Electronic / Experimental

Following the release of his album trilogy (Kwaidan, Komachi and Kofū), Meitei has established himself as a defining voice in contemporary Japanese music. By sharing intricate sonic stories and impressions of his nation's rich culture, he has built an aural world around his notion of the ‘lost Japanese mood’. His latest project, under the new moniker Tenka, aims to work without the boundaries of theme, storytelling or audience expectations. Spending many hours in the mountain forests that he lives close to, his latest project Hydration explores the rich sensory pleasures of his natural surroundings, focusing on colour, sound, smell, humidity, touch, atmosphere and taste. “For me, making music is not a concept of enjoyment or pleasure, but something that becomes a part of my life, a record of my daily activities, like seeing something with my eyes or breathing in something with my lungs.” A lot of the music on Hydration was created back in 2019, but Tenka felt that there was something missing in the final delivery of the work. Eventually this led to a conversation with the Berlin based, Japanese born scent designer, Ryoko, in which the pair discussed collaborating on a scent to pair with the audio. Designed as a way to give the listener a deeper connection to their own senses and the experience of the music’s author, the combination of ollifactory and aural components connect a shared love of Japanese ecosystems and traditions. ‘I began to feel that in addition to music, there needed to be another essential element - and that it must be a "fragrance”.’ Hydration is available from September 14 on LP, CD and digital formats. The fragrance can be purchased directly from the Métron Records Bandcamp page and comes in a 10ml bottle of diffuser oil, great for home diffusers, as well as an empty 10ml spray bottle in order to create a body or room mist by mixing the oil with water (instructions included for best results). All customers who purchase the fragrance will receive a copy of the album on CD with a companion booklet with words from Tenka and Ryoko about the project.

‘’之 / OF is a word that can be used as a preposition to express the relationship between a part and a whole. It is an unfinished tone, a broken sentence, a start and a whole. It is sustainable, full of potentials and longings.’’ London based performance and sound artist Li Yilei shared an experience familiar to many migrants during the past year of COVID-19 chaos. With their UK visa set to expire, and family back in China, Li made a last-minute dash to return to their nation of birth. Able to board one of the last few flights to China during the initial turmoil of the coronavirus outbreak, Li made it back to Shanghai for a two-week stint in a quarantine hotel. Though Li had already begun creating OF, the reality of the pandemic began to seep into the recordings. Each of the 12 tracks is a study in horology, using metaphorical sound transcriptions and atmospheric extractions to focus on the temporal relationship between experience and surroundings. Li’s awareness of their own understanding of time became increasingly heightened during quarantine and the emotional involvement found within these new realities informed many of the sounds created. ‘’I tried to portray each song as a short, scattered poem - a moment that I captured to represent each hour.’’ Composed using analogue synthesisers, vocal samples, field recordings and string instruments such as the violin and guqin, Li indulges in moments of grief, panic, healing, cessation, melancholy, vastness, hope, joy and emptiness as they explore the acoustic relations between humans and the many forces of nature. The art of the Song Dynasty, with its ancient traditions of poetry and timekeeping, were also great sources of inspiration for the album - whilst paintings from the period, specifically those of flowers and birds, are common themes throughout the tracks. Indeed, it is within the vastness of time that the album artwork comes to relevance. The eighth emperor of the Song Dynasty, Huizong, was a revered artist and a scene from his work ‘Finches and Bamboo’ adorns the album cover. 之 / OF is available from August 16 2021 in a limited pressing of 500 140gm vinyl in a natural translucent colourway. In support of the release Li has made a limited number of handmade xun (a traditional Chinese vessel flute used as far back as 7000 years ago) - these can be purchased from Metron Records bandcamp page. credits

