Electronic / Experimental

The rare 2016 masterpiece is reprinted to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the Constellation Tatsu! H.TAKAHASHI, an ambient musician / architect in Tokyo, draws a watercolor ambient image with roots in the aesthetics of Japanese "environmental music" under the direct line of Hiroshi Yoshimura.

The rare 2015 masterpiece is reprinted to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Constellation Tatsu! Here is the end of dub and ambient that permeates the SNS level. Maybe it's going to leap like Zonotope → Jerry Paper.

We finally made it: BEWITH100LP! And what better way for a re-issue label to celebrate such a landmark catalogue number than to give it to a record of new music. We couldn’t resist when the artist is Official Be With Family Member Kenny Dickenson and when the music is his lovely, lovely score to French-Vietnamese artist Mai Hua's 2020 documentary film “Les Rivières”. If you enjoy the more minimal, intimate piano of the likes of Nils Frahm or John Carroll Kirby’s solo work, you’re certain to fall for this beautiful album. The whole score is built around delicate, sparkling piano motifs. At times they’re joined by cello and complemented with ambient chords and other flourishes. What Kenny has put together for the film score release is definitely a “soundtrack LP”, with the music arranged to work as a proper album in its own right that should be listened to from start to finish. This might not be a re-issue, but the Les Rivières film score album has still been given the full Be With treatment. The vinyl has been mastered by Simon Francis (under Kenny’s ever-watchful eye/ear, of course), cut by Pete Norman and pressed at Record Industry. The sleeve follows the film’s poster and other promotional material, including Lucile Gomez’s almost magical illustration.

"When I first came across the term Armaghedon in the early 1980s, my mind was haunted by the specter of an imminent apocalypse and so the idea of ​​naming my latest work on vinyl crossed my experimenting mind and penetrated the heart of the sound investigation. But when I later learned the real meaning of this term which derives from the ancient Hebrew "Har Maghedòn" ("Mount of Megiddo") and above all its intrinsic modulatory meaning, I was happy to share this message of hope for the future, so that the word Armaghedon must never again be synonymous with decadent destruction but rather with the ascending restoration of a new world system governed by the Theocratic Kingdom, for the benefit of all followers who consider Armaghedon as the definitive neuronal liberation." M.B., October 2020

Nicola Giunta and Gioele Valenti (the musicians creating the Lay Llamas dimension) seem to communicate from a different solar system their ecstatic gaze towards an imaginary future world. They rely mainly on a narrative tone of mysterious and spectral dark-psych shades, digging abyss of glacial depht of the self, where light filters through lysergic languors and radiant progressions of luminous dust. Oneiric voices refer to the hybrid chaos of a metropolitan jungle, as a hypnotic and psychic dimension of mind layers. Goud is steeped in numerous literary, mythological, philosophical, ecological and alchemical references. Pulsating and magnetic Farfisa, mesmeric basses and flutes or poisonous pinkfloydian and krautrock patterns forge a clear divinatory aspect of the music. The trip ends in the dark night of the forest, with more acoustic flavours and percussive incense of pure acid-folk. The beautiful cover by Virginia Genta by Jooklo, with her amoebic-cosmic graphics, seems to perfectly seal the sound inspiration of one of the most advanced forges of Italian neo-psychedelia.

InOut, a masterpiece for tuning whistle, mouthharps, flutes, toy and party gag instruments, percussion, bells, electric razor, model ship engine with propeller, birdcall whistles, CH-Phon, feedback speaker-microphone, siren, double shawm, falling down spoon, jew’s harp (only two short notes), tearing scotch tape from the spool, ocarina, hair dryer and other noise makers plus occasionally radio tuner was recorded in Zurich between May 17th and May 22nd, 1981, on a Sanyo M7300L stereo radio cassette recorder with both integrated and external microphone. The recorder is in the recording standby position, both RECORD and PAUSE buttons are pushed. Then Bruhin sings or plays a tone into the microphone. During this tone he releases the PAUSE button by pushing it. Subsequently he presses the PAUSE button again within a fraction of a second. Now the first short note is recorded. In InOut thousands of very short notes were added this way, like a patchwork, like an acoustic quilt with geometric irregularities and varied patterns. Rotomotor, subtitled “ein motorische Idiotikon”, is a 28 minutes long reading representing one of Bruhin's major works. Written in Zurich between 1976 and 1977, then recorded in August 1978 at Etienne Conod’s Sunrise Studio. Rotomotor is a poetic Idiotikon of the swiss-german dialect where, instead of the straight alphabetical order, the words are organized according to the similarities of their letters (each word differ from the previous one by just one letter). For this reading a delay equipment which repeated the signal after 0.6 seconds was used and each word is superimposed to the echo of the preceding one. On one hand this echo generates the rhythm of the performance, on the other it supports the acoustic metamorphosis of the words. Again, a very simple concept perfectly accomplished.

