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Nowadays Arica exists only as the ¡ÆArica Institute¡Ç, a school of spiritual development formed and led by Chilean mystic Oscar Ichazo¡Ähowever, the collective also produced several musical albums in the US (presumably to increase awareness of the school), this resulted in the release of four totally eclectic masterpieces: Arica & Audition (1972), Heaven (1973) and Music In The Nine Rings (2002). ​ Both the Arica school and its musical output had a big influence on some of the most creative minds amongst us, for example: prior to making his film The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky met Ichazo and became intrigued enough by his techniques – essentially a potent blending of esoteric knowledge and methods from around the world – to not only go through the initial intensive course of Arica mind expansion and training but to require the same of the entire cast and crew for the film. This undoubtedly affected the whole movie, and it seems strange that Arica¡Çs music was not used for the soundtrack, an Arica soundtrack could have been pure magic all the way through. ​ The Arica album we are proudly presenting you today (Heaven from 1973) is a total must-have in any collection (originally released on the Just Sunshine Records label in 1973 that was responsible for putting out milestone albums from the likes of Betty Davis, Karen Dalton and Norman Feels). Here on these recordings, you¡Çll find ten tracks that will blow your mind and open your spiritual doors! ​ Heaven has it all¡Äomming drones interchanged with upbeat percussion, acoustic and funky basslines intertwining the melodious threads. The album is full of deep meditational grooves meeting all kinds of polyrhythmic free jazz vibes, atonal keyboards and avant-garde soul-jazz sounds. The unhurried improvisations and subtle manipulation of musical tension makes Heaven an immersive, psychedelic and spiritual masterpiece with a jazz sensibility in its overall structure. The superb use of the sitar and the hypnotic percussion gives it that great cosmic touch that reminds of Alice Coltrane¡Çs work. ​ The whole album was recorded on a midsummer night in NYC¡Äone hundred Arica members, musicians and dancers all gathered at the legendary Electric Lady Studio (home to Jimy Hendrix) and played until dawn. The names of the musicians involved were not given on the record sleeves, credited simply to ¡ÆThe Arica Musicians¡Ç. In a way, though, this mystery suits the remarkable music contained within these resultant grooves – timeless sounds that could have been conjured from and played by the very spirits of the Earth¡Äall this accompanied by notes in the gatefold jacket to guide the listener though his sonic voyage. ​ Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first ever vinyl reissue of this fantastic album (originally released in 1973 on Just Sunshine Records). This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) and comes packaged in a gatefold jacket complete with the original 1973 artwork, photographs and liner notes ​

Paris-born electronic music pioneer and 1970s GRM alumni Ariel Kalma joins with multinational New York trio Asa Tone (Kaazi, Melati ESP, Tristan Arp) for a series of intergenerational, electro-acoustic studio conversations, exploring elasticity within rhythm and winds… or as one early listener observed “space and time.”

Following a chance encounter at Ariel’s studio in the Australian rainforest during the pandemic, Melati & Kaazi began recording long live takes with Kalma, weaving in bioluminescent synth improvisations from Tristan Arp remotely. Revisited a few years later between the members of Asa Tone’s respective homes in New York & Indonesia, “○” is the document of a significant moment in the lives of all the album’s players; an ode to memory and connection in an era of crisis, illuminated via flickering fragments of steel flute, kantilan, modular synthesizer, xaphoon, tenor sax, EWI, field recordings of the surrounding rainforest, and the human voice.

Recorded, written and produced by Asa Tone & Ariel Kalma.
Ariel Kalma: Western Concert Flute, Xaphoon, Tenor Saxophone, Voice
Melati ESP: EWI, Kantilan, Voice
Kaazi: Hydrasynth, Opsix, Percussion
Tristan Arp: Modular Synthesizer, Moog Sub37, Percussion
Additional percussion on *3 by Miles Myjavec

Mixed by Tristan Arp, Kaazi and Ariel Kalma.
Mastered by Jose Arentes at GRAMA, Porto.
Art Direction & Layout : Melati ESP, Kaazi, Biscuit.
 

Paris-born electronic music pioneer and 1970s GRM alumni Ariel Kalma joins with multinational New York trio Asa Tone (Kaazi, Melati ESP, Tristan Arp) for a series of intergenerational, electro-acoustic studio conversations, exploring elasticity within rhythm and winds… or as one early listener observed “space and time.”

