All products

Originally released in 2009. "Back to music after three years of silence... On the suggestion of Robert Ashley, Douglas Dunn commissioned this piece from Éliane Radigue for choreography. Only the first part of Triptych was staged at the premiere at the Dancehall/Theatre of Nancy on February 27 1978. Recorded in the composer's studio in Paris. After the premiere of Adnos I (IMPREC 028CD) in San Francisco in 1974, a group of French students introduced Éliane Radigue to Tibetan Buddhism. When she returned to Paris, she began to explore this spirituality in depth, which slowed her musical production up until 1978. Triptych marks her return to composition, and draws its inspiration from 'the spirit of the fundamental elements,' water, air, fire, earth... Éliane Radigue likes to add that this has often been useful to her in her moments of research and transitions. This three-part composition, with its great humility and contemplative simplicity, heralded a new period of work and was the first in a series of masterpieces inspired by Tibetan Buddhism: Adnos II (1980); Adnos III (1981) [both included on IMPREC 028CD]; Songs of Milarepa (1983), with the voices of Lama Kunga Rinpoche and Robert Ashley; Jetsun Mila (1986); as well as the Triologie de la Mort (XI 119CD): Kyema (1988), Kailasha (1991), and Koumé (1993). Archival images included in the accompanying booklet." --Manu Holterbach

Alga Marghen very proudly presents a remastered version of Vice-Versa, Etc..., an LP originally included in the first 400 copies of Eliane Radigue's Feedback Works 2LP. Vice-Versa, Etc... was originally a small handmade box, signed and numbered and released on the occasion of a show at Lara Vincy's gallery in 1970. The box contained a reel of magnetic tape and the instructions for use. It indicates that all playback speeds are possible, forward or backward, as well as any combination of two channels, on several recorders, ad libitum. This LP presents two versions done by Emmanuel Hoelterbach following the indications of Eliane Radigue to the letter, respecting her composition methods. There is no doubt that Eliane Radigue's vocabulary is based on observing and entering into dialog with the fundamental behavior of sounds: pulsing, beating, sustained, very light, a subtle and delicate evolution. When she moved from feedback sounds to the ARP synthesizer, she naturally continued the same music -- a continuity where the original use of feedback sounds stands out for its cruder and more savage inner character. One could say that somehow it's the very texture of the sounds, which leads the form of her compositions. At the same time, this approach favors an intense sensuality in the listening.

A 14-disc box set tracing the discography of Eliane Radigue, the Tibetan-meets-electronic music guru, is now available Box with a gorgeous booklet! Having studied at RTF Studios in France under music concretists such as Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry, Eliane Radigue has been creating profound electronic music for decades, and now her historical archive is here! This 14-disc box contains many of her masterpieces released in CD format, including some that are now hard to find, and even includes Metamkine's mini-CD "Biogenesis.