When I started my record label Broken Flag in 1982, one of the people I really wanted to work with was Maurizio Bianchi. His album “Symphony for a Genocide” was such a haunting, evocative record that I needed to get in contact with the man who made it. We made contact and remained regularly writing letters to each other, mine in my unintelligible scrawl, his in his red ink on photocopy paper. He was massively prolific and I soon became a distributor for his fantastic early albums like “Regel”, “Mectpyo Bacterium”, “Mörder Unter Uns/Neuro Habitat”, “Menses”, “Endometrio”, “Carcinosi”, “Das Testament” and “Armaghedon”, albums I still love to this day. He kindly contributed tracks to Broken Flag compilations as well. Releasing an album by him was always going to be high on my list of priorities and when he agreed I was overjoyed. He said he wanted a colour cover and I was running the label on a shoestring budget but I wanted him to be happy so I agreed. He sent me two polaroid photographs which we had blown up to cover size and are the pictures on the front and back cover that you see today. He wanted to release records as Maurizio Bianchi in the future rather than just as M.B and asked for the name on the cover to read “M.B. = Maurizio Bianchi”. Although the record has the catalogue number BFV3, it was actually the second vinyl record I put out because once I heard it, I didn’t want to wait for the first Ramleh album (BFV2) to be ready. I had been slightly apprehensive about what the record would sound like because just before he sent it, he told me that he had become a Jehovah’s Witness and seemed to be going through a very happy life-changing experience. He was in a relationship with the “T.D.” of the second side track “T.D. 56”, so I thought maybe the music would be too light sounding or upbeat and when I heard it, it certainly wasn’t what I was expecting but it was stunningly beautiful but still with some of the sadder, ominous melodies I loved so much. My fears were unfounded. It was a classic. Still one of my favourites to this day. I’m very proud of it. I get a co-production and co-direction credit on the sleeve but in reality all I did was provide the money and arrange for the record to go into production. I had no influence on the music itself or the cover pictures. Maurizio has made so many records that it’s easy to get lost knowing where to start but I think this album is a good entry point and is one of his very best along with “Mörder Unter Uns”, “Regel”, “Menses” or “Symphony for a Genocide”, although you can’t go too far wrong with any of his wonderful music. As I sit here listening to it again it takes me back to 38 years ago when I first heard it and knew that I was going to be lucky enough to release a classic for the ages. Just 500 vinyl records exist from that original Broken Flag release. They are out there somewhere except for the one I have right here which will be with me until I die. It’s great that it’s coming out on vinyl again and I hope if you’re hearing it for the first time you adore it like I do. “To all the redeemed people”. (Gary Mundy, August 2021) When in the cold spring of 1983, I set about decomposing these elegiac synthetic - concrete suites, my decadent vision of life was taking a brighter turn, and in fact the atmospheres that pervade the whole work, enriched by the emotional notes of a keyboard of violins, reflect my thirst for visceral eternity. The title therefore, “The Plain Truth”, follows my research directed towards the infinity of the human soul, one step away from spiritual truth, for the benefit of the loyal supporters of the plain electro-neuronal sound. (M.B., August 2021)