Following a chance encounter at Ariel’s studio in the Australian rainforest during the pandemic, Melati & Kaazi began recording long live takes with Kalma, weaving in bioluminescent synth improvisations from Tristan Arp remotely. Revisited a few years later between the members of Asa Tone’s respective homes in New York & Indonesia, “○” is the document of a significant moment in the lives of all the album’s players; an ode to memory and connection in an era of crisis, illuminated via flickering fragments of steel flute, kantilan, modular synthesizer, xaphoon, tenor sax, EWI, field recordings of the surrounding rainforest, and the human voice.

Recorded, written and produced by Asa Tone & Ariel Kalma.
Ariel Kalma: Western Concert Flute, Xaphoon, Tenor Saxophone, Voice
Melati ESP: EWI, Kantilan, Voice
Kaazi: Hydrasynth, Opsix, Percussion
Tristan Arp: Modular Synthesizer, Moog Sub37, Percussion
Additional percussion on *3 by Miles Myjavec

Mixed by Tristan Arp, Kaazi and Ariel Kalma.
Mastered by Jose Arentes at GRAMA, Porto.
Art Direction & Layout : Melati ESP, Kaazi, Biscuit.
 

After the exploit of Osmose in 1978, Kalma returns into the studio in 1980 with Interfrequence, an ambient space library record. Interfrequence is a continuation of his personal research based on the combination of electronic machines with natural sounds and acoustic instrumentation. The french musician fully wears the robe of master of ceremonies of the synths. However, the path taken is not that symphonic of the minimalist and galactic suites composed by other standard bearers like Richard Pinas and Klaus Schulze. Here, we find 18 short pictures sound (few of them in collaboration of M. Saclays) that emanate a variety of ideas and ethno-cultural influences unparalleled. A distinctive compositional style always returns an crescendo of ecstatic emotions, a reflection on the hidden and secret aspects of the micro and macro cosmos. If in Osmose the sampling sound from the mother Gaia was more explicit, here the Nature is investigated not only in terms of pure tones, but especially in the dynamics of flows and movements dictated by the frequency of moogs and organs and embellished with hyper-space flutes, saxophones and clarinets. Kalma wrote yet another chapter of his personal saga of a new world of sound imagery.

An amazing Krautrock / nature hybrid masterwork. Warm washes of synthesizer, tribal war drums and drones galore all mixed with the sounds of the rainforest, crickets, frogs, even flies - Osmose was originally released in 1978 and found minimalist composer Ariel Kalma using all manner of keyboards, saxophone, harmonium, delays, effects, even circular breathing, to compose gorgeously minimal, softly spacey slow drifting ambient soundscapes, which were then mixed with the sounds of the rainforest (recorded by Richard Tinti).It's a single LP reissue of the double album of 1978.

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” The Closest Thing To Silence is an album-length collaboration between fourth-world music icon Ariel Kalma and the recording duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer, which evolved from a twenty-minute selection pieces they recorded in 2022 for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’ program as part of a scheme that places together artists who have never worked together before. Chiu and Honer, who both cite Kalma as a huge influence on their work, beautifully fit into Kalma’s vision.

