Electronic / Experimental

First vinyl pressing of Baroque by Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist Susumu Yokota, originally released on CD in 2004. The full-length album was originally released by United Sounds Of Blue in 2014, a subdivision of Frogman Records in CD format. Now it is being re-released by Barcelona-based record label Modern Obscure Music as a double-LP. Baroque is one of the most significant albums of Susumu signed under his original name. Yokota was an eclectic, highly prolific electronic musician and composer from Japan who died in 2015 at 54. "There is always fear, rage, and ugliness existing behind beauty. I have been trying to express ki-do-ai-raku (the four emotions: joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness) through music. I would like to express even one's hidden emotion with reality. It's my eternal goal." Baroque is a clear example of this, through the deep listening of the album you can experience all of those feelings in just one record and feel how his music influenced the next generation of producers during the two next decades till today. The Tokyo-based artist devoted his time and creative energy to achieving this goal, and the result is a vast discography that begins with banging early acid house tracks in the 1990s, moves across the next two decades to include deep house and Detroit-influenced techno, a stunning run of ambient electronic albums and, in his last decade, a glorious confluence that wove his various skills into a series of borderless electronic records. Susumu Yokota also known used pseudonyms Stevia and Ebi, among other.

SUMMVS IS THE FIFTH COLLABORATION ALBUM BETWEEN ALVA NOTO AND RYUICHI SAKAMOTO. THE RECORD WAS FIRST RELEASED IN 2011 AND IS THE FIFTH AND FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE ‘VIRUS SERIES’. THE TITLE SUMMVS REFERS TO THE LATIN WORD “SUMMA” (ENG. SUM) AND “VERSUS” (ENG. TOWARDS), AND SERVES AS A METAPHOR FOR THE WORK BEING ORIENTED TOWARDS A COLLABORATIVE RESULT. THE ALBUM FEATURES “MICROON” COMPOSITIONS CONTAINING RECORDINGS OF A 16TH TONE INTERVAL TUNING PIANO—PIANO METAMORFOSEADOR CARRILLO EN DIECISEISAVOS DE TONO. THE ALBUM ALSO FEATURES TWO COVERS OF THE TRACK “BY THIS RIVER” ORIGINALLY COMPOSED BY BRIAN ENO, DIETER MOEBIUS, AND HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS IN 1977.

Across the arc of Tristan Allen’s epiphanic, four-part journey, Tin Iso and the Dawn, the New York based composer and puppeteer brings sonic life to a fantastical realm of characters whose universal longings mirror our own. In the first release of this mythic trilogy, intricate sound design and spellbinding leitmotifs make sense of loss and what’s beyond.