A reissue of Antibarbarus, issued as a compact disc in 1998, was the first edition Walter Marchetti released on Alga Marghen. The Antibarbarus cycle of five pieces makes use of original tapes coming from the same recording sessions that originated some of Marchetti's major musical works realized in the '80s, collected in his two CDs: 1989's Vandalia (NMN 076-4CD/NMN 083-5LP) and 1984's Per La Sete Dell'orecchio (NMN 083-3LP). This former series of works presented some homogeneous and untouched sound sources in the "concrete" status of their inner - and necessarily chaotic - level of entropy. Nevertheless this operative and only in appearance "neutral" premise introduces an implicit mimetic transposition. This link between the "iconic" threshold of the acoustical material and its transposition literally deconstructs the prerogatives and the ideological categories of music composition. In Antibarbarus, the temporal continuum restores the mimesis of the phenomenal regression of musical time, crystallized in a framed-length which gets estranged from subjective domain. But the transfiguration of sound sources now deliberately intends to de-signify the analytical prerogatives of hearing. The sensorial perception is in such a way inhibited from an immediate comprehension of the acoustic reality so reproduced: canis reversus ad vomitum suum. In the late 1950s, Marchetti was able both to formalize a more critical aim towards the established lingua franca and absolutist ideology of musical avant-gardism and to expand the sense of artistic praxis, in line with an ethical and subtly political evaluation of aesthetic experience. Marchetti was inspired by Cage's poetics of indeterminacy and subsequently created, through a close and indissoluble association with Juan Hidalgo and José Luis Castillejo, an original and de-ritualized form of action-music which led in 1964 to the birth of ZAJ group. Marchetti's work relays, in its procedural level, upon a resolute de-functioning of the musical codes and impose this act as a reversed mimesis of the methodological statute of music composing. Namely, not a "degré zero de l'écriture", but its "reversal"; not a "denial of style", but "style of denial". In this perspective, Walter Marchetti's oeuvre condenses one of the rare examples of aesthetic radicalism consciously extended to music poetics. Comes in full color gatefold sleeve; Includes printed inner sleeves (with photos of "Musica da camera n. 182", London, Raven Row, 1989/2011 and "Music in secca", Milano, Fondazione Mudima, 2003); Liner notes by Gabriele Bonomo in English and Italian.

Building upon a standing commitment to the work of artists who worked in international obscurity under the shadow of 1960s and '70s fascist Spain, Alga Marghen returns with "El Artilugio”, a never before issued body of work by Manuel Calvo. Bridging the contexts of installation, sound art, sound poetry, and experimental music / noise, its stunning two sides - issued in a limited edition of 200 copies on vinyl, housed in a gatefold sleeve with an accompanying large format 8-page booklet with in-depth liner notes by musicologist Gabriele Bonomo - open a visionary creative universe, too long hidden by the history's weight. Edition of 200 in gatefold sleeve, also includes a large format 8-page booklet. ** Over their decades of activity, the Italian imprint, Alga Marghen, has illuminated a near countless number of historical artefacts at the juncture of visual art, experimental music and avant-garde deployments of language, helping to radically reshape our understanding of 20th Century creative practice. Embedded within their ever-growing discography lies a small window, via releases by Zaj members Walter Marchetti, José Luis Castillejo and Juan Hidalgo, into the avant-garde happening occurring in Spain during the '60s and '70s, while the country lay under the final decades of fascist rule. Now, Alga opens access to this radical world with El Artilugio, a stunning LP of previously unavailable sonic art by multidisciplinary artist, Manuel Calvo, created in 1966. Creatively thrilling and existing outside the larger historical vision of experimental practice occourring in Europe during that decade, its stunning sounds are issued on vinyl in a gatefold sleeve, accompanied by a large format 8-page booklet with in-depth liner notes by musicologist Gabriele Bonomo, in an edition of 200 copies. As important as world-premiere releases come. Born in 1934, during the 1950s and '60s Manuel Calvo emerged as a forerunner and a protagonist of geometric abstract painting in Spain, working against the odds attempting freely expression within the context of fascist rule in Spain that had taken hold during the early years of his life. During his early career, he was closely aligned with groups like Equipo 57 and Grupo Parpallo, artists who were active around Valencia and held strong connections to the rest of Europe, developing the principles of an analytical art in opposition to the main currents of informal art and lyrical abstraction. This restless questioning increased to more radical tendencies in his work, a period spent in Paris and then Brazil, before returning to Spain in 1966 where he fell into contact with artists like Juan Hidalgo and Walter Marchetti, who had founded the Zaj group in Madrid in 1964, and begun creating some of the most subversive means of aesthetic communication encountered during that period. Calvo’s new phase of radicalism, embarked upon between 1966 and 1967, centered around the transformation of his studio into a laboratory where he could hold a permanent exhibition of his works, opening it to the public with no temporal limits, in the hope to reverse the standing perceptions of what an exhibition was. Within this space, Calvo created El artilugio, a participatory installation where the effects of light variations were randomly activated through simple buttons by the audience, opening the potential for open structures of unlimited possibilities for random variation. In addition to this, through a process similar to that applied to the light, Calvo introduced a reel-to-reel recording machine and a pre-recorded magnetic tape as a sonic element, recording the parasitic noises of an old electric engine that were then introduced into the installation via the reel-to-reel. It is this sound component of the installation that makes up Alga Marghen’s incredible LP, El artilugio, opening long overdue access to this singular creative world. El artilugio comprise two side long tracks. The first encounters the brilliant, randomized sonic universe that accompanied the installation of the same name, appearing somewhere between sound collage - split and juxtaposed by the participant’s push-button activated manipulation - and a microscopic journey across the surface and generative possibilities of the machine whose sounds it captures, rattling, clicking, scratching, droning, and buzzing as it goes, before fading out in a glissando after nearly half an hour. As a fascinating juxtaposition, the second side of El artilugio features the performance of an Austrian soprano singer reading out phonems, alliterations of single words, tongue twisters, and texts in different languages, repeated obsessively into states of abstraction that offers a stunning counterpoint to other forms of sound poetry being created during this period across the globe. Issued in a vinyl edition of 200 copies, in a gatefold sleeve that also includes a large format 8-page booklet, with El artilugio Alga Marghen has offered yet another triumphant window into the incredible world of singular artists working against the odds within fascist Spain, expanding their long-standing commitment to illuminating under-celebrated artefacts from the 20th Century, and changing history as they go. Absolutely incredible, and a must for any fan of sound art, sound poetry, and experimental music at large.