Hydroplane reinstate their formidable 1997 debut of sublime guitar atmospherics, fragile lyricism and droning incidentals with an overdue vinyl and digital reissue. An offshoot of the now-féted The Cat’s Miaow, the trio formed after their drummer decamped to London, charting new territory with tape loops, manipulated samples and a borrowed Jupiter 4 in the wake of Endtroducing. Adopting a handle that Dean Wareham once considered calling Luna, Hydroplane intended to only ever release Excerpts From Forthcoming LP, a single-sided 7” sonic collage, before imploding in mystery. Their label however insisted they deliver their taunted album. From the comfort of a Brunswick flat, they continued to record soaring melodies and restrained song structures to 4-track, sculpting dramatic Radiophonic Workshop cues weighted in reverb and near-perfect dream pop lead by Kerrie Bolton’s empyrean vocals. Bored of industry expectation and largely ignored by local audiences, the reluctant performers followed the way of The Cannanes and formed meaningful overseas alliances by mail and phone, securing releases on Michigan outpost Drive-In and Broadcast launching pad Wurlitzer Jukebox. Championed by John Peel with twenty spins on his converted Radio One slot and even polling in the Festive Fifty of 1997, the humble three-piece still walked to their neighbourhood shops undetected. Previously only available as a US-issued CD, this reminiscent late-night suite establishes Hydroplane as an everlasting ember in Australia’s beloved indie nexus.

Giving sequence to the smooth noir Guerrinha first discovered in 2018’s "Wagner" LP (self-released), "Cidade Grande" expands the midi jazz quartet to an ensemble. Whereas "Wagner" dealt in firmly sculpted motifs, here we approach fusion territory, improvisational fury, while somehow still treading in a thick, longing, atmosphere. Themes will erase themselves between Joe Zawinul and Koji Kondo while erratic snare rolls à la DeJohnette froth continually. One feels surrounded, at one and the same time, by the vulgar elegance of office buildings and the stillness of one's own childhood bedroom, pitch black except for a portable videogame's screen, way past bedtime. Tracks "José pt. I" and "II", opener and closer of "Cidade Grande", offer glimpses into our opaque protagonist. In stripped-down keys and synth arrangements, windy soliloquies out of Rheji Burrell’s APTs overtake Hejiran landscapes. José is damned to megalomania—just like any other inhabitant of the big city, Guerrinha would add.

A new avatar on 3XL, someone you may or may not have encountered before on the experiences / west mineral axis, tending to the inner life with a lush fantasy of sound-bathing beatdown and mossy atmospherics somewhere between Ulla x Malibu x Headz-era Mo Wax. ‘Earth FF’ yields a delicate bouquet of synaesthetic ambience designed to sooth yr frayed nerves. The album transposes a flickering vibe to inner sanctums, painting an organically detailed vista that hinges around late ‘90s/early ‘00s illbient/trip hop atmospherics referencing classic Mo Wax / Headz, and melting out into a sanguine bbblisss enhanced by a patina of field recordings. Distinguished by a tender grasp of tongue-tip thizz and lysergic nuance, the 10 tracks fan out in pruned designs between pads and whispered vox reminding us of Kenji Kawai or Nozomu Matsumoto on ‘Evil Day’, via the silvery contrails of ‘Beacon’, the eyrie illbient of ‘Root Loop’, to purest writhing-in-the-floatation tank kiss-off on ’Sunn’ replete with ASMR gynoid vocals on a Perila x Ulla x Malibu tip. With no sharp edges to snag your tumescent skin, it’s all low-lit neon, palm trees gently swaying in the breeze, eyes-rolling in the early-hours, blissed sorta gear.

