Ambient / Minimal / Drone

Hiroshima-based artist Meitei announces the reissue of Kwaidan on the 5th anniversary of his groundbreaking debut album. A collaboration between 2 labels – KITCHEN. LABEL (Kofū I & II) and Evening Chants (Kwaidan), the reissue sees the highly anticipated special 5th Anniversary Edition of Kwaidan with two previously unreleased bonus tracks. This will be released on long-out-of-print vinyl format in a new color variant, with an 8-panel insert and the first-ever CD version.

In 2018, Meitei shook the ambient world with the release of his debut album Kwaidan, a transposition of Japanese folklore into intricate compositions, capturing what he would coin as the “lost Japanese mood”. The album almost instantly received critical acclaim from the likes of Pitchfork, where it was included in their Best Experimental Albums of 2018, Bandcamp, calling it “different from some of the ambient music that has been coming from Japan in recent years”, The Wire and more.

Kwaidan (怪談) is a style of Japanese ghost stories. Meitei took it as a challenge of his skill as a musician to transpose the folklore into intricate compositions, capturing this lost “Japanese mood”. “The shocking elements in the horror have become a staple. It functions as entertainment. But I felt the mood and ambiance from Kwaidan is starting to wither – while the darkness is scary, the beauty is in the curious spirit,” explains Meitei.

Koizumi Yakumo is an important figure in the Japanese literary world, known for his legends and ghost stories. He left the world, leaving a masterpiece called Kwaidan, heavily inspiring Meitei’s album direction. Sazanami, Curio, Shoji and Mushiro are seen as a nod and tribute to his work. Other influences include manga author Mizuki Shigeru, who drove the sound for Touba and Jizo, intended to be a homage soundtrack for his manga Gegege no Kitarō. As an old-fashioned man, Meitei also draws from the legendary Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. With this very eclectic mix of influences, the album Kwaidan possesses a prominent horror element, comedy, sentimentality and sorrow. He compares the ambiance as one would visually with wet moss, shrouded in mist.

“Music is an important human communication tool. Expressing a mood that is almost impossible to translate into language perfectly is interesting.” While most of the above might stem from influential Japanese art, Meitei was also attracted to the new wave of lo-fi hip hop, which he tried to weave into his music subtly. Something as easy as the wrong placement of a kick and snare on a track can divert the track away from the Kwaidan mood. Yet, Meitei found a delicate balance, resulting in a gorgeously crafted album.


Meitei releases Kwaidan 5th Anniversary Edition on 21 July 2023 via KITCHEN. LABEL and Evening Chants. Available on 180g smoke haze variant LP, CD and digital formats (LP arriving in Q3, 2023), This record is mastered by Taylor Deupree at 12k Mastering in New York. 

On this LP you hear two kanteles built by the Master Luthier Rauno Nieminen. One of them is a copy of a historical instrument built by the folk poet Ontrei Malinen in 1833. It is carved from single piece of pine, and it has five bronze strings. The other one is carved from a single piece of spruce. Its lowest seven strings are bronze, and highest three strings are English iron. On most tracks the two kanteles are played simultaneously. For me, playing these instruments is searching for meaningful ways to interact with wooden objects from another time. By choosing a set of 5 to 15 frequencies and plucking them, I'm able to think, feel, and imagine more than I could without the instruments. the patterns that emerge from the vibrating strings give temporal shapes to thoughts. The music on this album is improvised. It was recorded at home after dark and outdoors in daylight during 2020-2022. No overdubs or edits were made afterwards. On the last track the kantele is accompanied by detritus gathered from the forest floor. Tuokioita translates to moments. This music is about coloring time. Dedicated to Mia, who also came up with the album title. - Olli Aarni

An official re-issue of the 1996 album, Beyond the Circle, from Dr. Osamu Kitajima presented by Forest Jams on vinyl for the first time. As the title suggests, Japanese music explorer Osamu Kitajima takes the listener beyond the known on a musical voyage into new territory where his compositions are a synthesis of Western electronics and ambient dance rhythms, tempered by the wisdom of ancient Japanese traditions. “Beyond the Circle” is music that is as energizing as it is spiritual and melodic.

Toy Tonics sublabel Kryptox comes with a new album by Greek harpist SISSI RADA. “Demeter in Aexone” is a 45’ pure solo improvisation on harp. Using no post production techniques and no overdubs, the album was recorded one afternoon in her studio in Voula, Athens, overlooking the ancient demos of “Aexone”. It is a tribute to the ancient myth of Persephone, the daughter of the goddess Demeter, to whom the Eleusinian Mysteries were dedicated.