Modern versions of Aktuala and Embryo ?? A multinational and greedy experimental groove that swallows everything from Indian classical flavors to spiritual jazz, modal tones and psychedelic improvisation sounds! Limited to 300 copies.

Another gem from the extensive Flipper Music catalog, more precisely from their Flower sublabel, "Dreams For Sax" is possibly one of the most stand-out productions from their studio ensemble Gruppo Sound, this time around featuring saxophonist Paolo Russo with keyboardists Stefano Galante and Vittorio Quattrini. First released in 1987, the songs recorded for "Dreams For Sax" are a beautiful melange of easy-listening electronic and jazzy vibes, from mellow tunes such as "Dawning" and "First Class" to some killer floor-filling italo disco bangers such as "Walking On Air" and "Dance Power". A groovy Italian library banger from the 80's now available on vinyl for the first time since its original release as a limited edition of 500 copies.

Belonging to a series of geographical-themed albums that draw upon numerous indigenous traditions from across the globe, like the previous releases in Dialogo’s Piero Umiliani Legacy Series - Continente Nero and Africa - Polinesia, issued by Piero Umiliani’s own Omicron imprint in 1975, highlights the composer’s travels and his striking ability to mirror these physical movements through sound, activating a seemingly unstoppable realm of creative freedom and exploration for composer and musician alike. Rooted in a foundation of rich percussion, soft tribalism, and exotic suggestion, Polinesia renders an abstract mirage of white beaches kissed by the ocean via its colorful cocktail of sonority, dancing blissfully across the album’s 15 songs, and covering a startlingly amount of creative territory as it goes. From the loungy kitsch of its opening tracks, or the overwhelmingly beautiful vocal melodies of Sotto le Palme, to the percussive minimalism of Canoe, Erbe Magiche, Danza Magica - each calling to mind Moondog at his best, with a bit of Midori Takada thrown in - and the dense ambiences of Pellegrinaggio, the composer takes us deep into an imagined realm, moving freely across its geographies and drenching the ears in its sounds. Beautiful and striking from the first turn to the last, Umiliani’s Polinesia fleshes out the world we began to explore with Dialogo’s reissues of Continente Nero and Africa, adding breezy sounds to the mix and plenty of dynamism across its length. Never before reissued on any format, with original copies commanding top dollar on the secondary market, Dialogo’s fully authorised vinyl reissue of Polinesia is a stunning thing to behold. Also available on CD, the album was remastered from the original analogue master tapes.