You could call Gabber Modus Operandi’s PUXXXIMAXXX LP a ‘scene-defining’ record. That’s except there’s no real ‘scene’ to speak of where the DIY electronic duo come from, deep in the belly of the neo-colonial beast of Bali—an island province of Indonesia where tourism is its biggest industry, mainstream house and techno its musical staple. “Bali is like an Australian backyard for some people,” jokes Ican Harem about the capital of Denpasar where they both live, just a four-hour flight from Perth. “It’s basically like when you go to Ibiza. Those are the sounds, that’s the kind of the people, that’s how they dress up, that’s how they dance.” Otherwise known by the project’s GMO initialism, Harem and DJ Kasimyn (aka Aditya Surya Taruna) first released PUXXXIMAXXX on influential Yogyakarta label Yes No Wave in 2018, before performing the Javan capital’s Nusasonic festival that same year. It takes its title from their original name that is a play on an unmentionable curse word, and it’s the result of a clusterfuck of influences that blew up with access to the internet in Indonesia, enabled by cheap Chinese smartphones in the mid-2010s. “Now, all the content that we posted in social media basically came from this layer,” says Kas about this new medium for cultural expression across the country’s diverse and disconnected archipelago—a girl in a remote village dances on Tik Tok, construction workers play act while on the job. “This is like the amazing channel where they make their own content. They make these absurd jokes—like, local jokes. They just celebrate it. I don’t think they think about making content. They just want to record shit, but it’s kind of an explosion of this amazing and beautiful thing; of people crossing the Island and then showing them, ‘Oh, basically behind my house, there is a traditional party where people get possessed by a tiger’.” From the derivative metal, punk and rock influences of the country’s first ‘indie explosion’ to the ‘lowbrow’ pop and local dance music hybrids of funkot and dangdut koplo, PUXXXIMAXXX is a brilliantly chaotic pastiche. It references breakcore and gabber while framed by traditional gamelan pentatonic scales. There’s the high-pitched trumpet opener of Sangkakala I and the ritualistic beat and looped vocal samples of Hey Nafsu, along with a fascinating montage of the Javanese jathilan possession dance for their wildly popular Dosa Besar music video. “If you think we’re doing ritualistic stuff, or playing gamelan, we’re not,” adds Kas. “We are around that area but at the same time, we also listen to Prodigy.” GMO’s speculative Indonesian rave is infectious. It’s been dubbed ‘post-alay’ by the duo in tribute to the cheesy cultural phenomenon of the suburban teenager and has since caught on worldwide. Follow-up EP HOXXXYA was released on Shanghai label SVBKVLT in 2019, earning the band slots at CTM Berlin, Kampala’s Nyege Nyege Festival and performances in China with Asian Dope Boys. This is a level of recognition that’s well-deserved for a sound that snubs the western canon in favour of a hybrid post-colonial sound that’s pure imagination. “We just kind of like suck that energy that, actually people kind of enjoy their identity,” says Kas. “Especially the people not from the big city, because people from big cities, they always want to have confirmation from the West. Like, ‘I would love to play techno, and then play in Berghain in Berlin and LA’, that kind of stuff. But there is a layer that people don’t give a shit about that, they just want to have fun.”

ケニアのグラインドコア・バンドDumaを世界へと紹介し、今年も大きな話題を呼んだ東アフリカ・ウガンダ拠点の先鋭的音楽フェスティバル／レーベル〈Nyege Nyege Tapes〉からは、ポルトガル北部の港湾都市ポルトの実験的なエレクトロニック・ミュージック界隈を代表する要注目なブラス・ユニット、HHY & The Macumbasを率いるJonathan Uliel Saldanhaが結成した”HHY & THE KAMPALA UNIT”による最新作が登場！アフロ・アフリカンな感性のもとで、原始的な躍動感を湛えたパーカッションやダブ、トランス、先鋭的なダンス／エレクトロニック・ミュージックまで溶け合わせたミュータントなアルバム！限定400枚。

If you like DJ Lag, Nazar and Slikback, you'll love this one! Hailing from Umlazi Township in Durban, South Africa, 27-year-old trackmaker Menzi was one of the early pioneers of the GQOM scene, which has now become a worldwide movement. This is the debut album from the man who has been producing for some of South Africa's biggest artists such as Babes Wodumo, Mahotella Queens and Zolani Mahola for the past few years, as well as organizing Festive Road Block Umlazi, the biggest GQOM block party held annually in Durban for the past few years. The album is made up of tracks recorded at Umlazi Durban and Boutiq Studios Kampala (Uganda) in '19 and '20, and includes "GQOM Tera," a collaboration with Ugandan MC Ecko Bazz.

Fine debut album from blue-eyed soul crooner Seán Being, a softly smudged suite of gauzy, subtly autotuned vocal harmonies a la How To Dress Well, Olan Monk or groggy aspects of pigbaby, wreathed with folksy strings and fractured grooves Seán’s succinct bouquet of seven songs, ‘Faux Window’ is a real one for the daydreamers. Its septet of carefully frayed paeans float by in a gentle haze from the ambient spritz of ‘Fake (Window)’ thru introspective thinking-about-thinking liens of thought recalling a lo-fi Laura Groves in ‘On’, to dialled-down R&B in ‘Everything’, whilst ‘Wasting’ shimmers with a knackered folksy lustre akin to pigbaby, and ‘Otherwise’ continues that drafting smudge to more Americana themed strums. The harmonised glossolalia of ’F.T.O.’ calls to mind Elaine Howley via How To Dress Well to these ears, and ‘This Is What I Want’ keens off into hazy middle distance ambient-pop style with shades of more eaze & claire rousay’s pop works.

