stolen Whispers in the Club’ and ‘Rush’.

A disciple of mambo innovator Perez Prado, the Cuban-born Modesto Duran was a pivotal figure in Latin dance music’s transitionary mid-century period. His gentle slaps can be heard across dozens of 1950s mega-sellers, from Esquivel to Belafonte, Eartha Kitt to Lena Horne. On his 1960 solo debut, Duran gathers a who’s who of conga-men, including Mongo Santamaría, Willie Bobo, and Juan Cheda, delivering a cinematic and percussive melange of afro-cuban, cha cha, and exotic jazz styles for the discerning listener.

Timeless atmospheres, hypnotic sonorities, minimal arrangements. And a composer gifted with a never ending passion for music, experimenter in his genetic code, innovator by vocation, at ease with various instruments in order to forge avant-garde themes. Piero Umiliani was already forward in building completely new sounds in the late Seventies. “Tra Scienza E Fantascienza” finds his alter ego Moggi experimenting with alternative grooves, electronic music, jazz tunes and soundtrack motifs. One of the most interesting music libraries in the Italian composer's discography, reissued with a new remastering by Musica Per Immagini, is in full harmony with its title. Science fiction has opened up our eyes to a variety of scenarios, possible or impossible, sometimes with a happy ending, sometimes apocalyptic, at times familiarly near, more often disarmingly far away, and always capable of inspiring our imagination. For the histrionic artist it took, perhaps, less of a cosmic leap to create this masterpiece. Centred on the cover, a strange creature with only one eye, its hands on a beaker containing a mysterious red liquid. To its right, a symbolic circle is imprinted on a sandy surface, and three bizarre constructions, similar to the volumetric flasks found in a laboratory, of differing heights and shapes. There is a strange blue planet in the distance. (Notes and images of a dystopian future according to Piero Umiliani)

The underground music scene in Asia has experimented a notorious rise in the last years, Taiwan, Indonesia, Thailand or South Korea are more inside the radar than ever, contributing actively with amazing djs and super talented producers; creating an effervescence subculture where to keep an eye on. Multifaceted producer Mogwaa is not a stranger anymore, awarded in 2021 with best electronic album of the year in South Korea, his versatility and skills have found a place in labels as "Klasse Records", "Spring Theory" or Sound Metaphors' "Bless You" among others. We are glad to present one of the most awaited records on MM Discos; “Del Mar” is a bliss of fresh air, a story about all this little things that make us dream everyday. “The Sea” as the main actor of the movie orchestrated by Mogwaa and supported by crackles, waves and little islands where to get lost in.

After his first album on BLESSYOU "Turquoise", Mogwaa aka Seungyoung Lee from Seoul is back with another stellar contribution this time re-visiting his earlier days of musical appreciation in Reggae music. This album is another entirely instrumental work with 8 tracks, effortlessly displaying his confidence in the studio when it comes to dreamy dubbed out ambient sounds intertwined with heavy digi/stepper and even dancehall influences. A refreshing treat to the ear when it comes to contemporary productions as Mogwaa approaches the Jamaican genre with a refined aesthetic of his own. From Korea with much craft and dedication for the music, a pleasure to have him back. Mastered at Manmade mastering.

Mohammad Reza Mortazavi returns to Latency with Nexus, a full-length album recorded in Berlin that extends his radical reinvention of Persian percussion. Renowned for pushing the tombak and daf into new territory with unprecedented techniques, Mortazavi now incorporates voice, effects, and electronic treatments into his sound for the first time. These additions deepen, rather than depart from, his lifelong exploration of rhythm and resonance. The record opens with ‘Zendegi’ (‘Life’), built from the chant “Woman, Life, Freedom” as a gesture towards his homeland and beyond. Throughout Nexus, Mortazavi explores connection, transformation, and the unseen forces that shape reality, presenting rhythm as both guide and teacher. The album title itself points to a meeting place where energies, ideas, and times converge, capturing its meditative but exploratory spirit. The cover features artwork by American artist and filmmaker Jordan Belson, whose “visual music” aligns with Mortazavi’s trance-inducing percussion language. His hypnotic live shows have reached the Berlin Philharmonie, Paris Pantheon, and Sydney Opera House, while his rhythmic innovations have earned acclaim across experimental and electronic circles, including collaborations with Burnt Friedman and Mark Fell.

Rudra is Shiva, the Absolute Truth. It is truly music for meditation. Heir to one of the most important musical lineages in the North Indian classical=Hindustani musical tradition, the great man who contributed to the revival of Rudra Veena as a solo concert instrument, more widely known by its release than the Ideologic Organ sponsored by Stephen O'Malley His latest studio recording, made on January 6, 2020 at Studio Swarkul in Mumbai, India, is the latest in a long line of works by Mohi Bahauddin Dagar, the son of Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar, who has unearthed much of the Italian avant-garde music of recent years. Recorded, mixed, and mastered by Maurice Mogard.

Moin follow their EOY-topping 'You Never End' with a pithy jazz-pilled appendix, bringing back poet Sophia Al-Maria and adding Ben Vince's circuitous horns to offset Valentina Magaletti's gummiest live rhythms. Next level biz, obvs - crucial listening whether you're into Slint, Tara Clerkin Trio, Mica Levi/Spresso, Bark Psychosis or Still House Plants.