Hoavi channels the solitude of nature in winter direct from his native city of St Petersburg, Russia on his 11 part album “Posle Vsego” - Quiet Time’s first release of the year. This collection of works from 2013 to 2020 departs from his recent work, forgoing dubby jungle breaks for more abstract ambience comprised of layered analog synths and sample recordings. Hoavi’s moody ambient has a warm retro feel to it, but is decidedly unique and contemporary in its composition and mood. Like a walk through a forest in winter, it feels lonely and foreboding, yet simultaneously serene and full of beauty.

Milan Knízak canonical text Aktual University, dating from 1967, contains ten short lectures outlining the university's character -- On Conflict, On Dreams, On Revolutions, On Love, On Belief, On Art, etc. These lectures were to serve as inspirational schemes for lectures, seminars and discussions held at an ideal university. In the first piece, Aktual University, Milan Knízak reads his own text, with Opening Performance Orchestra providing the musical accompaniment. It was performed live in October 2019 at the Movement-Sound-Space festival in Opava, where this recording was made. The second track, titled "Broken Suite", is a studio remix, in which Opening Performance Orchestra used fragments and quotations from Milan Knizák's compositions, conceived over the past fifty years, applying the "broken" method. The majority of them are made public for the very first time in the newly created "Broken Suite". The booklet features English translations of ten Aktual University lectures, as well as Milan Knizak's contemporary initiation text. Includes 12-page booklet.

Heavy 180g black vinyl + free digital (Bandcamp exclusive) Expanded Edition w/ 4 bonus tracks, japanese obi, a 72 photography collage of the many people who inspired this music and liner notes by composer Neil Ollivierra aka The Detroit Escalator Company. Sirio Ultra Black debossed sleeve 400gsm Half Speed Mastering Sublime and perfectly produced cutting-edge ambient techno masterpiece made in 1996 by unsung Detroit hero Neil Ollivierra, an album as underrated as it is essential. 25 years after its original release on UK label Ferox Records, Soundtrack [313] still provides a deeply futuristic aesthetic experience, warm and emotional electronics, along with glistening melody lines that create a peaceful, relaxed environment. This album possesses a formidable aptitude to always instill its listeners with a life-affirming feeling of serenity. A true timeless and unique classic that exists within its own genre and which still pushes the envelope of electronic music that transcends the club experience. This expanded release includes 4 bonus tracks (6 tracks on CD / digital), a liner note by the artist, and valuable photographic footage from his personal archives. This reissue has been mastered from original files by Sidney Claire Meyer at Emil Berliner (former Deutsche Grammophon studios in Berlin), using the half speed mastering process, and pressed on heavy vinyl at 45rpm. 25th anniversary audiophile edition. For fans of Detroit Techno, Global Communications, Black Dog, Manuel Goettsching, Tangerine Dream, Susumu Yokota, und Klaus Schulze.

