Ambient / Minimal / Drone

Dominique Lawalrée (b. 1954) is a composer born and based in Brussels. First Meeting is Lawalrée's first archival release to date. Culled from four different albums originally self-published on his private label Editions Walrus, circa 1978-1982, this compilation highlights the composer's unique sense of ambient and minimal composition. Originally considered for release on Brian Eno's Obscure Records, Lawalrée's music is now no longer hidden. 

In this collection the listener finds the sounds of piano, synthesizers, percussion, wurlitzer, organ, and voice, all performed by Lawalrée. Using these tools Dominique creates miniature themes that gallop across the speakers in slow motion, stretching our normal sense of dynamics and color, effortlessly widening the stereo plane. On “Musique Satieerique,” Dominique pays homage to the influence of Satie with simple repeated piano figures and a lush field of organs and flutes. And on other selections, like “Le Maison Des 5 Elements,” he takes a more wistful, ambient approach, layering keyboard lines, and invoking found/tape sounds to create a hypnogogic world of his own. Childlike in its playfulness and surreal to the bone, the music spins like a carrousel placed inside the Rothko Chapel. Lawalrée’s sense of timbre, tone, and overarching composition is like an impression of a home movie whose charm lies in its knowledge of intimacy, shared by few. An incantation of innocence. 

"a quiet, understated music that is both touching and elegant" - Gavin Bryars 

The Manchester based artist Craig Tattersall returns to the label with 2 longform compositions centered around piano. The compositions were generated by birds which were captured by a contact mic attached to his garden bird feeder. These initial recordings were partly included in the final recordings adding an organic and intimate touch to the music. Hence, the album presents itself as a more outside experience and complements the Autumn season quite well.

The Humble Bee is the pseudonym of Craig Tattersall, one of Britain's leading ambient writers, who has left outstanding works for famous groups such as The Boats, The Remote Viewer, and The Sea. The 2019 masterpiece cassette album "things are sweeter when they're lost" from Belgian prestigious has been repressed as the 2nd edition after a long absence. A gem of an ambient work released in 2019 as a limited numbered edition of 75 handmade artwork specifications, reissued in a limited edition of 150 copies.

Thanks to all my dear friends and the wonderful people at Dauw. The limited edition tape was given away as a present to thank everyone for the support during Dauw's second year.

thanks: all at dauw, ​a,a,a,e,t,b,l,j and r

Face is a synthbathed meditation on decay and acceptance and shows the typical Jogging House sound in which warm soundscapes are mingled with soft and playful melodies. Boris Potschubay is a German musician based in Frankfurt am Main. Besides his own music, Potschubay curates his own label, Seil Records which forms a home for Hainbach, KMRU among others. Jogging House debuted in 2011 and brought us more than a dozen releases in the meantime. Listening to all the records chronologically one after the other, demonstrates us how Potschubay is experimenting a wide range of sound sources and creates a variety of atmospheres but stays true to its own individuality.

Baby with a Halo is the newest record by Montreal based artist Ura. The songs on here feel like little organisms. While familiar genre references may shadow the pieces, from the faint ash of reminiscence comes something tactile and singular to the person who sat with the sounds and felt how they might coexist. Everything is rhythmic, the textures arrive, disappear and respond to each other in ways that could make you forget there was someone behind the controls all along. The result is full of love and ambiguity ~ choose ur own journey.


All music written and recorded by Ura
Cover and back of sleeve designed by Shy
Labels designed by IS
Mastered by Anne Taegert at D&M
Mixing assistance by Francis Latreille