In August 2022, Australia-based, French born fourth-world music legend Ariel Kalma was invited to participate in BBC Radio 3’s Late Junction series of special collaborations. The program pairs artists who have not previously worked together to create new music cooperatively. Kalma was quick to suggest working with two musicians whom he had never met – International Anthem recording artists Jeremiah Chiu & Marta Sofia Honer, whose critically-acclaimed duo debut 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' had been released just a few months earlier. An invitation was sent to Chiu and Honer, which was received with great enthusiasm, as Chiu had long been a fan of Kalma’s work, even citing him as a major influence on his approach to electronic music composition. The essential structure of the Late Junction collaboration was that the artists would work together to create around twenty minutes of music. They began passing music back and forth, some that Kalma had started, and some that Honer & Chiu had started, with each adding to or editing the track before returning it to the other. The music would only go back and forth a few times before being finalized. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. After meeting their twenty minute goal for the program (four pieces total), the three musicians were satisfied in what they would present and sent along their work to the producers of Late Junction. However, there was a nagging suspicion that this wasn’t the end of the story. There were several pieces that they had nearly completed but that weren’t sent for inclusion in the radio program, and there were many ideas for refining those pieces that had. With this in mind Kalma, Chiu and Honer agreed that they would continue to work together to try to push the music further. The freshly minted trio felt like there was much more to be said and more work to be done. The Late Junction program was broadcast in September of 2022. Simultaneously, Kalma, Chiu and Honer began expanding upon the music they had started for the purpose of the broadcast, working diligently on the music for several months. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Their collective approach to this work was born in improvisation and realized via collage-based editing. The end result brings several distinct musical moments — recorded sometimes decades apart — into conversation with one another, forming new narratives from building blocks of old ones. There are snippets of improvised playing from each musician, edited together with recordings that Kalma had made in the 70s at GRM, and even moments of audio notes — like Kalma explaining his ideas — that would make it into the final mixes. Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” Ultimately, the collection of music highlights the work of all three musicians, intertwining the contextual immersion heard on Chiu & Honer’s 'Recordings from the Åland Islands' with an intergenerational reverence for (and the undeniable presence of) Kalma’s decades-spanning body of work. It is work that has definitively enshrined him as one of the true, transcendent pioneers and sages of new age and fourth-world music. That reverence is affirmed by the album title chosen by the group — "The Closest Thing to Silence" — which is taken from a quote by Kalma included in a documentary by RVNG Intl (as part of their release of the 2014 compendium/retrospective An Evolutionary Music). Perhaps coincidental, Kalma’s quote was a slight modulation of a legendary ECM Records motto, as he said: “Music is the closest thing to silence.” The Closest Thing To Silence is an album-length collaboration between fourth-world music icon Ariel Kalma and the recording duo Jeremiah Chiu and Marta Sofia Honer, which evolved from a twenty-minute selection pieces they recorded in 2022 for BBC Radio 3’s ‘Late Junction’ program as part of a scheme that places together artists who have never worked together before. Chiu and Honer, who both cite Kalma as a huge influence on their work, beautifully fit into Kalma’s vision.

As far as we know, or at least can discern from those letters and records published after his tragically early death at the age of 40, the author Franz Kafka had two great love affairs. The second, with journalist and translator Milena Jesenská, has been widely celebrated in the decades since the collected, one-sided Letters to Milena was compiled and published. In it, we see what must be the total store of his warmth and passion – everything lacking in his disorienting, menacing fictions. The Milena letters, strange and hot and highly questionable as they are, remain a source of fascination and inspiration for Kafka fanatics, erotomaniacs and historians alike.

Unfortunately, their intellectually salacious reputation means those Letters far overshadow an earlier, thicker, darker volume penned by Franz K to his first great love and one-time fiancée, Felice Bauer, a relative of his lifelong editor Max Brod. While Kafka’s real-life story is one of brutal sexual failure and alienation before, during and after these two longer-term relationships, he managed a depth of written intimacy with both of these women most accurately described as harrowing. This tendency to expose himself most in moments of bitter melancholy is far more apparent and striking in the collected Letters to Felice.

This cold zoetrope, which conceals and reveals at accelerated frame-rates, eventually making a complex picture from an endless sequencing of small repetitive gestures, is the scaffold supporting Aris Kindt, the ongoing two-piece ‘post-structuralist pop’ project from Francis Harris and Gabe Hedrick. With Now Claims My Timid Heart, Harris and Hedrick continue the experiment started on Swann and Odette, crafting closed systems that promote a hushed correspondence between their sonic (Basic Channel, drone metal) and literary influences (Kafka, Sebald, Pynchon).

Their commitment to this insular, architectural thesis resolves itself yet again with a record that manages to be simultaneously alienating and deeply human. This is largely due to the novel and particular ways the band achieves its trademark sound: For Timid Heart (their first record since 2017 as well as their first release on NYC’s Quiet Time Tapes), Harris eliminated much of music’s normal dependence on physical space, instead creating hermetically sealed sonic ‘rooms’ where the songs can live by sending samples and loops through convolution reverb. Each of the eight tracks on Timid Heart is fundamentally, thus, a field recording from an inaccessible world.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on ‘Letters to Felice,’ which contains some of the album’s most Kafkaesque, dystopian atonality, as well as the most obvious influence of storied producer and engineer Phil Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker, Big Thief), who oversaw mixing for the record. This is about as upbeat as Aris Kindt gets; listening closely and taking into consideration the Rembrandt painting that gave the band its name, one can only hear the ravings of the human heart in a biomechanical sense. Not the stuff of love letters, but the operating table; not throbbing with lust, but electricity. It is the sort of music that begs the listener to remain at a slight remove for their own safety, to avoid going out in the way that desire, once sated, also ceases to be.