In 2018 experimental festival Organ Reframed commissioned Éliane Radigue to write her first work for organ, 'Occam Ocean XXV'. Radigue worked closely with organist Frédéric Blondy at the Église Saint Merry in Paris before transferring the piece to Union Chapel for its premiere at Organ Reframed on 13 October 2018. The recording on this compact disc was made at a private session at Union Chapel on 8 January 2020. 'Occam XXV' inaugurates the very special record series of works exclusively commissioned by Organ Reframed, the organ-only, one of a kind experimental music festival, carefully curated by Scottish composer/performer and London's Union Chapel organ music director Claire M Singer. Paris-born Éliane Radigue is one of the most innovative and influential living composers of all time. After working under Pierre Schaeffer and Pierre Henry in the late 1950's/early 60's she mainly worked with tape before developing a deep relationship with modular synthesis in the early 1970's. Over the next three decades she pushed her own conceptions of musicality forward developing a deep relationship with her ARP 2500. Through endless exploration and drawing on her personal journey as a practicing Buddhist she created an entirely new landscape of experimental sound. In the early 2000's she made an extraordinary shift into writing predominantly for acoustic instruments. 'Occam XXV' is the latest chapter of Radigue's broader series of works Occam Ocean which she has been composing in the last decade. Carefully selected by Radigue she has closely collaborated with various extremely experienced yet sensitive instrumentalists. For Occam XXV Radigue collaborated with pianist, organist, composer, improviser, artistic director of the Orchestra of New Musical Creation, Experimentation and Improvisation (ONCEIM) Frédéric Blondy, which is their second collaboration in the Occam Ocean series. 'Occam XXV' premiered in 2018, and was later recorded privately in 2020 at London's Organ Reframed headquarters Union Chapel. "We live in a universe filled with waves. Not only between the Earth and the Sun but all the way down to the tiniest microwaves and inside it is the minuscule band that lies between the 60 Hz and the 12,000 to 15,000 Hz that our ears turn into sound. There are many wavelengths in the ocean too and we also come into contact with it physically, mentally and spiritually. That explains the title of this body of work which is called Occam Ocean.The main aim of this work is to focus on how the partials are dealt with. Whether they come in the form of micro beats, pulsations, harmonics, subharmonics – which are extremely rare but have a transcendent beauty – bass pulsations – the highly intangible aspect of sound. That's what makes it so rich. When Luciano Pavarotti gave free rein to the full force of his voice the conductor stopped beating time and you could hear the richness in its entirety. Music in written form, or however it is relayed, ultimately remains abstract. It's the performer, the person playing it who brings it to life. So the person playing the instrument must come first. I've always thought of performers and their instruments as one. They form a dual personality. No two performers, playing the same instrument, have the same relationship with that instrument – the same intimate relationship. This is where the process of making the work personal begins. The purely personal task of deciding on the theme or image that we're going to work from. Obviously, because this is Occam Ocean, the theme is always related to water. It could be a little stream, a fountain, the distant ocean, rivers. Out of the fifty or so musicians I've worked with no two themes have been the same. Each musician's theme is completely unique and completely personal. The music does the talking. This is one of those art forms that manages to express the many things that words aren't able to. Even at an early stage, all those ideas need to have been brought together." - Éliane Radigue

Following up last year's acclaimed 'Heavy Glory' and collabs with Dean Blunt and Yung Lean, Iceage's Elias Rønnenfelt maxes on Yves Tumor-indebted hyper-sexual '90s indie-isms, trading sniffs 'n sneers with Erika de Casier, Fine and The Congos. RIYL Happy Mondays, Primal Scream or Bar Italia.

Rønnenfelt's always been good at predicting tidal shifts. Even when he was a teen fronting hardcore punk heroes Iceage he repeatedly bucked expectations, choosing to tour with fringe noise operatives like Helm and evolve the band's sound into something more like Spiritualized, augmenting chugging Britpop references with a full gospel choir on 2021's 'Seek Shelter'. So when his solo debut arrived last year, its peculiarity was almost a given; why wouldn't it be a set of country-tinted folk-rock jammers backed up with covers of Spacemen 3 and Townes Van Zandt? 'Speak Daggers', though, is a different beast altogether. Made in his bedroom between tours, it's a thicker, more confidently obstinate album than its predecessor that plays more like a continuation or evolution of 'Seek Shelter'. So after a smirking fake-out with the Nyman-esque 'Intro', 'Crush the Devil's Head' busses us to Manchester via Oxford, juxtaposing its cheeky melodica moans with Rønnenfelt's best Thom Yorke impression.

'Love How It Feels' sounds like Primal Scream reimagined by Yves Tumor, all thick sampled breaks, bolshy doomsaying and clammy glam undertones. There's an era-appropriate jaunt to Jamaica on 'Not Gonna Follow' that repurposes material Rønnenfelt recorded with The Congos and I-Jahbar when he was out in Jamaica a few years ago and sounds as if it could have fallen off the notorious '...Yes Please' sessions. And on 'Mona Lisa', he uses the Bobby Byrd 'Hot Pants' break that The Stone Roses famously twinned with Mani's enduring bassline on 'Fools Gold' - Rønnenfelt's tale of heartbreak isn't quite as toothsome, but it's a good indicator of where his head's at. A duet with Erika de Casier helps bolster highlight 'Blunt Force Trauma', and Rønnenfelt's Escho bandmate Fine - whose voice graces Two Shell's 'Home' - pitches in on 'Kill Your Neighbor', tapping into the seam between Denise Johnson and Hope Sandoval.

