Ambient / Minimal / Drone
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The long-awaited LP reissue of the insane masterpiece "My Hometown is Far Away Like a Story," which was produced by poet Taeko Tomioka and the young Ryuichi Sakamoto, and made a name for itself in music history! The cover by Nobuyoshi Araki, also known as Araki, is a must-have!
The poet Tomioka Taeko's insane masterpiece "Monogatarinoyouni Furusatohatoi" (originally released on CD by Victor in 1977 and P-Vine in 2005) is finally coming to light on a limited edition analog LP! It's too avant-garde and fantastical to be called psychedelic. A masterpiece of insanity that will drive the vestibular canals of all who listen to it crazy!
The music was produced by a young Ryuichi Sakamoto, and the cover was photographed by Nobuyoshi Araki, also known as Araki.
Bedroom pop duo Babeheaven return after a short hiatus with a vulnerable "post rave" sound that's like Air split with Frank Ocean.
'Slower Than Sound' is billed as music that you might listen to on the bus back home after a night out and we can see it. Nancy Andersen's voice is just as lulling as it was on Babeheaven's debut album 'Home For Now' and Jamie Travis's instrumentation is warmer and more restrained this time around, a throb of exotica-ish Mellotrons, fingerpicked arpeggios and clunky drum machine loops. It's a creative rebirth for the duo, who sound as if they've checked in again after a few years of heartbreak and burnout. And when they allow themselves to really strip things down, like on the introspective 'Loud Thoughts', a track that features a star turn from Samba Jean-Baptiste, things get really interesting.
Two tracks of dub-infused electronica, edited from recordings of my live modular jam sessions (which you can watch on my YouTube channel).
You can buy the 7" here on Bandcamp, but please support your local record store where possible :) You can find a list of shops selling the record here: linktr.ee/yassokiiba
If you buy from a store and would also like the WAV files, just message me here and I'll send you a free download code.
Silver Threads is proud and genuinely honoured to share our second release, “If Not Now, When” by the incredible Raica (Chloe Harris), out on 28th November 2025 and available to pre-order from 18th here and from selected shops.
Chloe Harris (Raica) lives and breathes music. A vastly experienced and unique DJ, a hugely talented and inquisitive recording artist and live performer, co-founder of the legendary Further Records’ label and shop, event curator and psychedelic visual artist (check the cover of her album Dose).
“If Not Now, When” is her fourth album as Raica. It follows her much-loved album, The Absence of Being on Quiet Details earlier this year, a tender transmission of love to those in another realm. Lucent Glances (Greta Cottage Workshop - 2016) and Dose (Further Records - 2015), are incredible, too. Exploratory and untethered, with powerful bass expression.
“If Not Now, When” is a magnificently expansive album that shows Raica’s breadth as an artist – at times delicate and intimate then mindbending and tough, as Chloe leads us on a journey only she could take.
This is a sophisticated, creative album that came out of a difficult time (which we won’t go into again here) and has huge potential to become an instant classic. There’s darkness, warmth but also playfulness and a sparkling lightness of touch. There are mesmerising rhythms, gentle pulses that give the album momentum and reflect Chloe's love of dance music and 90s ambient.
Chloe has a strong and distinctive voice that carries through this album’s range of moods, sounds, textures and tempos. She says, “I felt a sense of freedom, perhaps since I didn’t think anyone would hear it.” I relate to that sense of freedom in obscurity but I’m very pleased Chloe was wrong about that, and that the title – chosen recently – suggests she’s going to share more of her music with us. “It’s just about being able to communicate ideas through sound. Maybe sometimes they land well and others don’t but it’s OK to let it go. Just allowing yourself to just be in the moment and not worrying outside of that.” I couldn't agree more.
I hope “If Not Now, When” touches you as much as it has us. Thanks you to Chloe for trusting me with this precious album.
The CD album of "If Not Now, When" is glass mastered, mastered by Alex Gold at quiet details, with his incredible patience, care and attention, and the beautiful cover art and design is by Emile Facey (Plant43) in collaboration with Raica. The cover art spills out of the frame and the six-panel digipack opens to show another stunning original artwork by Emile.
It follows the same layout as ST01 (Jo Johnson - Alterations Volume One) opens to show a large original illustration that spills and the stitch motif along the bottom links the two releases together when they sit side-by-side on your shelf while the colours of each are unique and contrasting.