The music evokes archaic atmospheres, as raw wooden sounds intertwine with modal harmonies and extended techniques, by this ancient instrument, hailing from 3.000 BC that is suddenly transformed into a current medium. The harp that Sissi Rada plays is a rare 100 years old Lyon and Healy Style 3 harp.

It’s Sissi Rada’s 2nd album on Kryptox. The label created by Mathias ‚Kapote‘ Modica as a sublabel for Toy Tonics to show the wild band and musicians scene from Berlin. (There are no DJs and no electronic dance producers on Kryptox).
After releases of jazz and experimental bands like Joel Holmes, Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange and the much acclaimed compilation series KRAUT JAZZ FUTURISM here comes Sissi Rada, also known as Sissi Makropoulou.
SISSI is a multifaceted artist who has navigated the realms of both classical, experimental symphony, avantgarde chamber music and electronic music with finesse. She has collaborated with Brian Eno, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Andi Toma of Mouse on Mars, Jay Glass Dubs, Lena Platonos, Daniel Barenboim, Teodor Currentzis, Yannik Nézét-Séguin, Andris Nelsons and Donald Runnicles.

Hailing from Greece, Sissi has carved a distinctive niche for herself with her unique blend of ethereal vocals, innovative soundscapes, and a fearless approach to genre-defying sound exploration.
She has studied music at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (Bachelor in Music), at the Hochschule für Musik Detmold (Master in Music, Solo) and the Universität der Künste Berlin (Master in Music, Orchestra). With notable skill, she collaborated with orchestras, such as the Berlin Philharmonic, Deutsche Oper and musicAeterna contributing to the classical music landscape with both technical prowess and emotional depth.

Transitioning into electronic music, Sissi Rada melds classical sensibilities with electronic approaches , incorporating songwriting techniques in the biggest volume of her work.
Sissi also composes music for chamber music ensembles. Her works have been performed in Berlin (Sophiensäle), Munich (Münchener Kammerspiele), Vienna (Brut), Zurich (Gessnerallee), Frankfurt (Mousonturm), Stockholm (Dansmuseet) and at the Diaghilev Festival in Perm, Russia. In 2007 she won the 2nd Prize at the 5th International Harp Contest in Holland.
Her arrangement for solo harp of P.I.Tchaikovsky’s “The seasons, Op.37a” was released by Brilliant Classics in 2019.

The artwork of the album was made by Greek-German designer Kostas Murkudis.

One of the greatest mysteries of my childhood was the dusty reddish dirt that, from time to time, sullied my clothes and got under my fingernails—proof of potential mischief or adventure in the back garden.
I could never tell for certain where the dirt was coming from.
I always washed it carefully, in the bathroom sink, I watched it spin and disappear in the innermost unknown lands of the sewer, while my mother called from the kitchen for me to hurry and sit at the table.
I would find it then again, in between pages of my textbooks, staining essays and silly drawings and I always felt some kind of vague guilt, in front of everything spoiled by this dirt.
I found it, years later, again, underneath my pillow, inside my pockets, in my dog’s soft coat, stuck on the soles of my shoes—we didn’t have a garden then, or much desire for mischief and adventure.
And the mystery was solved recently, anticlimactically, in the silence of a sleepless night.
Of course, I was spending my nights since I was a child
building walls around me.

Poem by Despoina Siskou 

It was the lonely, overwhelming early days of the pandemic. Topu Lyo was living in Georgia, feeling distant from his home in New York City, and Salenta De Badisdenne was in Wisconsin helping an elderly relative. When Topu sent Salenta the files of Moon Set, Moon Rise, the project of wistful, contemplative cello and piano music they had recorded over the previous two years, she put off listening for a few weeks because of the stress of her daily life. When she finally played the music, she was blown away by what they had created together. The 17 songs on this album are patient, exploratory, and dynamic. The keys tiptoe through space at some moments, and pirouette ecstatically at others. The cello provides a sonic backbone that glows like amber. With song titles like “Woman Reading a Letter” and “Light Coming On The Plains,” the album evokes vignettes of home, falling asleep with someone you love, learning to soothe yourself. Topu and Salenta had met in 2018 at a mutual friend’s house in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn and decided to jam together. Their connection was instant: though they weren’t recording with the intention of releasing the music they were making, the very first session they played together made its way onto the album. They continued to meet up and improvise every week until the start of 2020. The two established rituals while recording: Topu would bring dark chocolate to their sessions that they would eat while talking about their days, herbalizing, and eventually playing. Topu and Salenta made very few edits to the live recordings. The album we hear is a document of their shared bond and their time together. If you listen closely, you can even hear the two artists breathing on the recording. “This music was liberating because both Topu and I were just allowed to be,” Salenta says. “There was no right or wrong way, we were creating this atmosphere together. We were right there with the listener learning about and experiencing it.” “What I love about Salenta as a human and a musician is how honest she is,” adds Topu. “You hear when we’re playing, suddenly she’ll start laughing. There’s such a human aspect to it that makes me so happy when I listen to the music.” Both artists, as well as their community of friends and fellow musicians, see the music as healing. Topu and Salenta hope that listeners feel the peacefulness and liberation they experienced while creating these songs. — Vrinda Jagota