The 5 LP / 5 CD box set „Electroacoustic Works“ celebrates the 100th anniversary of IANNISXENAKIS (on May 29th, 2022), one of the most influential 20th century avantgardecomposers. All tracks have been newly mixed by longtime zeitkratzer sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST and mastered by RASHAD BECKER and finally reveal their full sonic range and dynamics. Booklet with English / German liner notes by REINHOLD FRIEDL (zeitkratzer) and rare photos from the Xenakis archive.IANNIS XENAKIS (1922-2001) is one of the most important composers of the 20th century avantgarde whose influence on music can be traced to the present day – not only in the world of conservatory-trained composers but also in various streams of current non-academic underground aesthetics such as experimental electronic music, noise and industrial. After he arrived in Paris in 1947, XENAKIS not only studied composition with MESSIAEN and later became a member of the famous GRM (Groupe de recherches musicales), he also worked as assistant to the famous architect LE CORBUSIER and realized a.o. the Philips Pavilion for the World Exhibition in Brussels 1958. His compositions often are based on mathematical principles which give his music an unprecedented aesthetic and “shocking otherness” (The Guardian). Although XENAKIS also composed for orchestra (his most famous works are “Metastasis“, “Pithoprakta” and “Terretektorh”), electronic music became his way for exploring new ideas and concepts and to develop new techniques like a graphic interface for sound synthesis or later, when computers were easier accessible, his so-called "stochastic synthesis" (Gendy 3, S.709 > Disc V, Late Works). XENAKIS’ first electroacoustic pieces (Disc I) like “Diamorphoses” or “Bohor” turned out groundbreaking works while the latter even caused, as MICHEL CHION put it, the “greatest scandal of electroacoustic music” on the occasion of its performance 1968 at the GRM in Paris.His so-called „Polytopes“ (Discs II - IV) were overwhelming multimedia performances with especially designed architectures, laser and light shows etc. where sometimes up to several hundred loudspeakers were used to move the sounds in space. For example his most famous composition “Persepolis”, commissioned by the Persian Shah, premiered in 1971 in Shiraz-Persepolis (Iran) as a performance including light-tracks, laser beams, groups of children walking around with torches and 59 loudspeakers to project the music in an open-air situation. The most radical aspects of sound can be found in Xenakis' late work and its merciless reduction toharsh, almost ruthless sound synthesis. In the early nineties, he devoted himself to the concept of acomposing machine: a machine that designs everything independently and calculatesthe finished piece, the algorithm is the work.For the first time, the complete electroacoustic works of XENAKIS are now available on record – the truly overdue testimony and legacy of a restless investigator and explorer of sound. Years of source studies and comparative research by zeitkratzer director REINHOLD FRIEDL, in collaboration with sound engineer MARTIN WURMNEST, made these critically reflected stereo mixes possible, which were appropriately mastered by RASHAD BECKER and which, in addition tothe aspect of fidelity to the source, put the listener in the center. Xenakis' adventurous music can now finally be enjoyed in its full sonic range and dynamic.

Duppy Gun, a dancehall collective formed by Sun Araw and M. Geddes Gengras with a crew of Jamaican MCs including I Jahbar, has released a 7-track EP with Japanese producer Element, featuring Bristol's <Bokeh Versions ＞and Japan's Riddim Chango.

The label has been involved with Seekers International, Jay Glass Dubs, and Low Jack, as well as Mars89 and 7FO in Japan, and reissues of TNT Roots, Bush Chemist, Tradition, and others, making it an obscure dub label. Bristol's cult label Bokeh Versions has joined forces with Riddim Chango Records, which has been offering new sound system music from its two bases in Japan and London.

The four Jamaican MCs - Jahbar, G Sudden, King G, and Darkblood - deliver killer vocals, and Element, whose work with Kingston's dub poet Nazamba is fresh in the mind, has produced a sound that has science fiction elements, but is also what is called The 12" will be released on April 8 and features 7 tracks (4 vocal tracks and 3 instrumental versions) that are a fusion of original rhythm tracks that are distinctly different from "techno dancehall". The artwork is by Cameron Stallones, one of the people who started the Duppy Gun collective and has left behind alternative and experimental works under the name Sun Araw.

Lovely Music present a reissue of Robert Ashley's Automatic Writing, originally released as an LP by Lovely Music in 1979. Over the course of Robert Ashley's career his preoccupation with language and the voice took many forms. He became known in his librettos as a wonderful, funny, moving writer. But with Automatic Writing he examines language at a very "primitive" level -- the human impulse make sounds to express his inner state, whether it be regret, embarrassment, fear, or happiness -- even though there is no one else to listen. Talking to oneself.

Personnel: Voices - Robert Ashley and Mimi Johnson; Electronics and Polymoog - Robert Ashley; Words: Robert Ashley; Translation: Monsa Norberg; Silhouette: William Farley. The switching circuit was designed and built by Paul DeMarinis. Recorded, produced, and mixed by Robert Ashley at the Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College (Oakland), the American Cultural Center (Paris), and Mastertone Recording Studios (New York). This reissue was remastered and cut, from the original reel-to-reel tape, by Scott Hull, Masterdisk (New York). Manufactured at Record Technology Inc/RTI (California). 180 gram vinyl; Stoughton Old Style sleeve. Includes an insert with a transcription of the words, and the Automatic Writing notes Ashley wrote for Lovely's 1996 CD (that included "Purposeful Lady Slow Afternoon" and "She Was A Visitor").