'Single' isn't just a reissue of Pub's similarly-titled 2002 set, it properly rounds up the Glaswegian dub techno reductionist's first three 12"s and adds a couple of vinyl exclusives. Long-form blunted dancefloor haziness never sounded so lovely: imagine Various Artists/T++, The Black Dog, BoC and Manuel Göttsching locked in a room wth some synths, drum machines and echo boxes. Hot on the heels of last year's much needed 'Do You Ever Regret Pantomime?' reissue comes this equally levitational set of Caledonian miasma, remastered at Berlin's Dubplates & Mastering. It's the best way to widen yer appreciation of the Ampoule boss's early work, especially if you've only come across his debut album and the 'Summer' EP. 'Single' is basically a photo album of Pub's earliest experiments, and kicks off fittingly with 'Lunch', from his 1999-released 12" "Lick/Lunch". When that record originally dropped, Pub was only 18 years old and was penning his extended dub-phoric jams on a single synthesizer/workstation. The rudimentary DIY methodology adds to the raw emotionality of the material. It sounds as if Pub is very slowly conducting the loose, trance-influenced arpeggios and dusty rhythms and shifting them carefully in-and-out of frame on the fly almost like Manuel Göttsching on the Biblical "E2-E4". There's a physicality to the music that sounds alien in an era where DAWs are practically unavoidable, and it's sobering to recall. 'Springing Daisy's' is a truncated version of the "Springing Daisy's Mix" of 'Film' (from 2002's "Derail" 12"), turning up on "Single" again to close the collection, shortened from almost 15 minutes to 10 and aptly renamed 'Short Film'. Both versions center around Pub's innate ability to take basic ingredients - in this case a single melodic loop and a distorted T++ style rhythm - and sublime them into gaseous traces of their constituent parts. 'Springing Daisy's' is the "pop" version - short, sharp, beat heavy - and 'Short Film' (a vinyl exclusive) is the abstracted, Basic Channel-influenced inversion, detuning the melody and torching the rhythm into an acidic fizz. 'Derail' is included too, and has never sounded better, showcasing Pub at his most dissociated and melancholy with a distant BoC hum couched in a thick fog of reverberating resonance. 2003's 'Surgery' rounds up the early run, and displays Pub's artistic progression, moving a few steps out of the murk and allowing the drums to push into near-dancefloor territory on the title track. And the new edition is finished off with the trancey 'Kamikazi', a track from the original "> Single" that's never made it to vinyl before.

On 29th September 2017, Iglooghost will release his debut album “Neō Wax Bloom”, almost two years to the day since he made his debut as a teenager on Flying Lotus’s Brainfeeder imprint with the “Chinese Nü Year” EP - four tracks documenting the time-traveling adventures of a gelatinous worm-shaped creature called Xiangjiao. Expanding on this story, “Neō Wax Bloom” follows the events surrounding two giant eyeballs crashing into the mysterious world of Mamu. Across its 11 tracks, Iglooghost builds a typically intense, hysterical, borderline batshit crazy soundtrack, introducing new characters to his fantastical world and inviting back old friends Mr. Yote and Cuushe for the ride.

In the words of Iglooghost:

“When a pair of giant eyeballs crash into the strange, misty world of Mamu, the mysterious forces that govern nature itself are disrupted. A life cycle of transforming creatures is thrown off balance, and the odd looking inhabitants of Mamu are forced to adapt to this calamity. These inhabitants include Yomi - a multicoloured pom-pom monk; Lummo - a wise blind witch training a band of melon coloured babies; and Uso - a sneaky bug thief hidden in a green cloak - as well as many others. As their respective stories begin to interlock, the mysteries surrounding the giant eyeballs are slowly revealed.”

Featuring artwork by Iglooghost, the vinyl format includes a large format 12-page Riso printed comic booklet and “Neō Wax Bloom” character sticker sheet. 

Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. “Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself. Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he co-founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble, a highly regarded all electronic quartet. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation. The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer’s unique approaches: The structure of Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body (1978) is derived from the means of its production. Recording 5 people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analogue tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials. Role (1972) was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artisztic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized its as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex. Blue Wave (1980) is built on Kramer’s timbral development technique Veils Of Transformation which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound. Monologue (1977) is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer. The blunt, raw and sometimes harsh sounds of this piece reflect an attitude prominent among composers that music can, or even should, be difficult, contrary to what’s already been done and, by all means, new.