Ever since my childhood, women artists have been particularly inspiring to me. It started with rock music and electronica, evolving into where I am today.
When I first listened to "L'Île re-sonante", it changed my world. That a woman created this and pioneered something timeless was mesmerising for me. I love this piece so much that I dedicated a whole episode to it on my podcast with Jono Podmore - Talk to the Chip:  www.mixcloud.com/talk_to_the_chip/talk-to-the-chip-episode-3-l%C3%AEle-re-sonante-%C3%A9liane-radigue/
The sonorities and harmonics that gradually evolve into a beautiful ethereal world of sounds with ARP 2500 and field recordings - simple but also sophisticated. 
Then I further delved into the work of Eliane Radigue. She had been creating ambient electronic music long before the term "ambient" was coined. That she is still around us is such a valuable thing and we should all make her feel that. I am honoured to contribute to this even if it is little - the little I can do by getting inspired and creating a work as part of a series that has her name in it. It is truly an honour. Her music and approaches keep on inspiring mine. I am grateful that sheexists.

Track titles have references to sky objects and physical phenomena as well as events that affect me in my life as I observe my environment, while listening to the sounds, sometimes alongside music such as those created by Radigue herself. These include dramatic facts and stories that happen to some sky objects. Each track is connected to one another. In this manner, they make a whole track together as in a concept album. I do not use a lot of equipment when I make music. I like to keep my setup minimal and make the best of limitations, pushing the boundaries. In doing so, I used my own Max/MSP patches to process the sounds usually with granular synthesis, FM synthesis, and wavetable synthesis. I also used my Game Boy and electric guitar as my main instruments. There are also glimpse of field recordings blended with music. My absolute pitch means that I hear musical sounds in anything I hear or listen to and this influences my approach to field recording and everyday sounds, which is something I tried to capture in this album.

-- Elif Yalvaç <iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 307px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2187791330/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://elianetapes.bandcamp.com/album/vection">Vection by Elif Yalvaç</a></iframe>

Even in these most turbulent of times, dub musician and fatigued onlooker Elijah Minnelli remains an inexplicable stalwart on the lower rungs of the Breadminster County Council.

His latest record ‘Clams As A Main Meal’ continues his astute siphoning of council funds, this time with help from the Breadminster Board of Abstinence. As a further mark of respect, the original head of the Board, Dr. K'houldoux, graces the cover art in his infamous ‘Looming Moon of Desire’ guise.*

As fine a backdrop as any for Minneli’s off-brand dub experiments, and ‘Clams…’ is the truest representation of his varied wheelhouse yet…

We find vocal appearances from dub goliath Dennis Bovell and Welsh-language singer Carwyn Ellis. A pair of tracks which build on 2024’s acclaimed ‘Perpetual Musket’, a collection of folk songs reworked alongside reggae vocalists, released by FatCat Records. It garnered glowing reviews, with nods from The Guardian and The Quietus concluding with prominent appearances on their respective yearly round-up lists.

Elsewhere, the album finds Minnelli in a more experimental mode, all wheezing contraptions and cockeyed bass, creaking with the weight of creation, a satisfying tactility laid seam-side up.

As well as ‘Perpetual Musket’, the new album follows years of sold out 7" singles, handmade and self-released. Online, the tracks have amassed global streams numbering in the millions. His tracks have found play across an eclectic range of radio mixes and dance floors, most notably the likes of Andrew Weatherall, Batu, Optimo and Zakia Sewell (BBC6Music).

It is perhaps worth mentioning that this everbuilding interest in his work is at great odds with the growing suspicions amongst his fellow townsfolk, who see his Breadminster County Council Music Initiative as nothing more than an empty cash-grab.

*For further reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence, please see below.

Further Reading on the Breadminster Board of Abstinence

In the late 70s, Breadminster was awash with the last vestiges of the hippy era. Though the flared silhouette of the lower leg remained, the utopian ideals that had once flowed merrily around the youth's shaded ankles had begun to wane. LSD and free love had led to a sharp spike in population and a generation of children raised by air-headed psychonauts unprepared for the bleary-eyed strictures of parenthood.

Aware of the crisis, the County Council entrusted Dr. Paulinque K'houldoux to spearhead a pushback, and it was his pro-abstinence movement - a mixture of education initiatives and radical renutrition campaigns - that came to impact Breadminster's census deep into the new millennium.

Being a pseudo-archipelago Breadminster has fundamentally limited resources, however deep-seated ties to distant coastal villages meant that oysters were a regular part of the local diet. K'houldoux pinpointed this as a factor in the town's overpopulation, and believed that simply replacing these with clams (a “lesser mollusk”) would help lower the erotic urges of the people. It was his “anti-aphrodesia” movement that first championed the idea of “Clams As A Main Meal,” and the slogan “Consider Abstinence” carried the message yet further.