"On Automatic Writing, Robert Ashley composes under the influence of his 'involuntary speech.' (In his liner notes, Ashley revealed that he suffered from 'a mild form of Tourette's.') The piece starts quietly, with scraps of Ashley's mild, tremulous voice arranged next to more fluid French translations and barely-there touches of Moog. After Ashley's phrases lengthen enough to encompass sense-making phrases, a bass-register groove briefly appears, vanishes, then returns. Few pieces so quiet have proven as captivating; many that intend to be equally startling can't capture Ashley's range of surprises." --Seth Colter Walls, from Pitchfork's "Fifty Best Ambient Albums of All Time"

Electronic producer Jon Hopkins first came to prominence as a songwriter/producer on Coldplay's “Beautiful Life” with Brian Eno and supported Coldplay on their world tour. His last album, “Singularity,” released in 2018, took another leap forward and entered the top 10 in the UK charts, making him one of the world's top artists. He has released his latest album “Music For Psychedelic Therapy” with a new song “Sit Around The Fire” and music video at the same time. The song features producer East Forest and the late Ram Dass, author of the cult favorite “Be Here Now. The video was directed by Tom Readdy and Lucy Dawkins.

Post-minimalist American composer Rafael Anton Irisarri makes his Umor Rex debut with bold new album, The Shameless Years. Inspired by a troubled socio-political climate, buried melodies punch their way through a bleak cover of noisy drones, periodically veering into some of Irisarri’s most eerily pertinent music to date. LP limited edition of 700 copies pressed on red colored vinyl, includes a post card with original artwork and free download coupon.
One of Rafael Anton Irisarri’s most thematically and sonically cohesive records to date The Shameless Years came together in a relatively short burst of creativity starting at the end of 2016. Rediscovering some relatively older tools – namely Native Instruments’ Reaktor, Absynth, and Kontakt software – Irisarri combined them with his collection of guitars, pedals, amps, and analogue processing gear, turning his Black Knoll Studio north of NYC into a powerful writing tool. Completed quickly by Irisarri’s standards, let alone during a period of social upheaval in American society, the record faces down several key personal themes. The title, suggests Irisarri, could in fact be seen as a reflection of the era of shamelessness we’re currently living in; a time of fake news and alternative facts.

Two tracks were completely remotely between Irisarri in New York and Umor Rex veteran Siavash Amini from his home in Tehran, Iran. This music came together at the peak of all the anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric happening in the USA, not to mention the banning of Iranians from entering the country, explains Irisarri. The diptych with Amini, ‘Karma Krama’ and ‘The Faithless’, seems bathed in additional waves of sorrow and dread. The wash of symphonic stormclouds of synth drones and processed notes on the latter gradually appears and disappears over the course of thirteen mournful minutes.

‘Rh Negative’ marches gigantic guitars through towering valleys of scarred ambient noise dealing with Irisarri’s own heritage, many of his ancestors having come to America to escape poverty and oppression. The refusal of modern America to extend similar sanctuary to refugees escaping turmoil weighs heavily on the composer. Elsewhere an emotional onslaught of notes buried in mounds of greyscale noise on ‘Sky Burial’ aims to deal with Irisarri’s very own mortality – something he was recently confronted with following health scares, an accident, and a near-death experience in 2016. Pushing 40 as this album was being made, the composer is constantly aware that he’s already outlived his own father, who died at the age of 32. Facing down both intolerance and the void, the epic soundscapes of The Shameless Years are a vast cry of emotion from Irisarri. The clock is ticking – gotta make the most out of it while you still can.