Dark Entries calls on Philadelphia experimental duo The Ghostwriters to resurrect their 1981 LP of minimalist mayhem, Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear. The late Buchla maestro Charles Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Cain joined up in 1971 to craft electroacoustic chaos as Anomali, later renaming themselves The Ghostwriters. Their collaborations with choreographers and visual media artists led to their singular style, straddling improvisation and composition, the oneiric and the immediate. 1981 saw the release of their debut album, Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear, a whirling, messy, telepathic slipstream cascading across an imaginary landscape. Recorded in Don Buchla’s childhood home, Objects offers 8 cuts of minimalist electronic bliss, equal parts icy and quirky, with standout cuts including the grooving havoc of “Fix it in the Mix” and the otherworldly hymn “Moon Chant.” These angular pearls will be cherished by fans of John Bender, Ceramic Hello, and all strains of outsider 80s electronics. Objects In Mirrors Are Closer Than They Appear has been freshly remastered and includes an insert with photos and liner notes. Proceeds from the album will be donated to SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that combats online child sex abuse and trafficking.

Dark Entries summons Philadelphia synthesizer scribes The Ghostwriters to rouse their ambient masterwork Remote Dreaming. The late Buchla maestro Charles Cohen and multi-instrumentalist Jeff Cain joined up in 1971 to craft electroacoustic chaos as Anomali, later renaming themselves The Ghostwriters. Their collaborations with choreographers and visual media artists led to their singular style, straddling improvisation and composition, the oneiric and the immediate. Following their debut album, Objects in Mirrors, they were approached by ambient outlet Mu-Pysch. Remote Dreaming would take shape in various studios over nine months. Jeff Cain's instruments on this project included electric and acoustic pianos, the Juno 106 synthesizer, and a Mirage sampler, while Charles Cohen used his signature Buchla 200 Series Electronic Musical Instrument. A stark departure from the tightly wound first LP, Remote Dreaming shows the duo unfurling with soothing pianos and psychoacoustic textures, its somnambulant drones just skirting the edges of the uncanny. Although ignored in its time, Remote Dreaming is now heralded as a landmark in 80s experimental ambient music. It is here released for the first time on vinyl, spread across a double LP with five additional tracks, four of which were previously unreleased. Remote Dreaming has been freshly remastered and includes an insert with photos and liner notes. Proceeds will be donated to SOSA (Safe from Online Sex Abuse), a nonprofit that combats online child sex abuse and trafficking.

ドイツ・ハンブルクを拠点にニューエイジ・リバイバルを牽引したBasso主宰の名門レーベル〈Growing Bin Records〉や、ギリシャ系ニューエイジを掘り起こした〈Into The Light〉などからのリリースや、アンビエント・ダンス・ユニットEarth TraxやPtakiなどの名義でも活動するポーランド・ワルシャワのバレアリック／アンビエント鬼才ことBartosz Kruczynskiによる最新ソロアルバム、今回も凄い才能＆内容！16年リリースの『Baltic Beat』が当店でも大ヒットを記録した人気アクトによる、4年振り最新アルバム！温かみのあるビブラフォン、張り詰めたアルペジオ、重なり合うストリングス、孤独なディレイチェーンなど、アンビエントの重なり合うスタイルに、常に独自のスピンを加えてきた名手による、安定のバレアリック／アンビエント作品！