The Breadminster Board of Abstinence soon became involved in all cultural happenings in the area, with K'houldoux MCing at prominent festivals and performances, sometimes dressed as the “Looming Moon of Desire” - an idea of his relating to the tide, seafood, menstrual cycles, and his privately held celestial predilections.

It was in 1981 that it was revealed Dr. K'houldoux had never fully qualified as a doctor and was seeking exile in Breadminster due to a series of botched bracelet heists in which he had previously been involved. K'houldoux was subsequently extradited to Basingstoke, where he served 3 of a 12-year sentence, owing to the lunar-oriented prisoner health campaigns he helped implement.

It has been a strange twist of bureaucratic fate that the Breadminster Board of Abstinence has never stopped receiving public funding, despite its lack of clear utility. And while its roots are tied to a rose-tinted past, the Board continues to sponsor cultural events and projects to this day.

An extract from: Eugeniq Schooner's article in Sydney Parishioner: “Clams, Breadminster and Countercultural Abstinence Trends” (2008)

Reissue, originally released in 1963. Ellis Regina one of the greatest Brazilian interpreters of all time. Originally released in 1963 when she was not even 20 years old, this was her fourth album and second for Columbia Records. Still a few steps before she became a star, here Ellis Regina's fresh and extremely ductile voice shines on top of sophisticated jazz arrangements by Astor Silva and a mixed repertoire based on charming romantic songs and vibrant sambas, all composed by Brazilian authors, among them a couple of highlights such as Baden Powell's "Se Você. Quiser" and "O Ben do Amor" the title track composed by guitarist Rildo Hora. This is an early and fine statement in Regina's fast way to the peak of Brazilian music history.

Elis and Tom is a bossa nova album, released in 1974, recorded by Brazilian singer Elis Regina and singer-songwriter Antônio Carlos Jobim. Recorded over a 16-day period at MGM Studios in Los Angeles, California, the album was an old wish of Regina, who always wanted to record a full album of Jobim's songs with him. This finally came true in 1974, when Elis was celebrating her 10th anniversary as an artist of Philips Records. The label approved the project as a gift for her.

エジプト・カイロのプロデューサー、Elkotshによるデビュー・アルバム『rhlt jdi』が、カイロの〈HIZZ〉と〈Nyege Nyege Tapes〉系列の〈Heat Crimes〉による共同リリース！エジプトのストリート音楽「マフラガナート」のリズムとエネルギーを基盤に、インダストリアルやトライバル・テクノ、エクスペリメンタルな要素を融合。伝統的な旋律や宗教的なチャントが、歪んだビートやグリッチノイズと交錯し、現代エジプトの都市風景を音で描き出していきます！中東の伝統音楽と現代のエレクトロニクスが交差する、革新的な一枚。

Ellen Arkbro’s fourth album, Nightclouds, collects five improvisations for solo organ, recorded across Central Europe in 2023–24.

"Nightclouds is more unabashedly Romantic and introspective than her previous efforts, though it remains firmly rooted in the rigor and precision that have come to define Arkbro’s concept. Extending her previous explorations of spatialized harmony, tactility, and texture,

Arkbro draws equally on sacred music, ECM–style jazz, and downtown minimalism, conjuring a cool intimacy and tone. Her decelerationist chordal improvisations envelop the listener in dirge-like washes, while her close miking reveals the rough haptic grain of the reeds, bringing the listener both inside and outside the sound. Evoking Kjell Johnsen and Jan Garbarek’s duets, or La Monte Young and Tony Conrad’s take on Euringer and Harmer’s cowboy song “Oh Bury Me Not,” Nightclouds channels spiritual pathos through a rigorously restrained architecture.