Throughout their legendary, decade-long run, the Shadow Ring were an enigmatic force on the international musical sub-underground. Before their disbandment in 2002, this shambolic rock outfit, formed by a group of rowdy teenagers in southeast England, left behind a mighty run of eight LPs, a handful of 7"s, and a spate of raucous live shows and cryptic zine appearances on both sides of the Atlantic, all which have bolstered their enduring word-of-mouth mystique. Beginning this year with the first-ever vinyl pressing of the self-released pre-Shadow Ring tape The Cat & Bells Club (1992), Blank Forms Editions is conducting a systematic retrospective of the storied group, including a multi-year LP reissue effort and a forthcoming comprehensive CD box set and an over five hundred page book. Recorded in summer of 1994 at S.H.P studios (frontman Graham Lambkin’s parents’ home), the group’s sophomore record Put the Music In Its Coffin is a more sinister, saturnine affair than their debut City Lights. Coffin was many listeners’ introduction to the Shadow Ring, who had hitherto self-released their music, courting a steady stable of international fans through the magazine and mail-order catalog Forced Exposure. For their follow-up, the duo reached out to the ascending Philadelphia label Siltbreeze, whose eclectic roster of sneering, low-fidelity rock and noise connected disparate subterranean scenes from rust-belt America to the English Midlands, Dunedin, and beyond. As luck would have it, Siltbreeze proprietor Tom Lax was already a fan of the band’s first record and arranged to release both a 7” and their “difficult second album.” The connection proved to run deeper than vinyl—within six months, Lax would pick up the pair from the airport for their spring 1995 US tour. This episode marked not only their first trip to the States but their first live performances at all, formally introducing the Shadow Ring to the American underground and solidifying the allure of the Folkestone pair. From the get-go, the record has a menacing, vile ambience. Its opening track “Horse-Meat Cakes,” inspired by an anecdote by pulp author Philip K. Dick about how he and his wife subsisted off low-grade pet food when he first arrived in San Francisco, sets the tone lyrically and sonically. Subsequent tracks are filled with Rabelaisian body horror and sinewy, haptic diction. “I try to pass out vital organs, convinced that they are waste,” intones Lambkin in “Heart, Liver & Lungs,” before a chorus of detuned guitars kicks in, nearly drowning out the speaker’s account of consuming chevaline intestines. Later songs similarly detail vernacular cooking (“Caribbean Porridge,” about a cornmeal hangover cure), bodily processes (“Nocturnal Middle Rumbles,” about nighttime defecation), and creaturely conflict (“Crystal Tears” and “Spin The Animal Dial”). The album’s makeshift percussion and teenaged rawness resembles the verve of City Lights, while its screeching strings and gnarly distorted vocals give it a sparse, miasmic atmosphere that look towards the uncompromising, otherworldly experimentation of the band’s Hold Onto I.D. (1996) and Lighthouse (1997), making this one of the Shadow Ring’s most distilled musical statements.

20th Anniversary Limited Reissue. Simon Green aka Bonobo is back with nine perfectly formed tracks on a perfectly formed album. No huge, bloated, over-conceptualised rottage for the monkey man. He gets in, does what he has to do, gets out.

From the opener, "Noctuary," with it’s creepy stoned-Hammer feel, through the headnod sitar-funk of "Flutter," on into the Rhodes-meets-Gamelan of "D Song," the first third of the record sets out the tone for what is to follow – all beautfiully melodic and perfectly assembled but with enough of a creeping undertow to stop the music becoming empty or saccharine. "Change Down" is all double bass folk and cut-up drums, "Wayward Bob" is a devilish waltz, while single "Pick Up" is a straight funk ‘n’ flute throw down. "Something For Windy"sounds like a dub of a postman on his rounds, "Nothing Owed" is epic pastoralia, while "Light Pattern" rounds things off with what sounds like the theme to the best TV programme never made.

With all instruments played, sampled and sequenced by Green’s own fair hand, there is a consistency here, both within the tunes and across the record that crate diggers can only dream of. There is real development, the building of moods and feelings, a genuine attempt to make great music which is incidentally computer music. He may make a monkey of himself, but he’s no musical mug…

We love it when family return to ZamZam and #92 welcomes back Blind Prophet & Ishan Sound in their first cross-pond collab. Begun in 2019 when Joe & Cris met in Portland for the first time, “The Labyrinth” is a phantasmagoric dream of intertwining melodic figures, buoyant mid-range synth work, bright percussion and piping flutes over a driving steppers riddim. Playful, even spritely, but belying a menacing core. Flipping the key and darkening the vibe substantially, “Minotaur Dub” strips out the lighter tones, pulsing and pushing through dark tunnels of reverb and echo, deeper and deeper into the labyrinth of refracting drums and relentless bass, the sound of pursuit, predator and prey. Fusing the spectral with the functional, the mythic with the technological, this release is for deep forest dances and subterranean sessions alike. This one is ruff… and tuff!! Strictly limited to 700 copies for the world. No digital, no repress. Art, design, & screen print by Polygon Press. Mastered by Sam at Precise, pressed at Third Man. Releasing end of July, 2023.