Keita Sano marks his return to ROW Records with his second offering for the German imprint, delivering five cuts of experimental electronics, warbling bass and a remix from fellow Japanese producer Dayzero. With a discography spanning sought after imprints including 1080p, Discos Capablanca, Holic Trax, Let’s Play House, Mister Saturday Night and Spring Theory, Keita Sano relocated from Japan to Berlin circa 2019 to take his music further afield and perform in New York, Miami, Paris, Milan, Munich, Oslo, Montreal and London. Now back in Japan, Sano rekindles his time spent in London experimenting with music, specifically in Leyton, perhaps inspired by the future bass and grime scenes of the capital. Nonetheless, what’s on offer here is a resplendent array of rhythmic explorations spanning trilling techno and bass. ‘Blur Ceramics‘ is powered up with a gritty and granular synthetic texture, embellished with 909 claps and mutant bass, brought to life with a timbral drum pattern, sounding similar to the output from Shackleton.

Ekkehard Ehlers' seminal plays series was originally released on three 12inches (Staubgold) and two 7inches (Bottrop-Boy) in very limited runs. The entire series was previously only available as a CD compilation or digitally. Keplar finally presents it on double vinyl for the first time, featuring a new cover artwork. Domestic ethnology: Ekkehard Ehlers plays. ‘Play’ is a word in English with many meanings attached. Each one sends you down a different cognitive pathway. When I think of ‘playing’, in the sense of a game, I think of an activity involving more than one person. When Ekkehard Ehlers plays, he is very much on his own. Or, at least, alone but at the same time keeping intimate company with the artistic innovators named in his titles. Robert Johnson. John Cassavetes. Albert Ayler. Cornelius Cardew. Hubert Fichte. Is he playing with them, against them, about them, for them, to them? This can never be known. It is certainly a mistake to try to hear the ‘work’ of these originals in the sounds played by Ekkehard. They’re not cover versions. They’re hardly tributes in the conventional sense. Cassavetes and Fichte are not even musicians, although music played an important part in both their careers. Sure, there are little nods and flashes of recognition – tiny guitar licks among the minimal beats of ‘Robert Johnson 2’; rich bowed instruments in ‘Albert Ayler’, recalling the violin, cello and double bass arrangements on Ayler’s 1967 Live in Greenwich Village LP; the elongated organ lines of ‘Cornelius Cardew 1’ gesturing towards passages in Paragraph 1 of the British composer’s 1971 Marxist monolith, The Great Learning. Ekkehard is not so much playing these figures as allowing himself to be played by them. Playing as an activity also suggests freedom. Maybe the only thing all five named persons have in common is that they were all quiet radicals. In music, literature and cinema, they all stepped, without self-promotion or fanfare, into unmapped territories. Once there they found it necessary to invent new languages in order to survive. Necessity was the mother of their inventiveness. They were also uncomfortable avant gardists. Lonely types, fighting their corners out on the margins, with little reward, often misunderstood, ridiculed or ignored. All died unfairly young. Fichte a victim of HIV/AIDS, Cassavetes of cirrhosis of the liver. (‘Cassavetes 2’ sounds like a tender farewell played across the 59 year old alcoholic director’s death bed.) The deaths of Johnson, Ayler and Cardew have never been satisfactorily explained, and remain shrouded in myths and conspiracy theories. The pioneering expeditions of all five began in that spirit of playful freedom, but inexorably drew them towards the heart of darkness. So these ‘plays’ are micro-dramas, sonic soliloquies, monolog-ins to the private accounts of various geniuses in Ekkehard’s ‘follow’ list. Hacked sensibilities. Artistic manifestos boiled down and distilled, skinned and dried in the digital smokehouse. (Ekkehard Ehlers Flays.) Each of these plays was originally floated out into the world alone on its own disc. The collected works play well as a team – a tranquil, introspective experience where each artist has his own identifiably unique sound character. As an album, Plays is a ‘Plattenragout’ – a ‘record stew’ – which was the title of Hubert Fichte’s LP review column in the leftist culture magazine konkret in the 1960s. The novelist’s work investigating the cultures of South America and the Caribbean islands has been called ‘domestic ethnology’. The writer himself referred to his ‘ethnopoesie’. Ekkehard Ehlers’s intuitive electronic portraits are a form of domestic ethnology in themselves. Invoking another of Ekkehard’s musical aliases, they are portraits of cultural ‘autopoiesies’ – creators whose works were strong enough to have their own self-regenerating life force. (by Rob Young)

0on Zero-on, a label run by the percussion group "Kodo 鼓童" which has its roots on Sado Island, has released a cassette recording of a solo performance by percussionist Yuta Sumiyoshi, a member of the "Kodo" group. 