Not exactly a continuation, 'Belly Up' is a fresh bite cooked from similar ingredients. Moin bent out the tabs last year on their third album, emulsifying the post-punk and hardcore oils that smeared their early plates with modish funk and disintegrated, industrial-strength noize. Joe Andrews, Tom Halstead and Valentina Magaletti cogitate over the same themes here, but train their senses on jazz, assembling brittle and mutable modernist shapes around impeccably springy live syncopations.

Raw, direct opener 'See' is a case in point; Qatari-American artist, writer and filmmaker Al-Maria's droll non sequiturs helped cement the aesthetic of 'You Never End' and make a welcome return, now inserted between Magaletti's sluggish marching band extemporisations and prolific collaborator Ben Vince's transcendent sax loops. Andrews and Halstead keep it restrained, tagging on deadened hardcore tangs and a nasal keyboard vamps that maps the London topography between 4Hero and Tirzah. Vince appears again on 'I'm Really Flagging (or I Trusted U)'; what sounds like a clip from the same ad-libbed workout surges next to flimsy synths and cheeky samples. It plays like a sequel, still rallying around Magaletti's exaggerated, tom-heavy patter, suggesting alternate routes to the finale.

The boxy, no-wave curdled funk that characterized 'You Never End' is reheated on 'X.U.Y.' and evaporated into a quiescent mantra, but Moin's most ambrosian moments appear when they reduce the heat. 'You Leave Me Breathless' sounds as if it's a loose, unplanned rehearsal, with AutoTuned crows melting over a long, limber patchwork of paradiddles from Magaletti. And the trio don't completely ignore the rave backroom, banging together grungy Akai-coruscated samples and 808 State synths on the greyscale 'I Don't Know Where To Look'. As always, they don't exactly boot us back to the '90s - Moin make us wonder what it might have sounded like if there was access to a different array of technology.

A serendipitous conversation brought the project to life. Moot! allowed the group to re-appreciate the recording process, using a combination of live recording and studio techniques. The album spans psych, alternative rock and post-punk mixed with their signature electronics and sampling practice. The record was made as an experiment, to be enjoyed, not as spectacle.

The follow up to their well received debut album ‘Moot!’, the record draws influences from alternative guitar music in its many forms, using electronic manipulations and sampling techniques to redefine it's context, not settling on any one style but moving through them in search of new connections. By exploring these relationships, Moin delivers another collage of the known and unknown, punctuated by words that are just out of reach.

You Never End is the third album from Moin (Valentina Magaletti, Tom Halstead and Joe Andrews) out via AD 93 on the 25th October.
This record marks Moin’s shift into a new phase with vocal collaborations across the album from Olan Monk, james K, Coby Sey and Sophia Al-Maria.

The album’s collaborators all have voices that are alluring in their own right whilst hard to pin down: from james K’s ethereal, reverb drenched vocals, Coby Sey’s words that bounce and echo across London’s concrete streets and Olan Monk’s emotive songwriting, while artist Sophie Al-Maria’s voice and thoughts are known to stretch across her multidisciplinary practice as an artist, filmmaker and writer. The unique mystique of each collaborator is maintained throughout the record while simultaneously opening Moin up to new possibilities, in a gentle shifting alchemy.

Continuing their enigmatic re-configuring of the traditional band, Moin use a mix of conventional and unique production and compositional techniques. Subtly re-framing the current conversation about what band in 2024 needs to be, Moin walk the line between what's reassuringly familiar and what's unsettling and inquisitive. You Never End is a more sensitive record in sentiment, it re-contextualises grunge, shoegaze and indie rock with a weirdly comforting melancholy while still sounding direct and alive.

The vocal collaborations bring the most articulate moments and lucid emotion while still remaining uniquely within Moin's established world. Alongside this, the record fine tunes the elements of electronic production that have always been a feature of the band's unique sound in a deeply subtle way. Elements are simpler and more direct, offering robust functional support as well as textural and emotional resonance. Together they show the potential for both practices to intertwine. 

The Glitch hype was a rather short one. But it brought together different scenes; minimal techno, sound art and electronic minimalism. Then it hit a dead end and dissolved. In the centre of Glitch we found labels like Mille Plateaux (who released the formative ”Clicks + Cuts”) and raster-noton who especially with their static series formed a sound. The first release (2000) was by a young Andreas Tilliander who under his new moniker MOKIRA released the ”CLIPHOP” album. He had done synth and techno for years and then got his hands on an early COH CD on raster-noton in some Stockholm record shop and decided to send a demo to Carsten Nicolai and crew. They luckily decided to release it. I got my copy in the Wave record shop in Paris, as I knew Tilliander’s earlier techno and synth stuff. But this blew my mind. Sharp, funky (yes), static and it sounded like pure electricity. It still sounds great, and rather alien to me. I am proud to reissue this on iDEAL, and to dive even deeper into "CLIPHOP" - check out Johan Jacobsson Franzén's book on the album.

Joachim Nordwall, Gothenburg 29.10.2025.

Clear vinyl. Edition of 500 The Danish-Chilean composer Molina (b.1992), explore the transformation between organic and synthetic musical landscapes. She weaves her own tapestry of dreamy guitar surfaces, soaring flutes and atmospheric vocals.