Yetsuby lands on Third Place with her 'Water Flash' EP this July with four bubbly tracks :) Seoul-based artist Yetsuby is best known as one half of electronic super-duo Salamanda, who have won hearts and minds with their light and floaty new-age electronica via releases on Good Morning Tapes, Human Pitch, and Métron Records. As a solo act, she has released her own music on the Taipei-based 禁 JIN, Extra Noir, as well as through the Seoul store The Internatiiional amongst self-released delights on her Bandcamp. On the A-side, the title cut 'Water Flash' leads with airy synths and textured percussion, while 'Electro Union' ups the energy with choppy vocal samples, punchy drums, and twinkling arps. On the flip, subtle synths wriggle alongside low-key percussion on 'Commercial Noisy Day', making for a heads-down affair, before the gorgeous finalé '물먹는하마' rounds out the B-side with delicate keys and detailed yet muted drums.

Vladislav Delay presents the third EP in his "Hide Behind The Silence" series with five 10" releases coming throughout 2023. Intuitive and raw music, momentary and reflective, released on Ripatti's own label "Rajaton". Stillness is a myth. Consider concepts such as ”still water”, or ”still air” for that matter. Go to a restaurant, ask them for a glass of still water, hold it against the light and see where we’re at. Even though the water itself has been captured and imprisoned in the glass, it never stops breathing. It’s filled with tiny particles, dancing. Everything can be explained on a molecular level, but since we’re not scientists – and even if you happen to be – it’s the natural world of perception that moves me. Still air is very similar. A hot summer’s day with zero wind feels completely still. It’s the closest I have felt to complete stillness. Or for a more urban adaptation, imagine the same vibe inside a normal apartment. In those moments, revelations and mind- blowing experiences can be had with experiments in stillness. Try this: Just sit down for a minute on a sunny day, making sure there’s enough natural light. Do absolutely nothing. Try not to breathe for a bit. (If you need a mental anchor, you can play Cage’s 4’33” in your head but nothing else.) Watch the tiny dots of dust dancing :..’ ̈.:; ́ ́*°.,’:,. ̈ ̈ ̈ ̈:,.’ The movement is crazy, but the feeling of stillness comes from witnessing how subtle it is. In (perceived) complete stillness, every act of microscopic mobility seems to speak volumes. Yet, it feels both reassuring and oddly threatening that the stillness is never complete. What if we would need absolute stillness? Or is it just enough that we can perceive something as such? Extremes attract, so for both water and air, extraordinary movement is equally fascinating. That is also a luxury item of sorts. For us to enjoy a very ”loud” body of water or air, we need to be safe, in enough control of the situation. So when you are, it’s worthwhile to pay attention and take it all in. A rapid flowing free with extreme strength and just barely in control. Look at that water go! No still water on this one, only ”sparkling”. A windy day when birds seem surprised how hard it is to fly, but in the end they make it. Trees bend but don’t break. The wind shows you its movement but doesn’t hurt you. It feels friendly, like a big clumsy dog that doesn’t quite understand its size. It’s beautiful to be a guest of the elements, but not at the mercy of them. A new kind of dialogue forms.

Ricardo Villalobos lands on Dana Ruh’s BQD TRAX for the label’s second ever release with two fresh sides of marathon-length minimal and broken beat entitled I’m Broken. Offering two different looks at a similar palette of sounds, Villalobos favours a mid-tempo break-y chug here, drawing deep emotion and ennui out of a vocal chop uttering the title and some stormy, high frequency synth lines. The B side’s Mix 2 clears away a bit of the clattering noise, but stutters the vocal line to give it an alien or computer malfunctioning feel. It’s a neat trick from a master at work.

Moog Grooves is the first ever album from Emmy winning composer Edd Kalehoff, best known for his work on game shows such as The Price is Right, Card Sharks, Tattletales, Double Dare, and more. This release contains never before heard music composed by Edd from the 1970s, as well as extensive liner notes detailing his Moog setup of the time, custom made for him by Bob Moog. From the funky sounds of “Filthy McNasty” to the soft buildup in “Sea of Glass”, this album captures the wide range of Edd’s catalog.