Veils Of Transformation 1972 - 1980 is a collection of the earliest works of Gregory Kramer, one of the 20th century masters of textural electronic music. This collection is available on CD and cassette with liner notes from Gregory Kramer and Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, who first brought this fascinating work to the attention of Important Records. “Greg is one of the pioneers of electronic music and these pieces are unique opportunities to discover how intricate and dynamic early synthesizers are.” Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith Kramer developed a musical language focused on continuous transformation of timbre, yielding a continuity of attention. This musical language, formed of timbral change, is a compelling aesthetic in its own right and a source of meditative experience. The four works on this album share a deep sense of order derived not from organizing pitches or rhythms, but from the evolution of timbre itself. Gregory Kramer (b. 1952) is a pioneering electronic composer, inventor, researcher, teacher and author. In 1975 he co-founded Electronic Musicmobile, a synthesizer ensemble later renamed Electronic Musicmobile, a series of synthesizer concerts in New York from which he formed the Electronic Art Ensemble, a highly regarded all electronic quartet. His work extended to developing synthesizers and related equipment. Kramer also co-founded the not-for-profit arts organization Harvestworks in New York City. He is recognized as the founding figure of the intensely cross-disciplinary field of data sonification. Since 1980, Kramer teaches Buddhist meditation. The four compositions collected here each represent Kramer’s unique approaches: The structure of Meditations on 32 Parts of the Body (1978) is derived from the means of its production. Recording 5 people chanting an ancient meditation text, then layering to gradually achieve more than one million voices. The layering was all done using analogue tape recorders. The decomposition of the sound reflects the anomalies of tape machines out of sync, and the build up of artifacts from the audio tape itself, such as uneven response curves and tape hiss, are all engaged as musical materials. Role (1972) was generated using one complex patch on a large hybrid Buchla 200/100 system. Emerging from a zeitgeist that valued pure synthesis as a combined artisztic and technological research. At the time this piece was realized its as exceedingly difficult to produce electronic sounds that were internally complex. Blue Wave (1980) is built on Kramer’s timbral development technique Veils Of Transformation which allows for disparate timbres to be woven into a continuously developing sound. Monologue (1977) is a virtuosic performance of a massive patch on a Buchla/Electron Farm hybrid electronic instrument. Built into the patch is a pathway for continuous transformation of voice and voltage-controlled synthesizer. The blunt, raw and sometimes harsh sounds of this piece reflect an attitude prominent among composers that music can, or even should, be difficult, contrary to what’s already been done and, by all means, new.

"I’ve started to work on this album before I knew it. During June 2018 I was in Japan for a month to release my previous album "Cairn" as well as my first solo exhibition of drawings in Tokyo. Everyday on my way to the gallery I passed in front of the same building, its name kept haunting me : Rogue Hill. Back then I was digging for cheap 80’s Japanese CD’s (Balearic, New Age, Ambient,...) in second hand stores. Most of them set the tone of this album and the direction I wanted to follow. I feel there’s a direct connection between these original sources and the sound I pursue by their meditative aspect. Most of the demo songs were done before my daughter’s birth on August 2019 and were finalized since then. Many of the titles refer to this main event and relate to how it changed my position in life : being a link through time by becoming a father."

Gondwana Records and Portico Quartet announce a strictly limited edition collectors-item Featuring an expanded version of their long-form composition Terrain and re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble and recorded live in Studio One Terrain (Extended) features an expanded version of the composition re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble – a subtle re-configuration of the band that features a string quartet - and which allowed for the composition's deeper textures and resonances to be fully explored, along the way expanding the dialogue between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes Terrain such a beautiful, powerful piece. 9th November 2021 was a very special session. The band (who had first recorded at Abbey Road for their second album Isla back in 2009), brought long-term collaborator, recording and mix engineer, Greg Freeman over from Berlin to work with Abbey Road’s Chris Bolster and the resulting concert film Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One An Abbey Road 90th Session received it’s world premiere broadcast on the Gondwana Youtube channel on Thursday 20th October. Now Gondwana Records is super proud to announce the ultimate collector’s edition of this special recording. Limited to just 1500 individually numbered and stamped LPs and 1000 CDs. Recorded live at Abbey Road Studio One. Mixed in Berlin by the band’s longterm collaborator Greg Freeman. Audio mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios. Vinyl cut by John Davis at Metropolis Studios Available only on beautiful transparent clear two disc vinyl pressed at Optimal in Germany or on limited edition CD or digital download LP and CD are presented in an uncoated gatefold sleeve printed in Pantone Cool Gray 4 with release details sticker. In addition, the LP features a 12 page booklet with a half front page and translucent paper overlay, glued into a gatefold and the CD features 12-page booklet, glued into a gatefold. Designed by veil projects. Each LP and CD are hand stamped and the LP comes packed in reusable 'Japanese style’ polyprop sleeves - with sealable flap - for protection