Now Claims My Timid Heart is, in this way, both a continuation of and an advancement upon Swann’s speculative emotional landscape; it maintains the band’s mystic sense of intimacy while simultaneously moving it in a more interior, cautiously analytic direction. Like viewing the Aris Kindt of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, or the vulnerabilities of Kafka on the private page, Timid Heart feels at times like getting a peek into an autopsy in progress. Simultaneously raw and clinical, it pulses inside the listener, encouraging retreat – if only into oneself.

Trance has been the flagship for electronic music across the globe during the nineties and early zeroes. The sound’s trademark optimistic and euphoric aspects has brought some of the most compelling musical pieces of its time, and undoubtedly had a significant influence on future electronic music to come. Yet, its historical significance has been highly overlooked. Hypnotised is the first encyclopedia to cover the global trance movement during its most prolific years. The 332-page book spans a near-complete discography of supposedly essential albums, labels and releases, alongside exclusive photos and in-depth interviews with influential artists and label owners.

Looking back more than four years later at Haram, it is easier to see the forest for the trees. At the time, much of the attention fell on how this outsider duo would fare under the bright lights- which was fair, Armand Hammer had never done a single producer record before- and here they were working with a living legend. Now, with a little distance, it’s easier to see how Alchemist stepped out of his comfort zone to meet them where they were, and how all three artists then absconded for parts unknown. The flashbulb energy of “Bring The Stars Out”, asymmetric drone of “Chicharrones”, fugue-bounce of “God’s Feet”, and good luck finding analogues for “Peppertree” or “Stonefruit”. Haram doesn’t sound like anything else in the ALC discography, nor in Armand Hammer’s, for that matter. Haram was a one-shot kill that somehow contained some of the most accessible work ELUCID and billy woods had ever done, as well as some of their most experimental, and it all sounded cohesive.Needless to say, they didn’t do this alone; KAYANA’s golden voice upps the wattage on “Black Sunlight,” while Fielded’s sultry alto gets chopped and screwed on “Aubergine”. Earl Sweatshirt’s cameo on the sun-soaked “Falling Out the Sky” is already a classic. Curly Castro, Amani, and Quelle Chris all turn up the heat when called upon.But since we are talking about retrospect here, the thing about Haram isn’t that it still sounds as good as it did when it came out. The amazing thing is that it actually sounds even better than it did then. You don’t have to take our word for it either, run it up one time, with the lights low and something on ice, see if it doesn’t take you somewhere new, again.

Armand Hammer and The Alchemist build worlds. Their first was Haram and it remains locked in orbit, equal parts lush and foreboding. Their new one is called Mercy and it’s made out of blood and empire, children’s laughter, unpaid parking tickets, and things that haven’t happened yet.Rappers ELUCID and billy woods are joined on the mic by Earl Sweatshirt, Quelle Chris, Cleo Reed, Pink Siifu, Kapwani, and Silka. The Alchemist did everything else.

</p><iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 373px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1786378255/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://armlock.bandcamp.com/album/trust">Trust by Armlock</a></iframe><iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 373px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1786378255/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://armlock.bandcamp.com/album/trust">Trust by Armlock</a></iframe>