A forward thinking collaboration between electronic music pioneer Jon Appleton and trumpet great Don Cherry, that explores the relationship between the humanity and the manufactured robotic future. Using the techniques associated with Musique Concrete the ensuing improvisations create a unique entry into the great trumpeter's discography. It was an in vogue attempt to render the music of tomorrow, and today sounds more like the soundtrack to a truly great sci-fi movie Reissued in a fascimile of the original gatefold sleeve, and remastered from new 24/96 transfers, this is part of Ace's HiQ LP series

This selection of obscure eighties and nineties experimental and industrial music was taken from even more obscure cassette releases on labels such as Nihilistic Recordings, Harsh Reality, Cauchy Productions, Cafardage, Illusion Production, Watergate Tapes, Afterbirth Records, IEP and Out Of Nowhere. Crazy selection of cult noise and experimental from the 80s and the '90s. Edition of 300 copies. Featuring Kinexus Stringenus, Bernard C., Winter, Lyke Wake, Varoshi Fame, Toshiyuki Hiraoka, Mortification To The Flesh, Louis Pasteur, Det Wiehl, Nox, and A Violated Body.

At long last, Caribbean saxophonist Joe Harriott's classic collaboration with Calcutta composer and conductor John Mayer is back in print on this Koch CD reissue of the original Atlantic LP from 1967. In England in the 1960s, Harriott was something of a vanguard wonder on the order of Ornette Coleman. And while the comparisons flew fast and furious and Harriott was denigrated as a result, the two men couldn't have been more different. For one thing, Harriott was never afraid to swing. This work, written and directed by Mayer, offered the closest ever collaboration and uniting of musics East and West. Based almost entirely in the five-note raga -- or tonic scale that Indian classical music emanates from -- and Western modalism, the four ragas that make up the suite are a wonder of tonal invention and modal complexity, and a rapprochement to Western harmony. The band Harriott assembled here included his own group -- pianist Pat Smythe, bassist Coleridge Goode, and drummer Allan Ganley -- as well as trumpeter Kenny Wheeler, flutist Chris Taylor, Diwan Mothar on sitar, Chandrahas Paiganka on tamboura, and Keshan Sathe on tabla, with Mayer playing violin and Harriott on his alto. Of the four pieces, the "Overture" and "Contrasts" are rooted in blues and swing, though they move from one set of ascending and descending notes to the other, always ending on the tonic, and involve more than the five, six, or seven notes of Indian classical music, while the latter two -- "Raga Megha" and "Raga Gaud-Saranga" -- are out to lunch in the Western musical sensibility and throw all notions of Western harmony out the window. The droning place of the tamboura and the improvising sitar and alto shift the scalar notions around until they reflect one another in interval and mode, creating a rich, mysterious tapestry of sonic inquiry that all but folds the two musics into one another for good. Amazing. ~ Thom Jurek

Every person we meet, every moment we live through, all the love we feel, and the losses we endure, add another layer to the intricate pattern of our lives. Like multicolored threads, these layers twist together to form a complex, vibrant tapestry - a reflection of our life journey until this point. On his new album Layers, Khalab acknowledges and celebrates the encounters that have shaped his ever-evolving musical vision. The record represents the culmination of a creative journey that began with Eunoto EP (Black Acre Records, 2015), evolved with the Afro-Futuristic soundscapes of 2018’s highly acclaimed album Black Noise 2084 (On The Corner Records), and has since developed further through a series of experiences and deep musical collaborations. Layers summons all the alchemy of Khalab’s live performances, and embodies the transcendental power of music-making as a collective art form. “Since the release of Black Noise 2084 I’ve increasingly developed the stage and band dynamic, focusing on arranging with the musicians in mind, and this album was almost entirely conceived together with musicians I’ve collaborated with”, says Khalab. In a testament to the label’s close-knit and highly collaborative nature, Khalab's live band includes a cadre of musicians from the Hyperjazz family, including David Paulis and Enrico Truzzi of Phresoul, as well Pietro Santangelo, Fabio Sasso, and longstanding creative-partner Nicola Guida. The album’s nine tracks feature an impressive lineup of collaborators old and new, including UK drummer and producer Emanative, Burkinabe singer, guitarist, and m'bira player Gabin Dabiré, Italian producer Clap! Clap!, multi-wind instrumentalist Tamar Osborn, drummer and producer Tommaso Cappellato, British-Bahraini trumpeter Yazz Ahmed, Bristol’s vocalist and producer Grove, multi-instrumentalist Tenderlonious, Italian jazz singer Alessia Obino and British-born Nigerian spoken-word artist Joshua Idehen. Layers still revolve around the key components of Khalab’s sound - dark and trancey electronics and his research into Black music and all its evolutions - but with a bigger emphasis on harmonic arrangements. Across the record, Khalab’s productions twist and pulsate into mesmerizing motifs, as the interplay between different instruments coalesce into focused melodies and rich, complex textures. Khalab and his collaborators masterfully blend gloomy and radiant tones, eliciting feelings of both doom and hope. For Khalab, Layers represents the end point of a journey that began with the synthesis of ancestral rhythms and electronic experimentation on Black Noise 2084 and has taken him on a meandering route through a Mauritanian refugee camp (M’berra, Real World Recordings, 2021), and deep into the catalogs of legendary Italian labels Soul Note and Black Saint (for the Hyperituals compilations). To Gabin, a friend, a teacher, a guide, and a constant inspiration.