Panoram makes soundtracks for daydreams gone sideways. Picture the scene: an afternoon nap with the television on, quietly, in the corner; snatches of conversation drift in through the open window. Wandering, half-formed thoughts take unexpected detours; before you know it, there’s a movie playing out against closed lids, the colors bright, the characters unfamiliar. Accidental rhythms, incidental melodies, imitations of life, messages in code. Across 17 fragmentary, sketch-like tracks, Panoram carves a labyrinthine path in which nothing is what it seems: a fantasy world of breathy vox pads, faux guitar, detuned synths, bursts of flute and orchestral percussion, and even the occasional cheeky cartoon sample. It’s chillout music with a chilly edge, ambient with a darkly ironic undertone. (The briefest glance at your news outlet of choice should be enough to confirm that the title—Great Times—ought to be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism.) Panoram has been making music under his principal alias for more than a decade now, releasing albums on labels like Firecracker, Running Back, and his own Wandering Eye. (He has also performed and recorded with Amen Dunes, and has co-production credits on Amen Dunes’ forthcoming Sub Pop album Death Jokes.) Panoram’s output has ranged widely, taking in abstract pop, classical composition, twisted takes on library music, and cyborg funk. One record of “bio-acoustic transmissions” came with a cannabis leaf pressed in clear wax; his 2021 album Pianosequenza Vol. 1 gathers his experiments on the Yamaha Disklavier. But Great Times offers the truest picture yet of a project that has never been easy to pin down. Loath to overshare details about his personal life, Panoram instead lets the music do the talking, using his cryptic tracks to express the slipperiest sorts of ideas—the thoughts that take root where anxiety, distraction, and the most fleeting traces of grace commingle. Panoram’s approach flies in the face of contemporary ambient orthodoxy, with its emphasis on immersion and uplift. Great Times expresses something thornier, more difficult to translate, yet also more tantalizing to contend with. Its 17 tracks offer a chance to get lost—and an invitation to remain in the maze as long as you like.

Coral Morphologic and Nick León’s Projections of a Coral City marks a series of collisions between distant worlds: the organic and the artificial, the Eocene and the Anthropocene, sea and cement—and even, perhaps, ambient music and activism. Coral Morphologic are the Miami duo of marine biologist Colin Foord and musician J.D. McKay; since 2007, they have used a variety of multimedia projects to generate environmental awareness of marine biodiversity—most notably Coral City Camera, an underwater webcam streaming live from an urban reef ecosystem in PortMiami. Their citymate Nick León is a linchpin of South Florida’s contemporary leftfield electronic scene, with releases for Tra Tra Trax, Future Times, and NAAFI, and credits on records by Rosalía, GAIKA, and Iceboy Violet, among others. This collaborative project dates back to 2022, when Coral Morphologic mounted a monumental projection-mapping installation on Biscayne Boulevard. For five nights in late November and early December, macroscopic films of corals played out across the exterior of Knight Concert Hall. The installation was, on the one hand, a glimpse into a possible future, imagining how the city’s skyline might appear if unchecked global warming and rising seas led coral reefs to colonize the built environment. But it also represented a look back into the deep past, a reminder that Miami is literally built from marine limestone mined from the Everglades. Its concrete foundations began life, eons ago, as a marine ecosystem—the same ecosystem that may one day reclaim them. As above, so below. As an album, Projections of a Coral City is a suite of interconnected movements spread across two sides of vinyl. The tones are watery, the mood elegiac, the colors a washed-out pastel. Forms that appear static on the surface gradually open up to reveal hidden depths teeming with microscopic movement. You might detect resonances with other aquatically minded works—Jürgen Müller’s Science of the Sea, Harold Budd’s liquid piano compositions, even the slow-moving melancholy of Dr. Roger Payne’s Songs of the Humpback Whale. But ultimately Projections of a Coral City creates the impression of a world unto itself—a hauntingly beautiful space at the meeting point between sorrow and hope.

FIRST EVER INTERNATIONAL RELEASE OF RYUICHI SAKAMOTO'S LANDMARK 1983 ALBUM "CODA," HIS RENDITION FOR SOLO PIANO OF THE 'MERRY CHRISTMAS MR. LAWRENCE' SOUNDTRACK. FEATURING REMASTERED AUDIO AND NEW LINER NOTES BY ANDY BETA.

Wewantsounds is delighted to announce the release of Ryuichi Sakamoto's classic LP "Coda”, issued in Japan in 1983 as a solo piano version of the "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" soundtrack. The album, which was never been released outside of Japan until now, sees Sakamoto on acoustic piano reinterpreting fascinating versions of his famous soundtrack including the classic theme and "Germination," which was later used in the "Call Me By Your Name" soundtrack. This reissue has been remastered by Seigen Ono's Saidera Mastering studio in Tokyo and boasts the original artwork plus a 4-page insert with new liner notes by Andy Beta.