Huge thank you to Alex Gold for his support to Silver Threads. Thanks also to Loula Yorke, Philip Sherburne and Neil Mason.
Jo Johnson (erstwhile member of ‘90s riot grrrl legends Huggy Bear) launches her Silver Threads imprint with a double album of bittersweet transmissions of ribboning arps and iridescent greyscale atmospheres conjuring comparisons to Barker, the pastoral kosmiche ends of Border Community or Craven Faults.
"This double album is the inaugural release on Jo Johnson’s Silver Threads label and compiles her ‘slow album’ – work created and shared (in a limited way) in real time from January until June, in response to “bleak and often distressing times”. Alongside each of the five album tracks compiled on CD 1, Jo created Remnants, reworks and original tracks from “discarded audio and coincidental field recordings” that were shared exclusively with her Bandcamp subscribers and these seven tracks are compiled on the second CD.
Alterations Volume One was album of the week in Moonbuilding. In Futurism Restated, Philip Sherburne said it was, “A coherent and enveloping piece of work in which melodic motifs unfold against an ever-changing landscape of pads, drones, and arpeggios. It moves like a slow, broad river throwing off sparks at sunrise.” Electronic Sound said it was “spellbinding” and “never less than mesmerising” in the October issue and will feature an interview with Jo in the December 2025 issue. Surgeon said, “Beautiful restraint and Galactic emotions.” He called the final track, Unpicking, a “masterpiece”."
Longer and slower-releasing than his other albums, Pomegranates often parallels the cinematic epic on which it’s based (Նռան գույնը), with ideas pursued over long timelines and across dark landscapes, assembling elements and moods from the aesthetic and folkloric landscapes of Armenia. Jaar’s identity is perceived within this, folding in his heritage as Palestinian and Chilean as he attempts to build a musical architecture outwards that frames as much of the mess and sprawl of life as possible; using a language that investigates the movement and fluctuation of his own artistic career and character similarly to the film’s tracing of the coming of age of the young poet, Sayat-Nova.
At times, Pomegranates feels profoundly intimate, as though looking through the archive of a friend’s music and discovering the accent and common currency that lives within each of these tracks. Much of Jaar’s most elegant and touching melodic work is nestled here, its power residing in its simplicity and willingness to speak to the heart and not the mind of the listener.
In the text document included in the first freely distributed version of the album in 2015, Jaar writes that the album was conceived during a moment of change, and that the pomegranate became an icon that heralded that passage of time. The physical publication of Pomegranates closes one door whilst opening another, keeping promises and marking a significant point in the career of an artist who restlessly reinvents himself, with a document that illustrates a common language of lyricism, freedom, and emotional resonance linking his many paths and projects.
Hun Hun are 2 young brothers from Bruxelles who are doing a very special music in an ethno-shamanic-tribal vibe pretty cinematographic. With this first opus, an album of 10 tracks, they bring us on a journey into deep, dark and mysterious atmospheres with natural backgrounds from the forest, beautiful vocals, singular percussions, and rhythms that would easily fit for intro sets at Boccacio in 1988. This album could have been easily released on Crammed Disc in the 80’s, but it has a modern touch from today that makes it a proper gem for Macadam Mambo.
INDEX:Records is enamoured to present the accomplished debut record by New York City resident, Beau Mahadev – 8-parts of dreamy vocals and wet-textured IDM-pop.
To some extent, this album arriving at INDEX:Records has been over 3 years in the making: we were first introduced to Beau’s work at GLOB in Denver (during our USA tour in 2023), at an event hosted by a dear friend, filled with lovely peeps. We were totally blown away by Beau’s performance and knew within a few minutes of their set starting that we wanted to release an album with them someday. Now, here it is: Subterra. Featuring tasty collaborations with {iii}, Uza A'amo and Yau Hei ASJ.
Vinyl limited to 200 copies. Front sleeve by Chiu. Design by Conna Haraway
Anyone fascinated by Debit or Elysia Crampton’s Chuquimamani-Condori investigation of South American folk heritages or even The Haxan Cloak are advised to check Nervio Cosmico’s electro-acoustic spirit quest, notably recorded at Peter Gabriel’s Real World studios.