Following up on last year’s Sounds While Waiting (W.25TH, 2024), a selection of stereo mixes documenting Arkbro’s spatial organ installations, Nightclouds shifts direction, focusing on instant composition and improvisation. Elegant, simple chordal scaffolds support rich, ever-shifting textures; listening closely necessitates surrender to sustained irresolution. Bookending a collection of short pieces are two variations on the titular composition, “Nightclouds,” which is a sly nod to British jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth: The first take slows down and stretches out a continuously modulated harmonic progression, while the short closing version simply loops three chords. Situated between these tracks are “Still Life” and “Chordalities,” two short works recorded at the Temple de La-Tour-de-Peilz in Vevey, Switzerland. The second half of the album is given to “Morningclouds,” a sprawling work recorded in the reconstructed Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) in Berlin. Arkbro’s concise musical vocabulary and formal architecture evoke a sense of emotional ambivalence, simultaneously uplifting and mournful, guiding the listener through a spectrum of feeling with a cool and distant beauty. Nightclouds stands as a profound statement in Arkbro’s evolving body of work, at once introspective and expansive, the album reaffirms her singular ability to transform harmonic simplicity into deeply affecting sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation and emotional depth.

Ellen Arkbro’s fourth album, Nightclouds, collects five improvisations for solo organ, recorded across Central Europe in 2023–24.

"Nightclouds is more unabashedly Romantic and introspective than her previous efforts, though it remains firmly rooted in the rigor and precision that have come to define Arkbro’s concept. Extending her previous explorations of spatialized harmony, tactility, and texture,

Arkbro draws equally on sacred music, ECM–style jazz, and downtown minimalism, conjuring a cool intimacy and tone. Her decelerationist chordal improvisations envelop the listener in dirge-like washes, while her close miking reveals the rough haptic grain of the reeds, bringing the listener both inside and outside the sound. Evoking Kjell Johnsen and Jan Garbarek’s duets, or La Monte Young and Tony Conrad’s take on Euringer and Harmer’s cowboy song “Oh Bury Me Not,” Nightclouds channels spiritual pathos through a rigorously restrained architecture.

Following up on last year’s Sounds While Waiting (W.25TH, 2024), a selection of stereo mixes documenting Arkbro’s spatial organ installations, Nightclouds shifts direction, focusing on instant composition and improvisation. Elegant, simple chordal scaffolds support rich, ever-shifting textures; listening closely necessitates surrender to sustained irresolution. Bookending a collection of short pieces are two variations on the titular composition, “Nightclouds,” which is a sly nod to British jazz guitarist Allan Holdsworth: The first take slows down and stretches out a continuously modulated harmonic progression, while the short closing version simply loops three chords. Situated between these tracks are “Still Life” and “Chordalities,” two short works recorded at the Temple de La-Tour-de-Peilz in Vevey, Switzerland. The second half of the album is given to “Morningclouds,” a sprawling work recorded in the reconstructed Gedächtniskirche (Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church) in Berlin. Arkbro’s concise musical vocabulary and formal architecture evoke a sense of emotional ambivalence, simultaneously uplifting and mournful, guiding the listener through a spectrum of feeling with a cool and distant beauty. Nightclouds stands as a profound statement in Arkbro’s evolving body of work, at once introspective and expansive, the album reaffirms her singular ability to transform harmonic simplicity into deeply affecting sonic landscapes, inviting listeners into a space of contemplation and emotional depth.

Sounds While Waiting documents the latest organ works by composer and musician Ellen Arkbro – following her phenomenal debut, 2017's For Organ And Brass, and the more recent CHORDS. Recorded at a centuries-old church in Unnaryd, Sweden in June 2020, these pieces reveal the enchanting qualities of sustained harmonic sound, how patterns of listening dissolve and emerge as textured space. On opening track "Changes," long radiant tones ebb and flow like divine breaths, while "Leaving Dreaming" builds with dynamic tension to unlock a subtle, otherworldly ambience.

As the composer states in the sleeve notes, "These recordings are traces of something I have come to love to do in large resonant spaces, which is to set up sustained chords on multiple organs and then move slowly through the sound. The instruments are usually far apart, which makes for the emergence of large fields of continuous change, spaces of harmonicity that can be passed through layer by layer and which contain within them points of both clarity and overwhelming complexity. The organ pipes are tuned and retuned, though sometimes I leave them just as they are. What I'm searching for is the moment when a particular kind of sounding texturality is revealed – it is rough, focused and yet strangely transparent."