For the next release we head to Barbados and 1985 for the first official reissue of ‘Exit’ by Fire Flight. The best reissues succinctly capture a moment in time and this album provides a snapshot of Island life in the Caribbean region of the America’s in the middle of the 1980’s. The LP encompasses new wave, funk and early house rhythms with a backbone of calypso. The idea for Fire Flight started with Carl “Beaver” Henderson, a musician, arranger and producer who initially provided back up band services for the Royal Bank of Trinidad & Tobago’s annual staff Calypso competition. In 1981 the idea quickly evolved into the 15 piece band that was Fire Flight who took Trinidad and Tobago’s performance spaces and annual carnival by storm with their electrifying life performances. The band also travelled to Toronto, Montreal and New York for their annual carnivals. In 1984 the band entered the now defunct Coral Sound Studios in Barbados to record their debut album. The driving force behind the LP was the band’s main songwriter Francis Escayg’s desire to explore alternative avenues of recognition for the band and to perform and thrive in the carnival off season. Highlights from the LP include the slow new wave funk of ‘Best Shot’ & ‘White Horse’, the melting pot of calypso, zouk and reggae influences on ‘Hard Life’ & ‘Mornin Lovin’ and the tropical proto house of ‘Wantin U’ that was a highlight of the Fire Flight live show. The LP is pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with new full sleeve artwork from Bradley Pinkerton.

Musique Plastique and Séance Centre are proud to present Jacques Charlier’s “Art In Another Way”, a 45RPM double LP compilation of the Belgian multi-disciplinary artist’s inimitable chanson regressive recordings from the 1980s. Throughout a long career in the visual arts, Jacques Charlier has maintained a multi-disciplinary approach that includes forays in poetry, underground comics, acting, filmmaking and music. Besides performing with his punk group Terril (sadly, never recorded), Charlier took inspiration from the minimalist sounds of Philip Glass, Steve Reich, La MonteYoung, John Cage, and Meredith Monk. Throughout the 1970s he performed psychoacoustic pieces in Liège, Antwerp, Eindhoven, Rotterdam, Milan and Düsseldorf, and in the astounding performance art video Desperados Music, filmed by Paul Paquay for Belgian television. Charlier hit a creative stride in the 1980s — armed only with a synth, drum machine, fuzz box, and his custom guitar, with occasional duets with vocalist Martine Doutreleau. He recorded a trove of proto-pop tunes which he self-released on three cassettes (Musique Regressive, Chansons Idiotes and Chansons Tristes) between 1984–1987. “Art In Another Way” collects selections from these tapes, in addition to an ample supply of previously unreleased material, all mixed and mastered from Charlier’s original 4-track recordings for a wide angle view of his creative range. From the proto-house rhythm of “Jingle – Crepuscule”, to the minimal EBM experiment “Top” and Art Of Noise- inspired “PassingTime”. There are certain resonances within the catalogs of Belgian labels Crammed Discs and Les Disques Du Crépuscule, yet even with these genre-bending precedents, Charlier’s music is idiosyncratic and visionary to the extreme. Accompanying the release is a postcard featuring a behind-the-scenes performance photo and visual score by Charlier. RIYL: Flying Lizards, Y Records, Young Marble Giants, Ashra, Naffi, Tuxedomoon, Aksak Maboul

Eye Escapes is a collection of recordings from 2016 - 2021 primarily from a lost album between Path and View No Country. Brought to you by Mutual Skies.

This is a tribal experimental sound where the horizons of another world appear, whether it is a fantasy or a cutting edge? Marco Shuttle's third album, Cobalt Desert Oasis, features a varied collection of music recorded across a two year period. Often traveling to remote destinations, Marco would come back to Berlin with field recordings, images, and other inspirations to process in his studio and turn into sound. The theme of the journey turns into a something more abstract than a travel diary, where environmental sounds blend in with modular synthesis, drum machines, effects and analog oscillators resulting in a cinematic listening experience where psychedelia, ritualism, and mysticism weave together in a sort of alien soundscape - that as the title of the album suggests, is reminiscent of a parallel utopian world. The album is rich in complex rhythmics, and more than in any of his previous work, has strong acoustic elements. Amongst other percussion instruments, Marco used the Tombak, a traditional Persian hand drum capable of reaching a very wide range of frequencies - from deep round subby toms, to high pitched sharp rimshots, throughout the record. Marco Shuttle is certainly not new to these sort of elements, but in Cobalt Desert Oasis he brings the environmental element of his sound into the forefront in a way that takes the listener into a hazy expanse where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish the machine elements from the natural - and where the music almost becomes a visual experience, which relates to Marco's own photography used throughout the cover and insert images.