- First international release of the album
- Audio remastered by Saidera Mastering in Tokyo
- Original artwork with OBI and 4 page colour insert
- New liner notes by Andy Beta

Tracklist
SIDE 1
1. Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence 4:49
2. Batavia 0:50
3. Germination 2:09
4. A Hearty Breakfast 1:18
5. Before The War 1:44
6. The Seed And The Sower 3:55
7. A Brief Encounter 2:27

SIDE 2
1. Ride Ride Ride 1:02
2. The Fight 1:20
3. Dismissed! / Assembly 1:50
4. Beyond Reason 1:26
5. Sowing The Seed 1:31
6. Last Regrets 2:05
7. The Seed 1:06
8. Japan 2:58
9. Coda 5:32

Ship to Shore PhonoCo. is proud to present the experimental Japanese ambient classic Prologue For Post-Modern Music for the first time on vinyl since its original release in 1984! Unavailable since its debut 37 years ago, Masashi Kitamura + Phonogenix’s LP can almost be seen as the natural progression from the experimental recordings put out by Brian Eno in the 1970s to the releases The Orb and The Future Sound Of London were famous for in the 90s. Prologue For Post Modern-Music is a mixture of ambient and electronic sounds that is both beautifully classical Japanese and New Age. An album to get lost in.

Not to be confused with the In Camera who had a couple of post-PiL releases on 4AD in the 80s, this In Camera is the work of Christoph Heemann and Timo Van Luijk. Four years after they got Lost in Spice they reached the point of Arrival. An altar on the surface of the water is burning with flames. Behind it you can see a half of the Earth’s globe, and on it there’s a bright throne. A pale, translucent ruler wearing a crown sits in the throne. The globe is surrounded by a ball of shadows on which sits a larger dark ruler on a dark throne. Behind the globe are mountain peaks, and all of it is reflected in the water. Above the mountains are clouds which merge into rivers and end in a curved horizon on which forests stand, and the sun rises between them. Above this horizon is another sky with lunar crescents and comets. Above this sky are rows of angels bent over, above which the stars shine. The sun shines in the top left corner and the crescent moon in the right.

Finally came out! MUST !!!!! The long-awaited analogization of the phantom gem that would have been reissued from our shop if there was no current situation. The original is a masterpiece of German dub techno genius Robert Henke a.k.a. Monolake, which was released on CD only from his own label in 1999, and is the first vinyl reissue from the current dub / ambient prestigious sacred place . Set in the vast Gobi Desert in East Asia, this is a masterpiece of minimal ambient sound, with a vast, profound and nocturnal soundscape. Official reissue under the license specifications of Henke's label . This is recommended as a lifelong product. Don't miss it!!

This Trio is very Californian, even though Surya is based on the East Coast . . .We swim together in the Pacific Ocean, Vibing, bonding, talking, listening, riding the Waves . . .as often as we can. - Carlos Niño Together these three adventurously creative Musical Artists have played in Portland, Oregon, Manhattan and Brooklyn, New York, London, England, Amsterdam and Zaandam, NL, Köln, Germany, San Diego and Ojai, California, and many times throughout Los Angeles County, since February 2022. They first came together in July 2021 at the Glendale, California Home Recording Studio of Jesse Peterson and Mia Doi Todd. Nate was invited by Carlos to meet Surya and to possibly play. No specific plans were set other than to explore with Surya. (Multi-Reedsman Randal Fisher was also there.) That Session turned out to be Day 1 of what became Surya's debut album Everyone's Children released by Spiritmuse Records on November 4, 2022. Suyra and Nate were both featured extensively on the Carlos Niño & Friends album (I'm just) Chillin', on Fire released by International Anthem on September 15, 2023, though not together on any of the same pieces. The first in-depth representation of the Trio was in collaboration with André 3000 on his album New Blue Sun released by Epic Records on November 17, 2023, where they are featured as co-writers and co-creators of 5 of the 8 album pieces. Niño also Produced that album in collaboration with André. Nate enthusiastically took it upon himself to be the Trio's Archivist and would get to Mixing and playlisting the group's recordings as soon as he received them from Live and Studio recordists. He took the lead on Producing and Mixing this album, Subtle Movements. His unique perspectives, thoughts, feelings and intense heart energy went into telling the story of how these pieces, recorded in different settings, with a wide range of gear, by an array of characters, all flow together. "It is a blessed opportunity and Cosmic Gift to be at the keyboards with Nate and Carlos," Surya gleams. "In appearance, I play a few keyboards at a time: a MIDI controller that I use in tandem with music studio software, my absolute FAVORITE analog sensibility synth Roland SH-201 (although it is digital), and typically another 88key board (the Roland SV-1). If there is a piano available, I will also use that with us for a total of 4 keyboards at my station, (that my cousin Georgia Anne Muldrow has forever deemed “Praise Console no.3”), Surya enthuses. "My instruments and sound are the last thing I consider about this Trio. For me, it is about us as human beings first; as members of our respective families and soul tribes before anything else. I think whatever sound that comes forth is a result of that inner connected soul conversation. That, at least in my view, is the Sound." "I play guitar, guitar synthesizer, and midi-guitar sampler," writes Nate Mercereau of his Instruments on Subtle Movements. "In addition to my main GR300 guitar synthesizer sound, I am sampling the band live as we perform and using the sound . . .It takes many different shapes, but I am often playing something like the sound of Carlos's percussion from 30 seconds earlier in a new key and tempo, or as a chord — or a quick slice of a pad from Surya’s keyboard pitched down into sub frequencies, anything can happen," Nate details. "I live-sample and expand, magnify, permutate, repeat, live-remix, live-edit, and reframe moments of our sound within our sound while it's happening. Worlds Within Worlds and Worlds Upon Worlds, Currents Within Currents. I also use previously recorded and created samples from my library in this context, allowing my guitar to be anything." Nate also offers: "I consider what I do in this trio to be a part of and extension of the greater sound of this group, which is often oceanic (which represents everything to me), waves, it's full communication. Love and support in sonic form. Going beyond together in all ways." Carlos Niño plays everything that you hear in the Aerophone, Drum, Percussion and Plant realms . . . He was the group's "Connector" and its first advocate. Depending on who received and accepted the opportunity to present the Trio their names have appeared in different orders. Hear, on Subtle Movements the order is Alphabetical by last name: Botofasina, Mercereau, Niño