Historically informed violin player, prize-winning street musician, new age experimentalist, chamber ensemble performer and conservatoire deviant. The career of Valentina Goncharova (b. Kyiv 1953) shares parallels with those associated with the broader new music movement of the 20th century and the dissemination of home recording technologies. Valentina’s was a youth spent immersed in the world of classical music study under soviet rule, first in Kyiv and later in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) from the age of 16. With the supervision of professors M. Vayman and B. Gutnikov she learned concert violin and developed alternate playing styles alongside skilled pianists. A student of the Leningrad conservatoire during the years 1969 through to 1983, her repertoire included music for violin and later expanded to contemporary music composition. The improvisatory nature of free jazz and then budding experimental rock circles also intrigued Valentina during this period in Leningrad. Departing from the rules of the conservatoire, she briefly performed in underground rock clubs alongside future members of the industrial group Pop- Mechanika (Popular Mechanics). This perpetual state of flux is central to the variety found within ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, though as opposed to any degree of uncertainty Valentina’s practice is one in flux by way of earnest curiosity. Pushing further into an exploration of solo electro-acoustic sounds, she took to home taping on a modified Olimp reel to reel recorder. Intrigued by the manipulability of dubbing and the fresh sounds of DIY effects chains, Goncharova developed pickups alongside her husband Igor Zubkov. Her infatuation with the music of Stockhausen, Xenakis, Ganelin Trio and Pierre Boulez channels through considerations of space and erratic sound design, the three movements of ‘Metamorphoses’ embodying this textural approach to musique concrete. The compositional skills developed in Leningrad unfold in the romantic gestures of ‘Higher Frequencies’, whilst manipulated cello combines with synthesise keys across ‘Passageway To Eternity’. The slow, pulsating drone soundscapes recall the likes of Robert Rutman’s US Steel Cello Ensemble or even deep listening pioneer Pauline Oliveros. The juxtaposition of written notation and improvisatory flare is central to Goncha- rova’s sound world. This period of home recording documents a confluence of minimalism, free form and flirtations with new age tropes (inc. bell chimes and cavernous vocal mantras). Experimenting with unusual performance techniques, such as shouting into amplified cello strings, Valentina’s home studio functioned as a place to foster full artistic and creative freedom away from any academic strictures. Relocating to Estonia in 1984, and in parallel to the deeply personal music of ‘Recordings Vol. 1’, Valentina performed at jazz festivals and gave classical concerts across Eastern Europe. In a sense, the recordings on these discs offer only a glimpse into her lifelong body of work. Over the past few decades she has taught at Tallinn Music College, expanded and updated post- Soviet popular music repertoire, collaborated with the Russian Philharmonic Society of Estonia and given concerts and charity events alongside the Catholic Church. Hers is a life dedicated to the exploration of sound, a career forged through careful study and ceaseless intrigue. In a time where technological interconnectedness has allowed for music of the past to be continually mined and evaluated through new lenses, Shukai present an artist whose tendency for private home-taping had allowed recordings to go unheard for thirty years.