Black Truffle is thrilled to continue its program of archival releases from Arnold Dreyblatt with a recently unearthed concert recording from Dreyblatt and Paul Panhuysen’s "Duo Geloso". While isolated examples of Dreyblatt’s collaboration with the legendary Dutch multi-media artist appeared on the CD reissue of Propellers in Love and Black Truffle’s wide-ranging archival Second Selection, this is the first release to document the variety and playfulness of the concerts that Duo Geloso performed throughout Europe in 1987-88. Both working across sonic and visual forms, fascinated by numerical relationship and the infinite complexity of string harmonics, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen had a natural affinity for each other’s work, strengthened through Dreyblatt’s many visits to Het Apollohuis, the important experimental art space Panhuysen helped to found in Eindhoven. However, as René van Peer suggests in the liner notes enclosed within this release, Dreyblatt and Panhuysen took very different approaches to these shared interests; the wonderful energy of these Duo Geloso performances results from the meeting of Dreyblatt’s more austere, compositional process with Panhuysen’s spontaneity. Recorded at a concert at Het Apollohuis in December 1987 (a series of beautiful photographs of which adorn the LP’s packaging), each of the six pieces presented here is distinctive in terms of instrumentation and performance approach. Using electric guitar and bass tuned by Dreyblatt and played using E-Bow and Panhuysen’s motorised plectrums, the opening ‘Razorburg’ moves slowly through a long series of held notes with a madly insistent tremolo that crosses Dick Dale with a mechanised take on the layered guitars of Günter Schickert. The same pair of instruments returns on ‘Duo for Guitars’, where the mechanised attacks dissolve into a harmonic wash, reminiscent of the machine guitar work of fellow Het Apollohuis alumni Remko Scha. On ‘Love Call’, the guitars and bass are accompanied by Panhuysen’s distant warbled vocals, familiar to Maciunas Ensemble listeners. On the remarkable ‘Synsonic Batterie’, Panhuysen begins proceedings with a solo barrage of electronic percussion on the Synsonics Drum Machine (a simple drum synthesiser produced by the toy manufacturer Mattell), joined eventually by Dreyblatt performing his signature percussive natural harmonics on pedal steel guitar. When Panhuysen adds his bird whistle to the mix, the performance becomes the perfect exemplar of the Duo Geloso’s unique mix of studious close listening and subtle absurdity. Presented in a gatefold sleeve with archival photos and illuminating liner notes from René van Peer.

Minimalist avant-rock from experimentalist Dreyblatt: ultra-rhythmic overtones created from striking piano strings strung to a bass.

LP originally released in 1982 by India Navigation Records

Resolve acts in dialogue with the minimalist inspirations of the first Arnold Dreyblatt & The Orchestra of Excited Strings release, 1982’s Nodal Excitation – in effect, looking beneath the hood of several decades of progression to review and renew the revolutionary intent of their microntonal foundation credo. This new Orchestra – Oren Ambarchi, Konrad Sprenger and Joachim Schütz – combine effortlessly to explore new scalar dimensions. PLAY LOUD.

Aquainted through their shared love of music technology, and now a friendship, this is the second-time pairing between two well-known musicians from the ambient and electronic scene since some decades: the German artist Arovane and the American artist Taylor Deupree. After their first release together in November 2022, "Skal_Ghost" on 12K, this new release explore once more an organic journey built around loops and layers or processed and re-processed sounds giving this particular color to a new must-have album.

Aquainted through their shared love of music technology, and now a friendship, this is the second-time pairing between two well-known musicians from the ambient and electronic scene since some decades: the German artist Arovane and the American artist Taylor Deupree. After their first release together in November 2022, "Skal_Ghost" on 12K, this new release explore once more an organic journey built around loops and layers or processed and re-processed sounds giving this particular color to a new must-have album.

The story of each re-release begins with the original. In the late 90s, Uwe Zahn (Arovane), along with Robert Henke (Monolake) and Stefan Betke (Pole), began releasing music on Torsten Pröfrock’s (Dynamo) newly launched DIN label. This was a very inconspicuous undertaking, but fans of the flourishing IDM, glitch, and constantly evolving abstract techno genres quickly picked up on the quality of sound coming out of Germany. After a few successful EPs, Zahn began working on his debut full-length, Atol Scrap. The release was a success, at least in the underground circles, where followers of the melodic harmonies, stuttering off-beat rhythms, and, most importantly, advanced sound design feverishly consumed the imprint’s output. There was only one thing missing – the album was never pressed on vinyl, and for decades remained in the digital domain. The fans, of course, inquired. There were multiple offers on the table, but Zahn retained control until he was assured that it was properly attained. “I thought of taking everything into my own hands and releasing the record myself,” says Zahn, “but at the end of last year, Matthias from Keplar asked me to re-release Atol Scrap on vinyl.” The label and its owner revolve in the Morr Music universe, and so it made sense for Zahn to trust the platform to treat the record right.