““Singing Vessels” draws inspiration from the sonorities and aesthetics of Amazonian medicine ceremonies and traditional Andean music. At its heart is a collection of clay whistles from ancient South America, whose timbres conjure the vibrant soundworld of the Andes. The piece also incorporates shamanic instruments from the Amazon, such as the shacapa — a bundle of dry leaves whose rustling produces a deep, soothing texture with remarkable sensory resonance.
Interwoven with generative electronics, live looping and synthesisers, these organic timbres create evolving psychoacoustic spaces where the mystery of nature meets inner realms of perception and consciousness. The piece unfolds as a ceremonial passage through a shamanic ritual: beginning in a dense jungle of sounding entities, rising into moments of cathartic purging, dissolving into states of blessing and communion, and finally returning to the here and now with renewed awareness.
Nervio Cosmico is an electroacoustic experimental duo based in Bristol, formed by Chilean composer Daniel Linker and Italian sound artist Matteo Amadio. Blending acoustic instruments from ancient South American shamanic traditions with live looping, generative sound design, and live electronics, they craft sonic journeys that explore perception, consciousness, and a spiritual connection with nature.”
"Eau" is the lovely new album from aus, the solo project of Tokyo-born composer and producer Yasuhiko Fukuzono, who has gained attention, in Japan and overseas, for his thoughtfully paced and sensitively skillful music as well as his intriguing sound design for exhibitions and experimental cinema. Having worked primarily with keyboards and electronic sound up to this point, "Eau" is a slight yet fascinating shift for aus; the album, while still primarily an electronic work, revolves around the sonic world of a stringed acoustic sound source, the koto, that most characteristically Japanese of musical instruments. The very accomplished Eden Okuno provides the delicate-yet-rich koto sounds on offer here; Fukuzono, in the liner notes, acknowledges the importance of Okuno’s artistry to the project.
The compositions on the album are designed to balance the sound of the koto, with its subtly variable attack and flickering resonance, with the timbre of other instruments. The delicate decay and metrical flexibility of the koto is enveloped by sustained synthesizer sounds and contrapuntally constructed piano melodies, creating a flowing ambience with absorbing undercurrents, a languid and liquid quality that reveals the suitability of the title.
Avid fans of contemporary Japanese music might hear the influence of pioneering works such as the the 1979 Hiroshi Yoshimura composition “Clouds for Alma", realized by koto player Tadao Sawai, and the 1993 album "Koto Vortex I: Works by Hiroshi Yoshimura" which featured performances of Yoshimura's works by the Japanese koto quartet Koto Vortex. These works attempted to remove the koto from its traditional context and place it within the context of ambient and techno. "Eau" is available on CD/LP/cassette/digital, with E/J liner notes by aus. "Eau" is the first collaborative release by EM Records and FLAU, the label run by Yasuhiko Fukuzono (aus).
Remixed and remastered with bonus material and released on vinyl for the first time. Deluxe 2LP edition with artwork re-imagined by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic.
"If I could watch any jazz band in the UK, any, I would choose Matthew Halsall's band, just love what he's been doing over the last few years... It's always high level, spiritual jazz music" – Gilles Peterson
Matthew Halsall is a Worldwide Award winning and MOBO nominated trumpeter, composer, producer and DJ. Since 2008, Matthew has released seven critically acclaimed studio recordings and has been a key figure in the rise of a new jazz sound in the UK. In addition to his own releases Halsall has collaborated with many DJs and producers, most notably DJ Shadow and Mr. Scruff, and in 2013 Matthew’s music was selected by Bonobo for his Late Night Tales compilation. Halsall is also the founder of Gondwana Records, a genre bending independent record label featuring a wealth defining albums by the likes of Portico Quartet, GoGo Penguin, Hania Rani and Mammal Hands. His own rich music draws on the spiritual-jazz of Alice Coltrane and Phaorah Sanders, contemporary electronica and dance music alongside his travels in Japan, the traditional art and music of which, has left a lasting impression on his compositions.
Sending My Love (2008) and Colour Yes (2009) were his first releases and document Halsall’s first great bands featuring the likes of flautist Chip Wickham, saxophonist Nat Birchall, harpist Rachael Gladwin, bassist Gavin Barras and drummer Gaz Hughes. Joyful, life-enhancing albums, drawing on UK jazz and spiritual jazz influences but with a decidedly modern bounce, they introduced Halsall’s music to the world gathering support from the likes of Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum, Mojo, Straight No Chaser and beyond. But Halsall was never completely happy with how the records were presented and as part of Gondwana Records 10th anniversary decided to revisit the recordings, meticulously remixing and remastering them for vinyl and commissioning new artwork from Ian Anderson, one of his favourite designers. These then are the definitive editions of the records. Sending My Love comes complete with the beautiful bonus track This Time, while Colour Yes features the equally striking It’s What We Do and Ai.