Original deadstrock copy. Japanese Obscure Private Issue New Age gems!

Mirror" is the legendary unit. the dawn of acoustic drone in the late 90's. They have played with Jim O'Rourke and Andreas Martin. Mirror" is a unit of Andrew Chalk, a British sound craftsman who has been creating his own unique sound world that transcends both ambient and drone, and Christoph Heemann, a German sound craftsman who is well known for his work with H.N.A.S. and Mimir. This year's important release will feature two of Heemann's closest allies, Vikki Jackman and Timo van Luijk, who will join him for this year's release. Recorded at the renowned jazz club Loft, Cologne, Germany. Artwork by Andrew Chalk. The album is a compilation of their work, and is released at a turning point in their career. The slow, space-time distortion characteristic of the duo's peak period is accompanied by a solitary drone that can be described as their quintessential style.

Selkie Reflections was originally conceived by Alliyah Enyo as a 2-hour composition of tape loops, made for an installation at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop in 2022. In album format, Selkie Reflections materializes as a split-side release; a dialogue between Alliyah Enyo and Florian T M Zeisig, under his new alias Angel R. On the A-side, Enyo re-works the material into a seamless blend of layered vocal calls, dub-mixing at Green Door studio to stimulate the spontaneous spirit of the original takes. Her motifs ooze around one another in overlapping cycles, conjoining the distant cries of the solitary selkie into an evolving ballad of fragmented song. Zeisig assimilates the archival recordings, shattering them apart to piece them back together. His compositions are traced with the angelic echoes of Enyo’s vocals, yet his intricate processing taps into the arcane sides of the selkie. As vocals twist, warp and distort, disturbed reflections emerge, contending the sublime radiance of the choral drones. In his reinterpretations, infinitesimal moments are stretched out infinitely, like calls from the gods, eerie and cosmic; the cries of the selkie immortalised.

After many years drifting in and out of each-other’s orbit, ‘Jazz Plates’ finds Ulla and Perila making music in the same room for the first time, exhaling a double album’s worth of gorgeously evocative mood music, gently crackling with a dream-textured haze for the ages. It's remarkably intimate material, linking the duo's own hypnagogic portrait of jazz, in all its hushed permutations. ‘Jazz Plates’ catches the mutual spirits measuredly channelling their shared love of Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders, making use of voice, clarinet, guitar, piano, vocals and various non-musical objets - logs, leaves, an aquarium - until they hit their emotional core. Previously separated by an ocean, their first recording sessions in person find an intoxicating play of slow and atmospheric sounds porous to the shifting weather outside, with one plate subtly guided by the sun, and another by heavy rain. Unhurried, etheric, and wistful, the album’s 13 parts wash over the senses with a soothingly meditative resonance that emerges from their “mutual dialogue of our instruments and souls”, as Perila puts it. Distant voices swirl around the duo's dampened instrumentation on opener 'lasting like a grass leaf', as themes duck and dive over plangent ambience. It isn't a capital A Ambient record, by any means, but Perila and Ulla's approach is impressionistic rather than figurative. They form ghostly half-songs around hollow trace rhythms on 'a josh outside the window', coating the breathy romance of modern jazz in a layer of dust, and let the clarinet do most of the work on 'placing in shell parcels' as it slow dances around a reverberant vocal. More than anything, ‘Jazz Plates’ seems to highlight the sensuality of collaboration; you can almost hear the duo trading glances and allowing the mood to dictate the momentum. When they switch things up on the second disc, they pull their ideas more tightly together without losing any of the intimacy. Muffled electric guitar prangs punctuate woody rhythms on 'messages from a floor', as if the two are trying to rethink the logic of free jazz, and on the heart piercing 'cheese homework', blues-y guitar phrases are sunk under a powerful, loping bassline.