The official reissue of Adelhard Roidinger’s contemporary jazz/fusion masterpiece. An extremely talented and eclectic musician, Adelhard Roidinger’s creativity couldn’t be contained by the walls of music. His compositions for computers, graphic designs and geometric studies are a testament to his wide array of interests and artistic expressions. This fascination for computers is in full display in Computer & Jazz Project I. Adelhard believed that machines are vital tools for the development of humans. By using the machines, one can refine his own self, absorbing into their mind the possibilities that such tools unlock. It’s with this belief that Computer & Jazz Project I was created: fusing a coustic instruments, that Adelhard had mastered through his career, with new machines and computers. A timeless masterpiece that unleashes the artist’s creativity, enhanced by the machines of which he is now enamoured.

Ritmiche Italiane transports the listeners through an anomaly in the fabric of musical space-time, connecting the distant past with the modern era and the plains of a lost continent with the cities of the Italian peninsula. The artists featured in the compilation strongly believed in the absence of barriers and conventions between genres, fully able to effortlessly put together West-African influences, World music, Jazz and crime movie soundtracks to achieve a boundless, meditative and hypnotic kind of music that still feels relevant today.

Pacific Rhythm is elated to present a grounding offering from Oakland's Space Ghost entitled Private Paradise as our first release of 2022. The LP is an ode to Space Ghost's time spent at Sea Ranch on the Northern California coast, a place he and his partner visit to refresh their spirit and regain optimism and enthusiasm for the outside world. Private Paradise possesses a rare ability to restore, rejuvenate, and inspire through each listen and is something we've only grown more and more fond of during the unforeseen complications we encountered during its release over the past two years. It's a piece of music that feels like a perfect nod to where we've been musically for the past 8 years and where we see ourselves heading in the future. Deep, contemplative, and uplifting audio that compels its listeners to focus on the positive forces in the world and the power of being present in a moment.

Objekt #5 is the latest instalment in Objekt's eponymous whitelabel series and his first release since his 2018 album Cocoon Crush. Tackling "the slow banger" with a signature flair, he delivers two of his most raucous club tracks to date.

If HiTech were wrapped into one person, you would get FULLBODYDURAG, an awesome producer and DJ spinning everything from Ghetto Tech to House to Hip-Hop and Jazz. This LP features all his friends including FXHE label head Omar S on "Trillionaire" and "Juice." HELLO :) proves there's tons of young talent in Detroit that deserve to be heard — Omar S heard their passion and desire to keep Detroit on the map for at least another 100 years and this LP is the epitome of their talent.

It’s an album about roads, roots, paths and emotions, the ones you’re not used to feeling everyday. But most importantly it is about change, about the inner force one discovers when forced to transform. After finding out he had to move out his beloved Resonance Jungle Studio, Hollyspleef decided he had to make one last record before the big move. Exploring his inner self through R&B, Jazz, Trip Hop, Footwork and Trap he delivers yet another gem.