“Mogari” is Yuta Sumiyoshi’s debut solo album. Features six tracks of 100% shinobue (bamboo flutes) music, recorded entirely at his home studio. This uncharted exploration of shinobue sound drifts and shapeshifts through drone, noise, minimalism and more, leading to untold possibilities. Limited release of 100 cassettes + download code.

Pole is the project of ground-breaking electronic musician Stefan Betke. The new album Fading is the first since 2015’s Wald. As with every new Pole record, it’s part of a continued forward trajectory but it also connects to a pre-existing sonic framework. “Every Pole record connects to recordings that I've made before,” Betke says, “in order to stay in this kind of vertical development. The ideas from 1, 2, 3 [his groundbreaking first three albums] up to now are connected. I keep the interesting elements, languages and vocabulary that I designed and add new elements.” Fading follows the physical released on Mute of remastered versions of his iconic albums 1, 2, 3 to much acclaim.

Recorded in 1997 in Vienna as part of a workshop named "Greguar" which took place at the University of applied Arts in Vienna, and was produced by the Institute of contemporary Art Vienna. Official re-release!

The second release on Tonight’s Dream Records is delivered by Baltimore-based ambient and new-school Kosmische guitar musician PJ Dorsey, better known as Tarotplane. The Ektachrome Dawn follows on from the stunning Horizontology (12th Isle) and Light Self All Others (Impatience). He describes the album as a collage of work collated since 2017. Drawing in on inspirations from guitar-oriented psych and modern ambient music, using elements he values and revere in older 70’s head records and mixes it with modern techniques and influences. The tracks fuse traditional rock music, ethereal ambient textures and downtempo electronica, blended together seamlessly to create an engaging and unique listen throughout. The album has been mastered by prolific producer and mastering engineer Rafael Anton Irisarri at Black Knoll Studio who has worked on album for artists such as Inhmost, Juliana Barwick, Grouper, Steve Hauschildt, Loscil, Telefon Tel Aviv and Tycho amongst hundreds of others.

Daucile Moon, which follows Unknown Mobile's releases on No Bad Days, Normals Welcome and Young Adults, started four years ago in Vancouver when Levi Bruce was recovering from a broken toe and collecting MIDI files he found in an old Geocities archive. It was finished earlier this year in Montreal with help from Mike Silver, AKA CFCF, who added plaintive guitar to complete the album's placid and stargazing style of ambient and downtempo music. The album takes its name from an old, obscure Canadian jazz song that Bruce describes as "pretty but also with a serious amount of melancholy," which could also describe his new record. In the vein of Pacific Rhythm label-mate Khotin's standout New Tab album, Daucile Moon comprises drowsy beats and spaced-out loops, referencing the pinnacle of early '90s chillout and ambient while infusing it with the dazed sound of Canadian electronic music in the 2010s. Bruce's process in making Daucile Moon was long but leisurely. He took the melodies from those MIDI files and moved them over to his analogue outboard setup and then back to his computer, creating a digital-analog hybrid that sounds as pleasantly worn as a dog-eared novel. Live instrumentation, like Silver's classical acoustic guitar stylings on "A Windless March Ouest," mingles with occasional dance music references like the subtle acid squelch of "Ravers Sojourn" or the hazy breakbeat of "Oenology." The album was inspired by various happy memories, from sharing wine with friends ("Oenology") to a dog that Bruce met ("Simone Can't Swim"). The result is a patient and personal record that highlights the best qualities of Bruce's previous work as Unknown Mobile, with his distinct style of melody and soundscaping set free from kick drums and the dance floor. It's telling that Bruce originally sent the record, at first called Melancholic Songs For Dogs, to his parents and two grandmas—this is beautiful, relaxing music whose appeal is universal. Thanks for listening!