“I am very proud of these early recordings. They represent the starting point of my musical journey in Manchester and showcase some of the cities finest musicians such as: Nat Birchall, Chip Wickham, Rachael Gladwin, Adam Fairhall, Gavin Barras and Gaz Hughes. They are also the very first recordings my brother and I decided to release on our record label (Gondwana Records). Listening back they sound full of energy and joy and really reflect how I was feeling at that precise moment. But as much as I loved the music, I was never 100 percent happy with the sound of the mixes and mastering. So I decided to go back to the original tapes to remix and remaster them and present them the way I'd always wanted, and along the way we unearthed a couple extra unreleased tracks, which we decided to include as bonus material. Myself and my brother also decided to bring in Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic to re-imagine the artwork and we are super blown away by the results!" — Matthew Halsall, Oct 2019
Ambre Ciel is a composer and singer who hails from Montreal, Canada and is a purveyor of dreamy, expansive, spacious music that draws influence from contemporary classical influenced artists, as well as the impressionist world and American minimalists.
Ambre who sings in both English and her native French, hails from a family of singers and artists, “I started my journey learning violin at six and began experimenting with pedal effects and looping melodies later on”. University followed with a focus on composition and recording. “That’s when I started exploring composing and songwriting more deeply—both the world of sounds in itself and songs built mostly with layers of violin and voice. It was also during this time that I returned to my ‘first’ instrument, the piano, which opened more harmonic possibilities.”
Her debut album still, there is the sea, represents a beginning, a first and imperfect attempt to create this other world that was living in her mind. She has crafted a beautifully refined album making a lot of space for strings arrangements and other acoustic instruments, as well as her own beautiful voice.
Inspired by the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains north-west of Madrid, his home since August 2022, Milo Fitzpatrick presents Sierra Tracks the new album from his expansive, cinematic, chamber-jazz project Vega Trails.
Having cut 2022’s beautifully resonant debut album ‘Tremors in the Static’ as a duo, alongside saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands and Sunda Arc), Milo now substantially expands upon that blueprint with his follow-up, ‘Sierra Tracks’, which, as the title suggests, was conceived at his new home in central Spain and adds piano, vibraphone and strings to the mix.
From the epic five-minute opener, ‘Largo’, onwards, there’s a cinematic feel to ‘Sierra Tracks’, as each piece unfolds according to its own sweeping narrative, often wonderfully evocative of the mountains’ wide-open spaces, and also sometimes elaborately arranged with cello, orchestral strings, vibraphone and piano, to evoke their awe-inspiring natural splendour. ‘Reverie’ has a refrain that fades in and out, like a daydream”. ‘Els’ is more firmly rooted in folk melody, while ‘Dream House’ and ‘Sleepwalk Tokyo’ boost a sense of otherworldliness.
After years of exploring classical and popular music on the violoncello, as well as delving into contemporary composition and improvisation, Garcia presents IN / OUT, an album that pushes the boundaries of musical convention. Recorded in an underground reservoir in Geneva, this unique project transforms the site’s natural acoustics into an integral part of the compositions.
Through nine meticulously crafted pieces, Garcia blends minimalist contemporary music, dark ambient, and experimental noise. By using expanded cello techniques, microtonality, and alternative tunings, she creates sonic landscapes that evoke the depth and complexity of a multi-cello ensemble. The resonance and reverberation of the cavernous space infuse the album with a haunting, immersive quality, where each sound interacts organically with its environment.
Drawing inspiration from composers like La Monte Young, Eliane Radigue, Jürg Frey, and Arvo Pärt, Garcia integrates elements of sacral minimalism and acoustic experimentation into her work. The result is a project that bridges improvisation and composition, showcasing the cello’s versatility while challenging traditional notions of recording and performance.
Produced in collaboration with Bongo Joe, IN / OUT stands as a testament to Garcia’s innovative vision and her ability to transform unconventional ideas into deeply evocative musical experiences. This album invites listeners to step into an auditory world where instrument, space, and artistry converge in profound harmony.