Arkbro composes for acoustic instruments, for synthetic sound and for combinations of both, including music for orchestra and smaller chamber ensembles and large scale installation works. She currently performs in Catherine Christer Hennix's Kamigaku ensemble, and she previously studied with La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela. Recommended for fans of Sarah Davachi, Eliane Radigue and Charlemagne Palestine. <iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 307px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1223054530/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://ellenarkbro.bandcamp.com/album/sounds-while-waiting">Sounds While Waiting by Ellen Arkbro</a></iframe>

“Elemental View” is a work in six movements by pioneering composer Ellen Fullman for her Long String Instrument and The Living Earth Show. The expansive installation inhabits an industrial sized space with 136 strings, precisely tuned and configured for this multi-movement piece. Listening to the music of Fullman’s singular creation is akin to standing inside a giant musical instrument. The result is a music at once ancient and utterly new, environmental, and folk-like yet orchestral; immersing the listener in a transportive glistening atmosphere. “Elemental View” invites the listener to discover, as if with a magnifying glass, the details of the physics of string vibration itself. Fullman bows the instrument lengthwise with her fingertips while walking, playing multiple strings at once. As she walks, upper partial tones unfold at different rates, in proportion to differences in string length, imparting an undulating wave of continually shifting overtones. The notation for the Long String Instrument contains both temporal indications and spatial choreography, as specific harmonies emerge at distinct locations along the string length. Invention and discovery are at the core of Fullman’s work. To produce percussive sounds on the otherwise drone-based instrument, Fullman designed and fabricated the box bow, shovelette, and shoveler, which play three, six, or nine strings at once. Varying techniques with these tools produce either open ringing tones or closed dampened ones. With their laser focused precision and virtuosic ensemble playing, The Living Earth Show brilliantly executes the rhythmic and harmonic complexity of Fullman’s composition. In the movements “Environmental Memory” and “Concentrated Merry-Go-Round”, Fullman incorporates Travis Andrew’s primary instrument, the guitar. Andy Meyerson and Fullman accompany the guitar in duo playing box bow and shoveler. For “Surface Narrative in Four Parts”, Meyerson also applies his percussion mastery to the santur, a Persian hammered dulcimer. The santur’s unique tuning is derived from the extended microtonal partials of the sequence played by Fullman on The Long String Instrument.

Elodie is the first full-length album by Andrew Chalk, a solitary musician, and Timo van Luijk of Belgium, who also shows his talent in Af Ursin and In Camera. The sound is a mix of field recordings of birdsong and murmuring rivers, and performances of various instruments (bagpipes, guitar, koto, percussion, synths, etc.) and non-instrumentalists, resulting in a very varied sound, but still stateless. Like the works of both artists, it is a small and compact worldview, but all of the sounds, including quiet and beautiful drones, abstract playing with/without melody, and improvisation, are wonderful, reaching the realm of meditation. The sense of time, similar to that of Andrew Chalk's work, is clearly alive here as well, as one forgets the passage of time. This is an ideal type of music. I think you will experience a very fresh sensation. Daisuke Suzuki and Ian Middleton also participated. The artwork is as wonderful as ever and sounds just like this.

A Colourful Storm presents Enteha, the latest piece by Elodie, the longstanding duo of Andrew Chalk and Timo van Luijk. Chalk and van Luijk embody a bold, free-spirited approach to music making whose improvisational processes can be traced to a distinct period of Europe's post-industrial landscape: the former’s Ferial Confine project finding a home on Broken Flag (Ramleh, Kleistwahr) while the latter co-founded Noise-Maker’s Fifes, a Belgian audiovisual project employing unusual homemade instruments. More than two decades of ambitious solo and collaborative work would solidify both Chalk and van Luijk as masterful craftsmen exploring (and exposing) the tension between composition and free play. Their individual lists of collaborators boasts a certain fin-de-siècle faction of the avant-garde: Christoph Heemann, Giancarlo Toniutti, David Jackman and Colin Potter, to name but a few, have recorded with Chalk while van Luijk has also welcomed Heemann as well as a guard of other artists including Raymond Dijkstra, Kris Vanderstraeten and Frederik Croene. Elodie’s first documented recording, 2011’s Echos Pastoraux, betrayed a musical interplay of extremely accomplished standards, Chalk and van Luijk’s pastoral mise-en-scène daubed with Daisuke Suzuki’s Asiatic elements creating a sound world at once mystical and eerie. A figment of two imaginations, Elodie materialised almost fully formed with each subsequent recording patiently revealing glimpses into a world concerned with time dilation, the phantasmagoric and spirits of the everyday. Enteha is one of the duo’s more subdued and melancholic pieces and can be seen as a human response to seasonal transition, foretold by the concluding passages of 2020’s Le Nid d'Ivoire. It’s one of their uniquely longform explorations of mood and atmosphere as an air of romance drifts deftly into mystery and despair. The delicate hues of autumnal haze. The deceptive optimism of morning light. A work of supremely understated beauty, Enteha develops at an hypnagogic, if not unconscious, level and will appeal to anyone who finds solace in Harmonia, Gas, Joanna Brouk, Roberto Musci, Zoviet France and other investigators of pastoral arcana.