Part of a series of three new archival releases from Ndeya that showcase Jon Hassell and group in the late 1980s exploring a radical tangent on his Fourth World sensibility.

The Living City captures the Jon Hassell Group in September 1989 performing as part of an audio-visual installation inside the World
Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City, with Brian Eno mixing the band live. Eno had designed an audio-visual installation in the 10-story glass-vaulted pavilion, inspired by the hunting, ceremony, animals, and weather sounds of the Ba-Ya-Ka pygmy tribe from Cameroon gathered by Louis Sarno.

Jon Hassell and his then band, the musicians who had recently recorded the City: Works Of Fiction album, played in the Winter Garden Atrium over the course of three nights, with Eno mixing the band live with the installation sounds.

The audio presented here is an edited selection from the performance on the second night, available on vinyl for the first time, cut across four sides by Stefan Betke aka Pole. Gatefold vinyl edition includes download card and extensive sleevenotes.

'alvo noto + ryuichi sakamoto . vrioon 2001-2002' Remastered with extra track. Remastering by bo @ calyx/berlin. 'landscape skizze was originally recorded for 'MATADOR I: ORIENTE' - high quality photographic edition by spanish specialised art house la fabrica thanks to kab america inc. and ryuichi sakamoto.

If there’s one specific component that grounds “Sky Flesh”, it’s the focus. Italian musician and sound designer Marta De Pascalis flexed her technical muscle on 2020’s “Sonus Ruinae”, layering various sounds and processes in an attempt to touch the sublime. In contrast, “Sky Flesh” is a single thought, composed using just one instrument: the Yamaha CS-60. A slimmed-down sibling to the gargantuan CS-80 – the analog synthesizer used by Vangelis to create his iconic “Blade Runner” score – the CS-60 was released in 1977, a few years before the MIDI protocol was introduced to help standardize production methods. MIDI would change the electronic music landscape completely, offering a level of control that De Pascalis consciously relinquishes, preferring to highlight expressiveness and timbre, elements more readily associated with acoustic instruments. The album arrives as much of the wider experimental scene busies itself with algorithmic composition and AI-assisted modeling; De Pascalis chooses to work instead like an organologist, harnessing the CS-60’s mercurial magic to suggest deeper truths about our evolving relationship with machines. Currently based in Berlin, De Pascalis grew up in Rome, where she was surrounded by atrophied ruins that piqued her interest in decay and memory. Over her last three albums, she used tape loops and advanced synthesizer techniques to create a unique sound world that’s guided by her musical philosophy, rather than a specific aesthetic. As she’s developed her technique and confidence, her music has become even more idiosyncratic, and at this stage in her career, she’s stripped her sound down to its core elements, focusing on emotion, narrative, and mystery. Using timbres that recall a time when electronic music still waved towards the future, De Pascalis’ melodic content is rooted in early and Renaissance music, almost cleaving it from history entirely. Fittingly, “Sky Flesh” is released on acclaimed Italian composer Caterina Barbieri’s burgeoning light-years label, the ideal platform for her labyrinthine, cosmic vignettes. De Pascalis introduces us to the album with a triptych that establishes her sonic landscape immediately. On “voXCS60x”, “The Shapes We Buried” and “Blue to Blue”, she presents the CS-60 in all its malleable glory, running its serrated, ring-modulated oscillations through booming reverb and reducing them to vapors. Despite not working with MIDI sequencing, De Pascalis exerts a remarkable level of command, bending her compositions into abstract shapes without sacrificing their evocative earworms. It’s an almost ritualistic process that centers on a musician who’s not only in dialog with technology but with the cosmos itself, channeling its puzzles through her machines. This soul-searching is most evident in “Yueqin”, a dreamily ornate, moonlit composition that breathes through filigree melodic flourishes and triumphant fanfares, signaling a distant romance in the heavens. De Pascalis takes a brief detour on “Commas Light” and “Cut Off Horizon”, investigating tonality in miniature and coaxing expression out of her delirious runs of notes with uncommon ease. It makes the conclusion of “Làsciati” and “Equal to no Weight” hit that much harder, the former a dissonant dance into psychedelia and the latter an almost ten-minute cloud of obscured harmony. With all traces of the CS-60’s sound humbled by tides of noise, it’s an apt finale, climaxing with suggestive echoes that pointedly disappear into silence. With “Sky Flesh”, De Pascalis doesn’t freeze time, but expands its reach, offering a fresh perspective on cosmic music that’s steeped in riddles and wonder.