“Clockworks”, composed in the 1970s by computer music pioneer Laurie Spiegel at Bell Laboratories on the GROOVE digital/analog hybrid system, is a mesmerizing and mathematical polyrhythmic number. Machineries of Joy is proud to present two remixes of this seminal piece of electronic music. On the A side, SØS Gunver Ryberg turns in an intense and atmospheric interpretation of the original, while on the flip side, David Morley crafts an elegant, focused and hypnotic excursion.

" The Three Lives return with Across & Beyond, a 5 track EP taking their digi-dub explorations to unexpected dimensions. "

Limited edition of 500.

A Japanese synth curio? A lost techno-pop classic? So might run the standard view of the electronic album 'Boku・Neko・Platanus', recorded in 1984 by Shinichi Omata. The facts point that way. The futuristic 'Platonische Liebe' and Omata’s technodelic take on the traditional Greek folk track 'Omorfoula' (here titled 'Egyptische Knabe') are timeless electro tracks with a radically simple pop concept and robotic flavour that closely echo Japan’s most recognisable exports from the era - sounds and styles which rose to international prominence immediately following the economic boom that was taking shape in contemporary Japanese culture. But, focusing only on such fragments misses the greater charms of the album – an argument made more convincing by the inclusion in this expanded edition of an archive of unreleased material from the original recording period. The music spans an unusually broad and contrasting range of influences, exploring the possibilities of mood music, imaginary soundtracks and pop dissonance, while also borrowing widely from films and contemporary arts. How Omata transformed this vast range of influences into synth-pop is the real magic here. The original cassette edition was released by the Tokyo-based Indian grocery store, Ganso Nakaya Mugendo, located in the Koenji district of the city. During the early 1980s, interest in experimental music began to grow among a small group of committed local music fans and musicians. Small independent shops started playing a pivotal role in this nascent scene. First, they imported many of the obscure rarities that were gradually being reissued or bootlegged in the West. Later, as some of the regular customers and employees formed their own groups, many shop owners started establishing their own labels. Even then, 'Boku・Neko・Platanus' was issued in extremely limited numbers – so much so that it’s incredible it ever came to light at all. The album is perhaps best understood as an outsider one-off, adrift from place, style, market and audience. Omata was already garnering a reputation as a formidable musician before the days of 'Boku・Neko・Platanus'. An early follower of European classical, Latin and Western styles, he was an accomplished keyboardist and sitar player who formed close relationships with artists and musicians in the burgeoning Tokyo avant-garde scene of the early 1980s. He was fascinated by electronic music and used an array of synthesizers and rhythm machines early on in his career. He closely analysed the way rhythms emerged in a transitional period of music – such as the shift from four-beat to eight-beat used in much popular music of the 1960s – and that feeling of ambivalence and lag in both time and space is a recurring motif in his music. He uses these rhythmic techniques to magically fuse music from different backgrounds. In Japan, Omata is largely known only to electronic music enthusiasts and connoisseurs as a member of the cult synth-pop outfit DEA, whose 'Metaphysical Pop' was released in 1985 on LLE, a sub-label of Marquee Moon Records, itself an offshoot of the notable experimental music magazine of the same name. Yet he is the mastermind behind a daring techno-pop sound that has remained almost entirely hidden for nearly 40 years. What we can hear across the expanded edition of 'Boku・Neko・Platanus' is not only a highly skilful instrumentalist at the peak of his powers, but also a daring experimentalist, who employed emerging computer and synth technology in innovative ways, and revitalised old school music by adapting it into contemporary settings. Here, Omata’s excitement at playing with cutting-edge toys is palpable and what better use for the sparkling tech of the future than to cover 'Omorfoula', a 19th century folkloric song emanating from Florina, a small town in the West Macedonian district of Greece, written for dancing and typically performed in separate circles by men and women every Sunday after church? 'Idola Fora' is space-age pancultural pop that exudes charm, chutzpah and chops, while 'Natsu No Koibitotachi E' is a glittering fantasia on synths and rhythm machine. Whistle-along pop classic 'Modern Ballet II' is also here, but much of 'Boku・Neko・Platanus' is a beguiling experiment. “This was the kind of music I had always wanted to try”, he recalls in our sleevenote interview. Omata’s angle was that he was writing modern music, informed by contemporary developments elsewhere but without the stiffness of the formal academic scene. It’s all pop as far as he’s concerned. Available for the first time on vinyl, including over fifty minutes of unreleased music not featured on the original cassette release and produced in cooperation with Shinichi Omata for chOOn!!, a label specialising in obscure, archival and forgotten releases.