A vinyl reissue of a 2016 cassette-only release by Andrew Chalk x Timo Van Luijk's unit Elodie, featuring Tom James Scott on piano. A beautiful work, ambient and avant-garde, but with the depth that only Elodie can bring to life. Limited edition of 300 copies.

Le Manteau D'Etoiles is the fifth album by Andrew Chalk & Timo Van Luijk, the UK/Belgium project of Elodie, and was recorded live in Leuven, Belgium in November 2012. The album is based on a live performance in Leuven, Belgium in November 2012. The four-piece ensemble includes Tom James Scott on piano and Jean Noel Rebilly on clarinet, two of Andrew Chalk's most recent collaborators. The deepening of each of the two core members in their solo works is also evident here, with the peaceful beauty of the water in "Cristaux De Lumiere," the simply transparent "L'Aurore," which needs no explanation, and "Le Manteau d' Etoiles," which whispers of Elodie's forest psychedelia. Etoiles," which transcended time and scene, one could not help but listen to the great big improvised picture scroll of light that transcended time and scene. The dignified wind and keyboard colors of the two guests were also wonderful. This is a great example of Elodie's ever-deepening and matured musical vision. This is one of the best works of this project.

MUSIGUE PAR TIMO VAN LUIJK ET ANDREW CHALK ENREGISTRE : KULTA SAHA 2017

Eclectic ensemble of 18 instrumental arrangements evoking an epic and existential 
soundtrack determined by the power of momentary destiny and reflective sentiment. 

Originally released on LP in 2014

Drifts and Surfaces is a three-piece set, with each work originating from commissions, and unified by shared themes: the flux between ephemeral movement and everyday stasis, the paradox of extraordinary and mundane beauty, and the ambition and idleness, that defines living in the 21st century. Saxl continues to utilize chamber-music ensemble alongside analog synth and digital experimentation, deeply tuning into textural emotion and the vivid details of small actions. While her 2021 breakthrough LP, The Blue of Distance, processed recordings from the Adirondacks and Lake Superior, Saxl’s source material here comes primarily from live percussion and other instrumentation. The project started in 2018 in Brooklyn’s Red Hook neighborhood at the practice space that Saxl’s band shares with the percussion trio Tigue. Later that year, they performed a residency together and captured the piece before the pandemic set in. In 2021, she began a new commission with Chicago’s Third Coast Percussion.Drifts shares its title with Kate Zambreno’s 2020 novel, where the protagonist becomes entranced by the work of Chantal Ackerman, which presents the typically female invisible forms of domestic labor as equally valuable to activities more commonly seen as productive. Saxl posits Drifts in the spirit of that feminist thesis: “It feels like there’s a little lineage here of women exploring this idea and celebrating small action that I hope I am continuing the work of.”The final piece, “Surfaces,” was commissioned by the Guggenheim Museum in conjunction with the Alex Katz retrospective in 2022. The group — comprised of Henry Solomon on baritone saxophone, Robby Bowen on glass marimba, and Saxl — leans into light, ruminative tones inspired by the pioneering painter’s present-minded approach. Katz's work deals with the optical perception of “quick things passing,” like the liminality of dusk when an object's outlines start to become unclear. “The ways in which our perception of things change not because they change but because we change,” explains Saxl. “I wanted to have these really minor changes feel dramatic, to mirror the imagined movement in his paintings.”Stepping back to view “Surfaces” within the set, Saxl finds the stream that runs throughout, the concept of the self as part of something greater. “Katz’s depiction of multiple generations of New York City artists inspired me to think about how there is no individual ‘me’ as an artist without both the artists who came before me and the community of artists I’ve grown alongside. The delineation between us blurs, and I feel as though I am carried on an interwoven surface formed by the community around me. At the same time, I know that eventually, I have to turn inwards and swim out alone.”