Listening to Atol Scrap over twenty years later it is inane not to admit how well it has held up. Where other genres clearly aged, becoming stale, bland, and dull, the music on eleven tasty tracks still keeps the neurons tickled with each note. More than an echo of the past, the bottled sound truly has matured. Many of the newly evolving techniques are recognizable on the album. “I created the digital artifacts with a digital multi-track recorder, the Fostex D80,” recalls Zahn. “The thing had a scrub wheel with which I could achieve wonderful glitch effects by winding through the audio data. I have sampled and further processed these artifacts.” And this approach is still embedded in Zahn’s sound design. “I still use my 24-track analog desk from Tascam to mix my audio. I love to use hardware synths and samplers. I’ve definitely built upon my studio experience in the 90s.” From this debut to the most recent output, Arovane’s sound has evolved to become more intricate, detailed, and pronounced. “My music has become much quieter and much slower. But that’s probably also due to the noise in the world.” And just as Atol Scrap reminds Zahn of the past, retaining charm preserved in a container traveling through time, it also jitters memories of long ago, when we were twenty years younger, less experienced, and bold. For me, among the many records of the time, this album held a special place in life, my heart, and many CD boxes moved across the world. And now I’m only happy to restock the vinyl space, where Atol Scrap belongs among the beloved records. Welcome home. - Mike Lazarev

With Narration, Toki Fuko returns to Affin after a long break. The EP contains 4 stylistically diverse tracks (some of them overlong), which are captivating in their perfection and document the musical versatility of the musician, who skilfully moves between dubby, hypnotic, in-depth techno here.An extremely worthy successor and a grandiose further development of the Astatine EP from 2020. Keplar continue their Arovane reissue program with this long overdue edition of Uwe Zahn's iconic EP collection 'Icol Diston' that features some of his finest productions, all releases by cult legendary label Din (the Hardwax one, not Ian Boddy's label). From the shockingly contemporary rework of Torsten T++ Pröfrock's 'Außen vor' to the itchy industrial grind of 'icol vern', it holds up. After Zahn changed track completely with 'Tides' in 2000, Pröfrock's DIN label assembled the then Berlin-based producer's early 12"s - "i.o.", "icol diston" and "AMX" - into "Icol Diston", closing the book on the first iteration of his sound. Zahn had written the music during a time of unprecedented musical freedom in Berlin, and felt the city's energy seep into ideas he was exploring in his rapidly growing studio. "There was an overwhelming dynamic of liberation reverberating through the city—through the clubs, the arts, the people," he says. During long tram rides, he would dream out the rhythmic sequences he'd reassemble later using a handful of synths, sequences and samplers, recording live in stereo straight to DAT. So invariably, this is some of the most intricate beat oriented material Zahn has ever produced, drawing on the blueprint of Autechre's seminal "Tri Repetae" and fashioned in the shadow of Hardwax and the mighty Dubplates & Mastering, welding dub bass and tekno stabs to skittering IDM repeaters and cycling hats. With the benefit of hindsight, it all makes complete sense. His first release, "i.o." was an attempt for Zahn to map out a process he'd explore further on the following year's "Atol Scrap". These are still some of the producer's most iconic recordings, and show how well developed his sound was even at the very beginning. Gravelly beats immediately push to the front of the title track, steadily overwhelmed by winding, melancholy synth patterns that would become an Arovane staple in the coming years. 'parf' and 'torn' follow largely the same path (the latter being a particular highlight), but it's when Zahn switches things up on 'andar' that the depth of his sound begins to show. Using a rumbling kick and barely-present glitches to provide an almost hip-hop jolt, he concentrates his focus on undulating, dubby atmospherics that allow his signature melodies to poke only half-way through the fog. The EP's follow-up "icol diston" meanwhile is some of the most upfront music Zahn has produced to date, immediately showing his rhythmic advances on the glassy 'yua:e', a self-assured collision of pulsing, stepped kicks, polyrhythmic crunches and euphoric analog washes. Zahn even responds to the rave echoes that surrounded him in Berlin with 'nacrath', contorting 'ardkore stabs into chirpy, hopeful lead sequences that dance through sine pulses, harp-like synth plucks and halfstep bumps. But hands-down our favorite moments come from Zahn's final DIN 12", where he remixed two tracks from Pröfrock himself: Dynamo's 'außen vor' and Various Artists' 'no.8'. The former is legendary around these parts, showing Zahn's skill working in plushest technoid mode as he skips around a squashed deep house template, letting pads slowly affect the flow with distant longing, and the latter is a remodel of Pröfrock's most crushing recording. Zahn takes his friend's smoked-out synth squelches and adds a low, slow beat that comes across like a weightless answer to Timbaland's Missy/Tweet run, dominating the soundsystem with subdued, syncopated force. Both tracks still sound like little else out there, and they haven't aged a day. Massive recommendation, obviously.