Chihei Hatakeyama: electric guitar and sound effects
Shun Ishiwaka: drums and percussion, piano on ‘M6’
Cecilia Bignall: Cello on ‘M3’
Composed by Chihei Hatakeyama and Shun Ishiwaka
‘M3’ composed by Chihei Hatakeyama, Shun Ishiwaka and Cecilia Bignall
“Static,” a work by Italian producer Nicolò, explores experimental bass music and abstract electronic soundscapes. Rather than presenting straightforward club tracks, it depicts a liminal sonic space through fragmented, wavering rhythms, decaying signals, and undulating sub-bass. Within its cold synthetic textures, the composition conveys melancholy and a sense of bodily resonance, embedding personal memories and emotions. The work is dedicated to his father, Giordano.
Debut under the AICHER moniker, Defensive Acoustics is a collection of recordings channeling a performance that was presented alongside R. Rebeiro in the worn basement of the Ishiguro Building, an aged and abandoned pharmaceutical store in Kanazawa, Japan in Feb. 2024. Reinterpreted and releasing November 7 on the honourable Downwards Records of Birmingham, England.
"Colossal industrial minimalism from Downwards on a sick debut album from AICHER who deploy sheet-metal percussion and immense bass weight like some ice-cold collab between Valentina Magaletti, Emptyset and Einstürzende Neubauten, captured in an abandoned warehouse in graphic monochrome.
AICHER is the work of longtime label veteran Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, EROS), with additional production from his MY DISCO spar Rohan Rebeiro — an experimental percussionist and erstwhile collaborator of Roland S. Howard and HTRK. Together, they make resoundingly coarse, bullish industrial musick, distilling fascinations with tone and space through eight gristly and darkly sublime cuts, sharpened by production from Boris Wilsdorf of Einstürzende Neubauten and Swans fame.
Through 8 cuts, Defensive Acoustics reveals a clammy touch of reverberant buzz and below-the-belt shudder with a creeping, sensual signature of authority that strongly reminds us of Alan Wilder’s Blasphemous Rumours-era sound design for Depeche Mode, stripped to absolute skeletal fire. Tectonic plates of sound are pushed to an extreme biting point in a sort of structural stress test that feels like an oil rig in action, or perhaps more acutely, junked at harbour.
We go from the lurching buckle of ‘Ascertain’ and bilious atonality of ‘Harness Pleads’, to the vertiginous scale of the title piece and the brutal momentum of ‘An Exhausted Image’ - almost collapsing under its own bass weight, while the pranging girders of ‘Constriction’ makes us think of that 101 version of ‘Stripped’ - propulsive, full of primal energy and clanging, clipped reverb. ‘Possessions’ ends the album with a passage of bleakly romantic ambience, a judicious emotive counterweight to the preceding gnarl.
Powerfully transfixing, heaviest possible gear."
— Boomkat
Debut full-length from DJ Loser’s gothic ambient alias delivers a phantasmic blend of blackened chamber music, dungeon techno tropes, and ritualist synthetic lore – a modern Greek fever dream for fans of Akira Yamaoka, K-holes in Skyrim, or crying in the club with your velvet gloves still on.
Emerging from the post-club catacombs of Thessaloniki, Vanity Bay marks Angel’s Corpse’s most ambitious invocation yet – a baroque-laced, mist-wreathed descent into haunted ambient fantasia. Across 11 tracks, DJ Loser (Pantelis Terzoglou) casts off the scorched rave detritus of his mainline alias in favor of something more narcotic, more narratively driven, and ultimately more unplaceable.
If previous works like Technophobia Network or Deathtripper EVO flirted with the sacred/profane divide, Vanity Bay plunges straight into its depths – a world of glitched-out Gregorian chants, decaying synth choirs, and organ drones that flicker like candlelight in an abandoned cathedral. At times evoking the windswept melancholy of Twin Peaks or the spectral desolation of late-‘90s survival horror OSTs, the album treads a fine line between affective ambient fiction and hardcore spectral poetics.
Fans of Manni Dee’s gothic lacerations, Christos Chondropoulos’ faux-ritualism, or even JS Bach filtered through a crusty VST will find plenty to lose themselves in here. But Vanity Bay is less about genre allegiance than emotional excavation – a record that functions as myth-making, mourning, and myth-breaking all at once.
A shadow-drenched debut that positions Angel’s Corpse as a vital node in the mutant continuum of Greek sound art – one eye on the club, the other staring unblinking into the void.
download code included with the record.