APORIAMOR noun 1. The death of love’s contradiction. | “Embody APORIAMOR” Etymology aporia-: an irresolvable internal contradiction or logical disjunction in a text, argument, or theory. from Greek aporos ‘impassable’, from a- ‘without’ + poros ‘passage’ -amor: love. Sentimiento intenso del ser humano que, partiendo de su propia insuficiencia, necesita y busca el encuentro y unión con otro ser. Del latín amor. -mor: latin for death. APORIAMOR explores the affective ontological and organic processes of love and lust in the turmoil of an urban existence, through the female lens. It expresses the process of strengthening through heartbreak in its various forms. With her debut EP The Art of the Concrete, elsas knew that by giving that name to a record which was ironically expansive and experimental, she would be calling for a distilled and clearer path further down the line. This is what she’s been incorporating into the sonic world of this new EP, APORIAMOR, signifying the birth of a more matured and distilled version of herself as an artist. With APORIAMOR (“the death of love’s contradiction”) elsas conveys a personal process of healing in the romantic space. Through different experiences of heartbreak, elsas builds a language - a coping mechanism attached to its subsequent artistic expression – that isn’t founded on hardness or a closing-off, but instead, on a playful but profound reckoning, and learning of self-worth. APORIAMOR embraces the complexities of being a lover-girl: of moving through life with an open heart. It celebrates the clarity, sweet hindsight, and detachment that come from processing emotion. APORIAMOR is both an affirmation and a release. elsas makes canonical blends with a forward boundary-bending vision. Her sound in this record is naturally referential of both her Mediterranean heritage and UK alternative music — intrinsic parts of her lived experience. She has had the opportunity to collaborate with artists she deeply admires, each exchange enriching her creative world. The experience of working hand-in-hand with Sampha for the last 3 years and ongoingly has been a core of her evolution as an artist. She has also collaborated in many forms with artists like Florence + the Machine, Little Simz, Jordan Rakei, Jockstrap, Obongjayar, Black Country New Road, Genevieve Artadi (KNOWER) and Duval Timothy. Additionally, her ongoing work with the Idrîsî Ensemble, of which she is a core member, continues to inform her artistic depth. The making of this largely self-produced record unfolded over four years — “it’s a well-kneaded dough,” she says. These songs evolved through exposure to multiple environments: from early writing sessions in her childhood home in the Spanish countryside, to stages across the U.S. while on tour supporting Sampha. Experimentation and modulation are an intrinsic part of elsas’ method, conceiving songs as organisms that respond to their surroundings. Collaborators on this collection of songs include Shrink, Will Lister, Gabriel Gifford, Ethan P. Flynn and more. The record was mixed by David Wrench (a long-time supporter of elsas’) and Nathan Boddy, and mastered by Matt Colton. With APORIAMOR, elsas creates a visual world from the fabulation of the past, as an act of playful historical revisionism in which she embeds herself as both subject and storyteller. The songs function like an archive of her experiences across various years, each one unearthed and presented as some sort of archaeological artifact. Through this body of work, elsas begins to conceptualize herself as a legacy artist: one who honors the archive of her own becoming while emerging as a distinct and resonant voice in today’s musical landscape.

Released by VDE/Gallo, a long-established label based near Lausanne, Switzerland, this album features performances of classical Mugham music by Elshan Mansurov, a master of the traditional Azerbaijani string instrument kamancha.

Two turntables and a microphone. There is a truth in the clarity of that simple coda, a truth that also belies the breadth of what is possible within its confines. Sometimes you gotta get reminded. I Guess U Had To Be There, the new album from NYC rapper ELUCID and veteran producer Sebb Bash, is one of those ones. So fresh it sounds like it was made tomorrow, but bet money you could put this on in '89 and get heads bopping.

There are moments in music when masters of their craft cross paths at the height of their respective powers - records like Madvillainy, Liquid Swords, Dr. Octagonecologyst, and Hell Hath No Fury - where the result is more than the sum of its parts. ELUCID and Sebb Bash find themselves in this heady, seemingly effortless ephemera on I Guess U Had To Be There. Everything is both familiar and groundbreaking. The beats shift and flip under ELUCID's feet but he tightropes it all, delivery nimble as a mountain goat, producer and rapper moving in perfect synchronization. Some shining stars make memorable appearances: billy woods, Breezly Brewin, Estee Nack, Shabaka Hutchings. But this is a two-man show, and the duo keep the spotlight where it belongs. I Guess U Had To Be There is a captivating, convention-defying listen and a high-water mark for two of the best artists in the genre.