Following the unpublished works of the Ukrainian/Estonian musician Valentina Goncharova, Volume 2 of Shukai’s archival project sits in direct contrast to the solo works of Vol. 1. Spending her youth studying classical music first in Kyiv and then in Leningrad, Valentina began her musical career with rigorous compositional study and concert violin performance. This long player of duets as such casts a light on Goncharova’s experiences with early free jazz, democratic improvisation and introductions to pure electronic sound. Where Vol. 1 explored her home studio experiments and flirtations with musique concrete and new age, this volume seeks to give audience to similarly DIY recordings developed in collaborative environments away from the conservatoire. Properly documenting sessions revolving around smoky jazz cafes, art galleries, salons and theatre venues across Riga and Tallinn, these seven pieces add to the historical narrative of the soviet era avant-garde and show the broader spectrum of Valentina’s work. We begin in Riga with an adapted score for a delicately unfolding violin drone, voice and saxophone performance produced by Valentina and Alexander Aksenov. Describing the nineties as temporarily narrowing the content of cultural life and thus nullifying the interest of free improvisation in both Tallinn and Riga, Valetina’s bond with the multi-instrumentalist and theatre director Aksenov led to decades of close friendship and several demo recordings such as ‘Reincarnation II’. Their initial chance meeting at a jam session set in motion various cross-country performances and experimental theatre works. With its focus on extended harmony, it is perhaps ‘Reincarnation II’ that most recognisably follows on from Shukai’s first volume. Across the rest of the disc are collaborative duets with Sergei Letov and Pekka Airaksinan respectively, the three tapes with Letov an example of recordings as a ‘rehearsal process’. These evenings spent in Moscow apartments and St. Petersburg art studios challenged Goncharova’s preconceptions of musical expression; “I was surprised by his (Letov’s) artistic language. He composed here and now music that was so intellectually advanced that it was quite comparable to the compositions of my fellow students. Only, to achieve such a result, it took months for them. So, for the first time, I took part in free jazz collective creativity” (2020). Atypical violin/saxophone techniques and light, difficult to place percussive textures interplay across the three duets with Letov, the sense of spatiality alluding to the very nature of the recordings. They strike ultimately as private, freeform experiments with sound, never intended for the listener but documenting a practice which explores the dichotomy of improv’s ‘non-professionalism’ and its potential freedom from trained performance. Just one curious corner of Valentina’s musical path, they are included as a deliberate variance to the tapes with Pekka Airaksinen, an already well-regarded composer, early synthesiser fanatic and Finnish radical. At their time of meeting, Pekka had diverted his attention from punk-indebted noise and free jazz groups to a pursuit of spiritualism via contemporary electronic technologies. Already familiar with the ‘Buddhas of Golden Light’ LP, Valentina found in his work an attraction to the sacred and, after an encounter at a 1988 Helsinki festival dedicated to futurist art and literature, she prepared to visit his studio. After a failed attempt to record a joint album, fragments of the tapes are presented here, highlighting Goncharova’s first real experience of electronic music making in a compositional sense. The result is a marriage of stunning organ tones, processed violin murmurs and progressive minimalism a la Terry Riley or La Monte Young. Fragmented guitar and additional keyboard patterns push and pull through delay units in unison with Valentina’s two violins, at times mimicking the howl of the wind or even the human voice. Once again, the duality of the indistinguishable unfamiliar vs. the harmonic familiar. Recordings 1987-1991 Vol. 2 completes Shukai’s dive into the sound world of an important yet overlooked artist working within Soviet era electroacoustics.

Darbuka, gongs, berimbaus, kalimbas, pandeiro, riqq, doholla, bendirs, udu,… These are just some of the instruments that make up the sound universe of Hands in Motion. This percussion trio brings together musicians Simon Leleux (Fabrizio Cassol / I Silenti, Refugees for Refugees), Robbe Kieckens (Lamekan Ensemble, Myrdinn De Cauter), Falk Schrauwen (Compro Oro, Echoes of Zoo) who create a sound universe that does not knows any limits. From Senegal to Eastern Europe, from Brazil to India, from the classical conservatory to nomadic people, it is nourished by all their influences that Hands in Motion juggles with the codes of tradition to create a new space of expression, resolutely current and innovative. Minimalist sound layers, captivating grooves, acoustic trance, their music is organic, contrasting, deep and subtle at the same time. They alternately create melodies and textures that might as well make you think of Philip Glass, Mammal Hands or Why the Eye ?. The atmospheres they create invite movement and sharing.