In 1991, Yuji Takahashi and Mamoru Fujieda collaborated in staging a sound installation at the Sezon Museum of Art in Tokyo, making extensive use of the new artistic possibilities provided by the advent of personal computers. In this installation, a culmination of their investigations into the aesthetic use of new technology, these two renowned leaders of Japanese experimental music used sensors and transducers on objects and in the space itself, via MIDI conversion, to trigger pianos, synthesizers and samplers. The four pieces here were recorded for a cassette-only release timed to coincide with the exhibition. This release continues the EM Records investigation of the “cyber-occult” movement in early-90s Japan, in which the new personal digital technologies allowed access to previously hidden worlds, opening new realms for exploration. In the words of Takahashi, quoted from the original leaflet for the “Ikebukuro Cyber Café” event: “In the flickering time of everyday life, the translucent coordinate axes of the dark cyber space appear and disappear like a shimmering shimmer.” This hints at the quirky yet evanescent beauty of a very intriguing historical document which also happens to sound great. It is available on CD and DL with Japanese and English notes written by Koji Kawasaki, a leading researcher of Japanese electronic music.

Considered by many one of the most gifted and outstanding players in the Electone community thanks to his fresh, energetic, rhythmic and sometimes humorous style of playing, from 1975 to 1977 Shigeo Sekitō released a four-LP album set titled Special Sound Series for the iconic Nippon Columbia. On the first chapter of this series, Sekitō revisits, in his own colourful style, compositions such as "You Are The Sunshine Of My Life" by Stevie Wonder, "Oh, My Love" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, "Andalucia" by Ernesto Lecuona, alongside some of his own composition such as "My Sweet Girl" and the title track "Catch In Alice", creating a blend of easy-listening jazz with funk and soul influences. Long out of press, we are very proud to bring this "brilliant electone" album back on vinyl under exclusive license from Nippon Columbia. ©℗ 1975, Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd. / Licensed to Holy Basil Records by Nippon Columbia Co., Ltd.

The last Henry Cow record made after the group had officially disbanded. I'm biased of course but I believe this was a milestone recording, and perhaps the closest we came to getting the music to sound the way we wanted on disc. Guest appearances by Irene Schweitzer and Anne-Marie Roeloffs.

The latest reissue from chOOn!! is Giedrius Kuprevičius’ Erotidijos, the sixth release from the label that specialises in obscure, archival and forgotten releases. Erotidijos translates from the Lithuanian to “Erotidies” – these were festivals held in honour of Eros, God of Love in Ancient Greece. They were organised every five years and were famous for their celebrations, decorations and luxury. Ritual games were played during the festivals, musicians and poets competed, worshipping Eros. Erotidijos is a haunting yet hypnotic tableaux Kuprevičius originally created for a Stanislovas Rubinovas theatre play staged in 1994 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Lithuanian composer was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic pop outfit Argo and has written dozens of scores for stage and film over the past several decades, imbuing his soundwork with a multitude of artful moods and emotive depth. The story of Erotidijos unfolds in both melancholic and serenely lush scenery, in turn mysterious and playful. Memories of places you’ve never been drift into frame, from bedroom womb into a foliage of phantasmal keys and gently psychotropic symphonies. A collection that glissandos between notes, place, and time. Erotidijos is guided by an intuitive, improvisational dream logic that threads the line between waking and sleeping revelations. It offers a hazy, voyeuristic lens into another world with dusty ambience and eccentric keyboard effects, warm synth pads and shimmering vistas serving as soft accents to the angelic murmur of giggling voices. As you listen, you are invited to apply your own interpretation of Erotidijos’ narrative of a new land, its climate, sounds, and geography. A contemplative, celestial electronic work in a gentle, often beautiful ambient style which breezily swings with exquisite analogue synth textures and infinity loops. Jazz spontaneity and organic pop impulses lift the meditative veil, ending with a climactic final scene: a sensuous reverie complete with shedding light and gently opening synapses. Available for the first time on vinyl, including over twenty minutes of music not featured on the original cassette release and produced in cooperation with Giedrius Kuprevičius for chOOn!!