Arovane's acclaimed 2004 album »Lilies« has been out of print on vinyl for nearly 2 decades now. It finally gets a well-deserved reissue through the Berlin based Keplar label. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. *2023 remaster* "Lilies" was a follow-up to "Tides" in every sense, exploring a trip to Japan and drawing on shimmering textures and the sort of melodies that you might need some time to recover from. There's a hugely evocative sense to these tracks, emotionally driven, free of complexity or conceit, piano melodies providing the central focus for a twilight cascade of light that seems perfect for the Tokyo skyline - just as the sun sets. It's an album that radiates warmth and vulnerability, fusing the technological might at the heart of each track (and at the heart of the city) with an age-old understanding that certain echoes of sound, small melodic changes and cushioned lullabies can imprint sounds on your mind like childhood memories - remembered forever. Like a dreamlike score, or maybe even an alternate soundtrack to "Lost in Translation" - the sort of music that intertwines with images and stays in your mind indefinately. After coming back from Tokyo and completing the production of "Lilies", Uwe Zahn disassembled his studio in the big flat in an old building in Berlin's Prenzlauerberg district and stored it away in boxes. He needed a break from making music. "Lilies" was the last album prior to a nine-year hiatus for Arovane, ending in 2013 with the release of "Ve Palor".

»Tides« marked a radical change in direction for Arovane. After Uwe Zahn had made a name for himself with cutting-edge IDM rhythms and slick ambient textures on a slew of releases, his sophomore album saw the prolific producer opt for a sample-based approach that resulted in a more organic sound and laid-back downbeat grooves. Having reissued Arovane’s seminal »Atol-Scrap« as a double LP in 2021, the Berlin-based Keplar label now makes »Tides« available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2000 through the legendary City Centre Offices. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. It shines a new light on a release for which Zahn quite literally ventured into previously unknown territory — »Tides« is an album that emits a timeless, quiet calm and nonetheless stays constantly in motion. »The idea for the album came to me after a vacation in France«, says Zahn. Inspired by the landscape, especially the coastline and the sea, he made field recordings throughout his trip that were also used on the record, giving it its sensual feel. The foundation of the album however, the loose yet gripping grooves at the heart of every track, result from Zahn working extensively with samples. »I wanted to make use of drum sounds and small excerpts from old jazz vinyl records«, he explains. He maintained the unique sound signatures and rhythmic flutter of the source material while building intricate beats with them. Most of the material was culled from the record collection of Christian Kleine, whose spontaneous guitar improvisations over the first musical sketches were recorded and edited by Zahn and can be heard on four tracks. Also employing the occasional cembalo or spinet sound, he worked with a hardware sequencer and a delay to integrate the different, discrete elements into nine tracks that feel both dense and light at once. What’s astonishing still 22 years later is how spacious »Tides« sounds. This is due to the fact that Zahn not only paid close attention to the sonic idiosyncrasies of his source material, but also to what happened in between those sounds. »Mark Hollis’s solo album was a huge inspiration at that time«, says Zahn. »What I find fascinating about it until this day is how silence and the subtle hiss of the mixing boards were being used on that record.« Silence was also an important stylistic element on »Tides« and adds greatly to the overall atmosphere of an album that with the appropriately named »Theme« immediately sets the mood with intricate spinet melodies: Zahn opens a door for his listeners and invites them to follow him to see a specific part of the world through his very own lens. As a whole, the album mirrors Zahn’s trip that took him along the steep cliffs on a foggy day (»Seaside«), to an abandoned house in which he found old maps (»A Secret«), along the coastline during a long car ride (»Deauville«), to a sleepy village and the slowly moving sea (»Tides«) and finally back home to his native Germany where he started reflecting upon his experiences, ultimately deciding to translate them into music (»Epilogue«). »Whenever I listen to this album now, the images and memories it evokes are incredibly vivid and vibrant«, he says. It’s not hard to see — or rather hear — why. »Tides« may have been a deeply personal project, but it effortlessly evokes universal feelings by (re-)building an entire world in the course of only a few pieces of music.