On December 11, 1980 Eliane Radigue performed live on KPFA. Her full performance is included here, remastered, on two compact discs. Upon hearing these performances for the first time in many years Radigue declared them to be the best versions she'd ever heard. Included are full in-studio performances of Chry-ptus and the world premiere of parts one and three of Tryptych.

In 1970 Harry Bertoia had been developing his sonic sculptures for over ten years. He had only been composing/recording for two years and the four long pieces chosen for this CD find him starting to arrive at the sonic forms he had been searching for. Hints Of Things To Come is one of the most unique and melodic pieces discovered so far in the Bertoia tape archive. In this piece we hear him slowly create and articulate a musical riff. Bertoia builds this phrase patiently until the composition reaches an intense climax where the riff is played heavily and distinctly. 7 ½ & 7 ½ Combined, another historic standout, is one of the earliest examples of Bertoia overdubbing by playing a tape and then performing along to the playback. This CD is defined by ambient passages, long drones, gongs that sound like whales, shimmering harmonics and the feeling of an artist searching for sounds deep within his own sonic sculpture. These are among the best pieces found in the archive so far.

Tags: Experimental, Electronic, Electroacoustic, Free, Improv, ambient, psychedelic, South Indian, Devotional Seljuk Rustum is a Kochi (Cochin) based arts practitioner originally from Kannur, Kerala. He is a painter, musician, curator, producer, recording engineer and the founder and current Creative Director of performance space, Forplay Society. As a musician he plays alto saxophone, guitar, percussion and synthesizer with several bands and an expanding collective of like minded artists. Being a self-taught musician, his sound work is an extension of his visual work and his music is a mixture of joyful noise and simple naive melodies. Seljuk has performed and recorded with artists such as Otomo Yoshihide, Senyawa, Hada Benedito Mateo, Eiko Ishibashi, Mitsuaki Matsumoto, Pisitakun, Yuen Chee Wai, Dharma, DJ Sniff, Maximilian Glass, Duncan Bruce, Hilary Jeffery and Hayden Chisholm. He has also worked with many theatre practitioners & performance artists in India making music for theatre as well as curating shows & workshops with actors and performers from around India. The recordings on Cardboard Castles were made at Seljuk's studio in Kochi between 2016 and 2021 and were mostly instant compositions and single take recordings created in collaboration with a number of fellow travellers who've passed through the studio. At the inception of the album's creation Seljuk sought to reflect on what freedom means and what the musical limitations of this are, and how his involvement as a free improviser might project fixed ideas onto a listener. He wanted to use an improvisational approach that focussed on presenting ideas with a beauty inherent in their sound, coalescing these into song form. Cardboard Castles is the resulting album and application of these concepts. We at Hive Mind feel privileged to have worked with Seljuk to bring you these deeply personal and highly idiosyncratic works which really do defy easy description. Ranging from strange and wonky electronic improvisations, gentle acoustic instrumentals such as the lush opener with the input of the Cochin String Orchestra, through experiments in traditional Indian song, this album will keep you guessing. Everything appears touched with a mischievous sense of playfulness that's maybe reflected in the face of the grinning camel that adorns the sleeve. We're sure you'll agree there's plenty to delight the listener on this strange dream of an album, Seljuk's first to receive a physical release. The CD version comes in a gatefold card digisleeve in an edition of 250 copies