+2 bonus tracks
友人カ仏 from Moe and ghosts - 通過 (Rap Phenomenon Remix Demo)
Madteo - Hatsuentou (Madteo's Edit #2)
In his first studio album, legendary singer John Katokye shines an unprecedented light on the rich vocal music of the Banyankore and Bahororo people of Western Uganda, bringing to the fore two singing styles intimately anchored in their century-long practice of cattle herding. When still a young boy, Katokye ran away from home to immerse himself in the traditional songs of his region. Herding cattle in different farms to earn a living, he roamed his homeland singing for several decades, refining his art form one performance at a time. Now approaching his 60th birthday, Katokye has become arguably the most talented and popular traditional singer alive in his region today.
Specializing in the style of ‘ekyeshongoro’, Katokye improvises short poetic sentences, like a long series of Japanese haiku, to convey morsel-sized impressions on the land and history of his people and their cherished cattle. On a regular performance, one or several singers usually back up the meandering of the lead vocalist, overlapping their verses in a continuous vocal flow – at times stretching well beyond ten minutes – transforming the moment into a long meditative experience. Marking the major twists and turns of their river-like performances, all the singers punctually raise their pitch together, steadily increasing the intensity of the current that pulls the audience along their mesmerizing praising chant.
Named after Katokye’s clan, ‘Abanzira’ pays tribute to the moral values and beauty of the women from his lineage, while ‘Ekyeshongoro Kyabakazi’ singles out the merits of the people of Karengo, a village at the heart of the Ankole region where Katokye settled with his loved ones. Throughout this song, Katokye peppers guttural breaths reminiscent of the mooing cows grazing in the hills surrounding his home. To say that the Banyankore and Bahororo people have a deep bond with their cattle might be an understatement in a culture where the generous eyelashes and quiet gaze of calves shape beauty standards, while the subtle taste of smoked milk flavours family reunions and friendly hang outs.
‘Okugamba Ente’ illustrates this intimacy well as Katokye salutes cows’ understanding of human nature, beating with his herding staff the pulse of another form of praise singing deeply rooted in the region, transporting listeners from the meditative river of ekyeshongoro to the dense and wordy waterfall of the ekyevugo style. Gluing words together to recite a dense series of sentences in one breath, ekyevugo singers draw on local myths and history while evoking cattle as signs of beauty and wealth to praise their audience and highlight the quality of the moments lived together at weddings, political rallies, or family gatherings. Acknowledging the praises, the audience usually concludes each flow with a short and vocal ‘eee’ during which the reciter quickly catches breath to draw strength and fire the next verse.
And the talent lives on in the younger generations as the album concludes with ‘Omuhogo gwa Rujeru’, foregrounding Katokye’s acolyte and longtime partner Samuel Rujeru who takes the lead in driving a song usually opening fire sessions, calmly warming up the audience and performers for an evening of storytelling. As they listen to the singers’ whirling melismas and passionate bursts, it’s not unusual for people to raise their arms in the air in imitation of the iconic long horns of their beloved cattle with which they share their lives in the bushy hills of the region. Rendered for the first time in an intimate studio recording session, listeners can now feel the warmth of these amazing vocal styles that for so many years accompanied the lives and dreams of the Banyankore and Bahororo people.
In English, the Xhosa word “useza” means to arouse or elicit a feeling, and it perfectly illuminates Sekuru Chaka Chawasarira’s lifelong practice. The eminent Zimbabwean artist and educator is among the last remaining masters of the matepe, a large mbira-style instrument that’s played with both thumbs and index fingers to expand its rhythmelodic complexity. And on ‘Useza’, he fully demonstrates the matepe’s illusory potential, overdubbing hypnotic sequences to provoke shifting harmonic progressions that ethnomusicologist Andrew Tracey labeled “kaleidophony” back in 1970. An ancient art within North-Eastern Zimbabwe’s Shona culture, the matepe is traditionally used in local rituals, where its ambiguous psychoacoustic mirages evoke trance states to aid communication with ancestral spirits. Only half a century ago, ceremonies amongst the Sena Tonga and Kore-Kore peoples would involve up to six musicians, each playing interlocking polyrhythmic sequences. In 2025, the music is threatened with extinction; following decades of vilification from Zimbabwe’s evangelical and pentecostal churches, who associate the rituals with witchcraft, there are fewer than ten master musicians left.