There isn’t much to go on other than the soundscapes when it comes to Civilistjävel! What is rumoured to be a figment of the pre-internet era tapping into a similar consciousness as Biosphere, Chain Reaction or early Fax +49-69/450464 is ultimately left up to second guessing. For the average listener crossing paths with the project, a steady run of small-run, minimally packaged LPs has cemented Civilistjävel! as a leading force in the dub techno/glacial drone scene of present. However niche that may sound, this collection of tracks for Perko’s new FELT imprint navigates the same territories as the previous outings but with the folkloric tag “Iron Night” to help guide our ears. A Swedish expression for long nights of frost that damage plants and crops, the spectral and foreboding atmosphere of the opening cut already hints at the direction of the album. Combining dense ambient synth layers with hard to place industrial motifs (sometimes in rhythm, sometimes chaotically arranged) are what Civilistjävel! does best, indeed Järnnätter unfolds as a piece of work you can really spend time with. At points it feels as if the machines in some old factory complex have spluttered back to life through some unknown force and have begun to sing to one another. Other times the atmosphere is akin to a hydrophone placed deep into an ice-covered lake and the synthetic pulses of ‘A2’ are the only vaguely human touch. However, the sparse melodic flourishes across the record stem from an interest in psalms and early Swedish folk music, the juxtaposition of machine-led intuition and personable studiousness adding a hidden depth to the album.

Ylia—aka Susana Hernández—had a remarkably productive 2020. In addition to releasing her debut album, Dulce Rendición, on Barcelona’s Paralaxe Editions, she penned compilation tracks for Lapsus Records, Hivern Discs, and Super Utu/Stars on Earth. But professional success can be deceiving: The following year was, personally speaking, terrible. Her grandfather died. Her father died. Her cat died. And she ended a relationship. “That’s a lot of things all at once, no?” she says. Her second album, Ame Agaru, is not necessarily a record of that year, but it is, she says, a response to those life events—a record of grief. The new album is clearly a continuation of the ambient investigations of Ylia’s debut, but it differs in key ways. Where Dulce Rendición was exploratory and faintly cosmic, Ame Agaru—a Japanese phrase meaning, roughly, “the rain lifts”— captures a melancholy sense of stillness. And where her debut was largely electronic, on the new album, Ylia has folded in a number of acoustic elements, even when they are not recognizable as such. Her partner, Alejandro Lévar, lends fingerpicked acoustic guitar to the glowing dronescapes of “Todos los Cuerpos”; multi-instrumentalist and bandleader Tete Leal adds flutes, clarinet, and soprano saxophone to “Ame Agari”—or “after the rain”—which opens the album with a moment of contemplative calm, the kind that follows an extended deluge. One track, the dub techno-influenced “Flowers in June,” grew out of Ylia’s live sets, but the rest are the fruit of improvisational sessions at home in Málaga, five minutes from the beach—jamming and then refining, searching for the ideal expression of a feeling as it was first captured. Searching for the spontaneity behind the stillness. In places, Ylia even incorporates piano, an instrument she has played since she was 10, yet has never included on one of her recordings before. For the most part on Ame Agaru, she seeks ways to fuse piano with synthesizers and electronic processes. But on the closing track, “El Único Adiós Posible,” she leaves us alone with the instrument in all its stark, unadorned beauty. It is a profoundly moving conclusion to an album defined by its economy of means and purity of expression: a cycle of life counted out in the passage of storm clouds and clearing skies.

Following his collaboration with Nicolas Jaar's Clown & Sunset label, Cruz has self-produced and self-recorded this landmark album. ‘Prender el Alma’ is a new strain of Latin American music Cruz calls ‘Andes Step’. Influenced by new digital technology, blended with local influence, Cruz builds his tracks layer by layer, instrument by instrument, drum by drum, exploring local indigenous and Afro-cosmologies in a modern setting. From atmospheric opener ‘Sanacion’, the 10-track album journeys through short, sharp acoustic guitar riffs on ‘Puente Roto’ and the percussive ‘La Mirada’, to the electronic ‘Prender el Alma’. Down-beat ‘Equinoccio’ gets a vocal kick from Ecuadorian singer Huaira, ending with the blissful, lo-fi ‘Cocha Runa’ featuring Tanya Sanchez. ‘Prender el Alma’ ebbs and flows through a range of production of local sounds, feeling like a digital awakening. This digital revolution is spreading through Latin America like wildfire, and nowhere is this more exciting than in the heart of the continent's bustling music scene, where Nicola Cruz is leading the way. Led by forward-thinking young producers and musicians, Ecuador is beginning to experience its own digital folklore revolution. A new crop of producers and musicians are using homeland traditions and rhythms to build on a vibrant history of visual and sonic art, catapulting them into the 21st century. ZZK are at the forefront of this burgeoning music scene. With artists such as Frikstailers, La Yegros, El Remolon and Chancha Via Circuito, they are defining a new and exciting Latin American music culture.