Starting at a very young age, Katrina Krimsky developed her musical self along a pathway of strong classical, pianistic training. Highlights of her playing on the classical side include her wonderful recording of Samuel Barber’s monumental Sonata for Piano, Op. 26, (Transonic Records 3008, 1975), a composition that is a virtual dictionary of early and mid-Twentieth Century composition techniques, first performed by Vladimir Horowitz in 1949 and 1950. Another example is her equally wonderful recording of A próle do bébé (The Baby’s Family) by Heitor Villa-Lobos, (1750 Arch Records, S-1789, 1982). After studying at the Eastman School of Music, Krimsky toured with the Ars Nova Trio and soon found herself becoming immersed in the European contemporary classical scene and with composers like Karlheinz Stockhausen, Luc Ferrari, and many others. The later 1960s brought collaborative performances and recordings with gradual-process innovators, like Terry Riley and La Monte Young, and beyond that, great jazz musicians like Woody Shaw and others. Her musical world was opening even wider. Still, in all this, her advanced technical and interpretive skills were always evident, and her sense of lyricism in all music, quite profound. 1980 was a turning point for Katrina Krimsky. It was the year in which she burst out from the restrictions of her established career in classical and contemporary traditions into free expression through improvisation. Her individual style began to reflect a wide range of sources: jazz, non-Euro-American music, the new minimalism, and more experimental forms. In 1980, she was invited to do a workshop and give a concert at the legendary Creative Music Studio in Woodstock, NY. (CMS was founded originally in 1971 by Karl Berger and developed in its Woodstock home by Karl with Ingrid Sertso starting in 1973.) Katrina traveled from where she was living in Zürich at the time and found an open environment at CMS in which to create anew. The tracks we hear on 1980 were all recorded live in a concert at the CMS in June of that year. What emerged was an original musical style that has remained since then continuously recognizable as Krimsky.

Look around you. In recent years ambient music has changed and encountering Jon Hassell's fourth world design has become easy. Most of the time there’s no feeling, no narrative, a nothingness of ideas through layers and layers of pastiche and boring bedroom music. This is not bashing. Just a reminder that sometimes the information trap delays an understanding of how good music really is. “Cavalcante” is the new release by funcionário (born Pedro Tavares). You’ll find Jon Hassell in these eleven pieces. And yes, sometimes you’ll think about ambient music. Most of the time you’ll wonder about what is really happening. And why it's only now you’re hearing about this twenty-something musician from Setúbal, Portugal. A little bit more than one minute into “En Garde!”, the opening track, one feels challenged by the idea that everything that was listened up to that moment was a false start. The piece abruptly stops, flips some digital sound, and restarts in a whole new direction. As this happens it becomes obvious we are in for a treat. Those two, three seconds create a sensation that everything happens in a moment that introduces you to funcionário's craft: delicate complex sounds infatuated with the idea of movement and the never-ending notion that there’s no dividers in the fourth world. Music can go beyond that. As it moves forward – “Verde”, “Sierra” or “Publicidade Arco e Flecha” -, the album (his fourth) morphs around variations or perceptions of ambient / electronic / experimental music. And as the language evolves, it hints on how funcionário keeps stretching the boundaries of digital music as he wishes to advance to a more analog setup. In a way, he confronts foundational ideas while having breakthroughs and realizing he is at a top level. Justifiably ambitious, bright and discreetly edgy. We dare to say: monumental.

Collaborators since 2020 who have also made music with AIR Krew, Russian producer Piper Spray and multimedia artist Lena Tsibizova present their first album-length work in ‘Leaving Memory’. Compelling freak zone music encompassing ambient, outsider pop, dub and industrial elements and weaving them into a coherent sonic patchwork.

"The phenomenon of the sound and music created here is very mysterious. These pieces of music, created without any intention of being published, reached my ears without warning. Of course, this happened because I have lived a life devoted to a certain kind of music, but there is a chance I would never have listened to them in my life. But, they came to me. Now they play over and over in my listening space - blending into the air that surrounds me. Vibrating. It is as if they had always been there from a long time ago." Chee Shimizu (Organic Music, Japan)

We write to you with the conclusions of our investigation into the synthesized audio transmissions picked up by the deep space telescope at regular intervals since 1986. The source was traced to two brothers in Kawasaki, Japan, who identified themselves as Satoshi and Makoto. When we raided the building, they were huddled around a synthesizer manufactured by the Casio Corporation, model number CZ-5000. 

In their archives we discovered a wealth of colourful and ear-pleasing material created entirely using this music-making device in the early 1990s. We asked them to provide copies so that we could make these compositions available to the public for the first time. They handed us a compact disc that bore the handwritten code “ST006”.