Based in Kampala, Arsenal Mikebe are a groundbreaking Ugandan ensemble who playfully dance around the fringes of of acoustic and electronic music, infusing tempo-fluxed polyrhythms with dizzying chants and ghostly synthetic drones. The band is made up of percussionists Ssentongo Moses, Dratele Epiphany, Luyambi Vincent de Paul and was co-founded by Portugese sonic alchemist Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, together they straddle a unique custom instrument dreamt up by Ugandan master sculptor Henry Segamwenge, better known simply as Sega. By reverse engineering Roland's iconic TR-808 beatbox, they devised a steel-cast "percussion machine" that allows Arsenal Mikebe to seamlessly integrate bass-heavy electronic sounds into their frenetic performances, and it's this device that lies at the core of their debut album.

'DRUM MACHINE' is a rhythmic masterclass that's impossible to slot into any particular niche or other. Moses, Vincent and Dratele's kinetic beats appear to bisect each other, slipping between time signatures as fluidly as they pierce the membrane between the organic and the digital. On opening track 'Okuleekaana', brushy high-end hits coalesce into quivering patterns that bounce off the trio's guttural chants before the track's shuttled into peak-time by an ear-splitting distorted kick. Harsh death metal-style growls echo and spiral into the distance, and Sega's percussion machine is nudged into overdrive, its smorgasbord of distinctive pulses lifted skyward by glassy, evocative synths and resonant twangs.

It's extreme music, in a sense, but Arsenal Mikebe command startling dynamics, veering off course whenever possible. 'Omuzimu' is the perfect example, a labyrinth of itchy rhythms and anxious pauses that only slowly converges into a discernible beat, with its jerky bumps and muted crashes underpinned by eerie, almost inaudible B-movie whines and stifled shouts. And on the lengthy 'Boiller Omukka', the trio sing soulfully and wordlessly over feverish hollow thuds and cowbell knocks, referencing traditional Ugandan song forms while simultaneously excavating the bones of techno. It all builds up to the rubbery, intense 'Bell Ghost', that carves energetic vocal snippets into an undulating rhythmic concertina and fractalizes the atmosphere with swirling, psychedelic flutes and haunted intonations.

When Billy Eckstine's band dissolved in the mid-1940s, adventurous drummer Art Blakey spent two years in Africa, where he briefly converted to Islam; back in New York, he gigged with Miles and Monk, before fronting his own Jazz Messengers. 1957's Orgy In Rhythm drew on the sounds of North Africa and the Middle East, Blakey's unfettered drumming accompanied by Latin percussionists such as Potato Valdez and Evilio Quintero, with Herbie Mann on flute. The musical arrangement is stunning, at times melodic or primordially rhythmic, but never short of pure brilliance. Overall, an excellent and astounding release!

On May 28, 1969, four American musicians -- reed/wind players Roscoe Mitchell and Joseph Jarman, bassist Malachi Favors, and (accompanied by his wife, singer Fontella Bass) trumpeter Lester Bowie -- boarded the ocean liner S.S. United States, bound for Le Havre, France. After landing five days later, they moved on to Paris, where they got to work. On August 22, 1970, in the waning days of their stay overseas, the group, with Bass on vocals, would record their second release for EMI's Pathé Marconi: the movie soundtrack Les Stances à Sophie. The record, an exciting, eminently listenable combination of soul, classical, and jazz strains that survives as the Art Ensemble of Chicago's most stylistically diverse album, has long been admired by a devoted cult. Its durability is largely due to the popularity of its "hit": Over the years, "Theme de Yoyo" has been covered repeatedly, essayed by acts as varied as German funk band the Boogoos (and the offshoot Deep Jazz, both featuring singer Julia Fehenbeger), British nu-jazz combo the Cinematic Orchestra, Polish jazz man Wojtek Mazolewski, Norwegian rockers Motorpsycho, French dance music artist Étienne Jaumet, and London-based remixer, Shall I Bruk It. More than half a century later, "Theme de Yoyo" and Les Stances à Sophie still bring it. Limited-edition LP reissue from play loud! Productions, supplemented with new notes by U.S. music journalist Chris Morris.