Called the “Mozart of mbira” by composer Keith Goddard, 83-year-old Chawasarira has been developing his relationship with the instrument since he was just a young man. He grew up in a Catholic mission and was dedicated to the church, founding his own choir, but he maintained his connection to Zimbabwean culture by studying the region’s traditional rhythms. Chawasarira’s father had been a prominent drummer, and when Chawasarira was older, working as a teacher at the mission school, he ventured out to observe local mbira ensembles, eventually participating regularly in spirit ceremonies. And although there were tensions between Chawasarira’s work with the church and his interest in controversial folk music, he managed to strike a precarious balance, introducing drums to his Catholic services in the 1960s and even composing a mass for karimba. Chawasarira’s reputation grew steadily; he was invited to Lousville University in the 1990s to represent Zimbabwe at a contemporary composition festival, and his youth ensembles helped popularize Shona mbira traditions not just at home, but around the world.
Today’s evangelical Christians are less tolerant than the Catholic church however, with fundamentalist preachers blaming mbira music for all manner of tragedy. Chawasarira remains undeterred; living in Chitungwiza, he builds matepes and karimbas and tutors children, and ‘Useza’ is a celebration of his years of experience, a way for the maestro to preserve his repertoire for future generations. Recorded at the dead of night while the rest of the township is sound asleep, the album reproduces the mesmerizing sound of a Shona ritual by overlaying discrete fractal sequences filled with haunting overtones and buzzing rhythms. Chitungwiza works alone, harmonizing with himself and chanting over the weightless polyrhythms to create musical illusions that sound different depending on where the listener might be positioned. It’s a technique that’s been approached by various minimalist composers and avant-garde explorers in the 20th century and beyond, and Chitungwiza goes straight to the source, skillfully substantiating kaleidophony and safeguarding Zimbabwe’s heritage.
The distinctive sound of Linus is born from a delicate balance between folk, jazz, minimalism, chamber music and free improvisation. Starting as a duo, Ruben Machtelinckx and Thomas Jillings have always tried to infuse their compositions, which tend towards poetry and simplicity, with the ungraspable spirit of true open-minded improvisation. In the search of new stories to tell, it therefore did not come as a surprise that they chose to expand their palette by including both an eclectic mix of instruments (from banjo and Hardanger fiddle to electronics and an orchestral bass drum) and a range of collaborations with some unique voices in the world of improvised music. Showing much affinity for the thriving Norwegian scene, they collaborated with the likes of Nils Økland, Ingar Zach, Christian Wallumrød and Øyvind Skarbø, as well as Jakob Bro, Frederik Leroux and Niels Van Heertum.
On Light as Never, the second album by this constellation and the fifth by Linus overall, one no longer hears a meeting of different worlds, but rather the creation of a new one. A world where the blending of Scandinavian fiddle-tunes, abstract electronic soundscapes, meditatively repeating melodies and jazz-inspired free improv is no longer an experiment, but simply a state of mind. From the joyful interplay of Playful to the serenity of Ostinato, the microtonal alientation of Affirms Nothing to the wide-eyed energy of Conway, the almost bluesy warmth of Light as Never to the cold emptiness of Echo, nothing about these connections feels contrived. They simply represent a new outlook on improvised music.
Returning to Thrill Jockey, claire rousay completes her long-in-the-making ambient Americana trilogy, cutting cinematic, processed drones with diaristic environmental recordings and fuzzy home recordings with hi-fi granulations.
In 2020, rousay released 'a heavenly touch', following it just a year later with 'a softer focus', her breakthrough record and still the high point in her canon. Now she concludes the trilogy with a more considered threequel, a record that follows the general outline of its predecessors but refines it at every turn. And the process of recording it was important for rousay, who'd swerved towards pop with 2024's 'sentiment'. With that in mind, 'a little death' is a return to what rousay describes as her "core solo practice," blending live instrumentation with sounds recorded from her life outside the studio.
If you've heard its predecessors, the record won't surprise you aesthetically, but it's tighter and more confident in the way it presents itself. rousay's blend of tape recordings, processed drones and found sounds is more subtle this time around, and significantly more nuanced. When she uses tape, it's with purpose - listen to how the crumbling guitar riffs fall off the chorus of crickets on 'night one', or the layers of strings interact on the hauntingly beautiful 'conditional love'. She's back.