Paradise Cinema is a project led by multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie (Portico Quartet/Szun Waves) with contributions from Khadim Mbaye, Tons Sambe and Laurence Pike. The first, eponymous, Paradise Cinema record, released in 2020, was recorded in Dakar and featured the dense rhythms of Mbalax music combining with Wyllie’s textural saxophone and synth playing. New album ‘returning, dream’ was created in London by Wyllie with additional recordings from Dakar and Sydney. While Wyllie’s other projects move between tight-knit electronica, widescreen minimalism and improvised ambient sounds, ‘returning, dream’ contains nods to Jon Hassell, Terry Riley, Don Cherry and Midori Takada as well as more contemporary electronic, ambient and non-western music and even draws inspiration from physics and science fiction.

Caterina Barbieri is set to release a sister album of her 2019's acclaimed “Ectatic Computation”. “Myuthafoo“ will be out on June 2. Italian composer Caterina Barbieri has spent the best part of a decade breaking apart the rigid structures of electronic music, using advanced, idiosyncratic techniques to build bridges between academic experimental, dance and pop landscapes. Her breakthrough moment came in 2017 with the Important Records-released "Patterns of Consciousness", a confident fusion of analogue synthesis and algorithmic compositional methodology that defined her unique voice. And when she followed it with "Ecstatic Computation" on the legendary Editions Mego label in 2019, wide acclaim ensued, with critics praising its potent fusion of minimalism and trance-inducing synth experimentation. Pitchfork has described her music as "a mind-altering journey" and "a dreamachine for the ears". Since then Barbieri has worked hard to subvert expectations at every turn, offering an eccentric spin on the remix album with "Fantas Variations" - a selection of collaborations and reworks from friends and inspirations like Kali Malone, Jay Mitta, Evelyn Saylor and Kara-Lis Coverdale - and developing a modish articulation on last year's poetic and densely layered "Spirit Exit". Described by NPR as “deeply psychedelic and, by extension, subversive," the album was more than just a selection of tracks; it launched her own light-years label and arrived alongside an ambitious live experience that developed her philosophy in multiple dimensions, bringing in additional voices like Bendik Giske, Nkisi and Lyra Pramuk and bespoke visuals from Marcel Weber and Ruben Spini. "Myuthafoo" was written at the same time as "Ecstatic Computation", which Barbieri regards as a sister album. Both albums are based on creative sequencing processes that playfully unravel Barbieri's deep-rooted interest in time, space, memory and emotion. And since she was set to re-release "Ecstatic Computation" on her own light-years imprint, it made sense to accompany that album with this intimately entangled set of unreleased recordings. At the time, Barbieri had been touring excessively and her process began to shift in response to that nomadic, interactive energy. Using the Orthogonal ER-101 modular sequencer, Barbieri manually programed patterns into the device and fed them into her arsenal of noise generators, trialling different combinations at each show. If an idea worked well in the live environment, she would put it to one side, letting longer pieces breathe and transform as they sprung to life and developed organically. It's a process she relates to her interest in cosmogony, the study of the origins of the universe; her music is rooted in the limitations of a small number of options that branch out into a much larger structure, eventually reaching towards an open-ended cosmos of possibility. From 'Math of You', it's clear that the sounds are grounded in a similar sonic philosophy; blipping synth sequences nudge alongside each other harmonically, disrupting trance's addicting euphoria with filigree polyrhythmic pulses. Like 'Fantas' before it, the track is focused around emotionally affecting repeating phrases, but a closer examination reveals hidden intricacies as these phrases flicker like illusions, dissolving and dissipating as they snake and weave. The album's title track is its most generous and most tender, blunting Barbieri's usually razor-sharp sequences into rubbery möbius strips that twist romantically, bending back on each other. It gazes at the stars from an atemporal vantage point, relying on synapse-popping psychedelic logic as well as established physics. 'Sufyosowirl' meanwhile is rigorous and rhythmic, as melodically charged as pop music and as soaring as Jean-Michel Jarre's lavish stadium electronics. Closing track 'Swirls of You' encases Barbieri's celestial sequences in gaseous vapors, allowing the music to ascend slowly and purposefully until it flickers and fades to nothing. Barbieri's music sounds as if it has a life of its own, endlessly expanding and transmuting until it's able to develop its own rules and gestures. "Myuthafoo" teases an ecosystem where technology and biology are intertwined, and where the past, present and future are part of the same essential narrative.