Following nearly 20 years of working together as a trio, and numerous cross-collaborations in different configuration between them, Ideologic Organ presents Placelessness, the debut full-length by Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim, comprising two long-form works at juncture of ambient music, minimalism, rigorous experimentalism and improvisation, and machine music. Having carved distinct pathways across a diverse number of musical idioms for decades, Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim are each, respectively, among the most noteworthy and groundbreaking figures to have emerged from Australia’s thriving experimental music scene. Ambarchi and Avenaim first encountered Abrahams when seeing the Necks - the project that has served as the primary vehicle for his singular approach to the piano since its founding in 1987 - together during the late 1980s, not long after having met in Sydney’s underground music community. The pair’s collaborations date back more than 35 years, criss-crossing Ambarchi’s pioneering solo and ensemble work for guitar and Avenaim’s visionary efforts for SARPS (Semi Automated Robotic Percussion System), robotic and kinetic extensions to his drum kit. In 2004, fate brought the three together in a trio performance at the What Is Music? Festival, the annual touring showcase of experimental music founded and run by Ambarchi and Avenaim between 1994-2012. For the nearly two decades since, Abrahams, Ambarchi, and Avenaim have intermittently reformed in exclusively live contexts, in Australia and abroad, cultivating and refining the fertile ground first tilled in that early meeting. Placelessness is the first album to present this remarkable trio’s efforts in recorded form. Placelessness is the joining of three highly individualised streams, working in perfect harmony; the point at which friendship, mutual respect, and decades of creative exploration produce a singular spectrum of sound. Featuring Abrahams on piano, Ambarchi on guitar, and Avenaim on drums, the album’s two sides draw on each artist’s enduring dedication to long-form composition. Its two pieces, Placelessness I and Placelessness II, initially began as a single, 40 minute work, before being divided and reworked into distinct, complimentary gestures for the corresponding sides of the LP. Beginning with restrained clusters of reverberant piano tones, Placelessness I progresses at an almost glacial pace, with Abrahams’ interventions increasing met by sparse responses, darting within vast ambiences, on guitar and percussion by Ambarchi and Avenaim. Remarkably conversational within its convergences of tonal, rhythmic, and textural abstraction, over the work’s duration a progressive sense of tension unfurls and contracts, refusing release, as each of the ensemble’s members contribute to an increasingly tangled sense of density at its resolve. While an entirely autonomous work, Placelessness II rapidly realises a distillation of the energy hinted at across the length of its predecessor. Following a luring passage of harmonious calm, Abrahams’ launches into shimmering lines of repeating arpeggios, complimented at each escalation of tempo by Avenaim’s machine gun fire percussion work and Ambarchi’s masterful delivery of tonality and texture, as the trio collectively generate dense sheets of pointillistic ambience within which individual identity is almost lost, before slowly unspooling into unexpected abstractions and dissonances that deftly intervene with the work’s inner logic and calm. What could easily be termed a maximalist take on Minimalism, Placelessness is a masterstroke of contemporary, real time composition, that blurs the boundaries between ambient music, experimentalism, free improvisation, and machine music. Drawing on Chris Abrahams, Oren Ambarchi, and Robbie Avenaim’s decades of respective solo and collaborative practice, and the culmination of nearly twenty years of working together as a trio, it’s two durational pieces - Placelessness I and Placelessness II - take form with a startling sense of effortlessness and grace, neither shying away from explicit beauty or rigorously tension within their forms.