Electronic / Experimental

Shape of the Moon is the California based duo of Benjamin Burke and Bear Glass that explores existential headspaces beyond mundane frames of thought. Following streams of consciousness that contemplate the stardust that forms us to the very first human sound that reverberated through a cave, Shape of the Moon intertwines language and music into ambient dream-weaving narratives. When the land is laid bare forms a collection of recordings composed of Burke reciting his introspective poems and Glass improvising gripping modular synth and string patterns. Burke brings a wealth of experience working between an impressively vast range of written and visual mediums to Glass’s live electronics and acoustic instrumentation mirroring the spoken word. The pieces on the album consist of excerpts from live outdoor performances under the night sky in the Mojave desert as well as sessions in Glass’s off-grid solar powered studio. Burke drapes vivid vocal narration over deeply immersive textures and melodies conjured up by Glass on Buchla, bass and sitar, painting peaks and valleys that live score the storytelling. The duo tread their own path fusing poetry with undulating electroacoustic instrumentals, arriving at meditative and ASMR territories that draw inspiration from ambient and electronica. Often joined on stage by guest musicians playing anything from Rhodes, percussion, jaw harp and saxophone, the recordings edge towards blues and spiritual jazz. Benjamin Burke is a poet, writer, performer, and visual artist who spends his time lending a hand to unusual artistic expeditions around the world. Most recently, he helped to launch Dhun and Dhun School, a humanist eco-township and progressive education center on a 500 acre biopreserve in Rajasthan, India. He has written and performed countless unusual shows, experimenting widely and, through that, witnessing firsthand what makes ideas resonate for his audiences. This work evolved over time into an approach he refers to as Applied Poetics which he employs to help communities set intentions, scientists present their findings, and humanitarian organizations find their footing. Bear Glass is a sound artist, multi-instrumentalist, music teacher, live sound engineer, and founding member of Mobius Acoustics who build innovative sound systems and host events on the West Coast (utilizing a quadraphonic setup for live performances and immersive drone bath sessions). Glass is involved in various collaborative projects with a couple of releases under different pseudonyms as well as a solo tape featuring a track with prolific producer Carlos Niño. For most of the year, Glass lives sustainably off-grid with his family on a plot of land outside Joshua Tree, a mini utopia infamous for his well curated private campouts and artist residencies. Wide skies, magnificent climates, and being surrounded by the love of family and friends inform Bear’s musical output and artistic practice. Shape of the Moon present their debut album for Marionette’s 30th title, channeling an inquisitive yet playful state of mind that marvels at the mysteries of the universe.

"Arthur Russell's most extraordinary work, World of Echo is reissued in this remastered vinyl edition by Audika Records. 18 tracks are featured including drumless versions of his disco classics 'Let's Go Swimming,' 'Tree House,' and 'Wax The Van' along with four previously unreleased tracks. Originally released in 1986, World Of Echo is a deeply intimate and meditative work of awe-inspiring grace and remains a timeless work of sublime beauty. Arthur's aim was to achieve what he calls 'the most vivid rhythmic reality,' with just cello, voice, and echoes. Arthur achieved all of this and more on one of the most incredible albums you will ever hear."

Abstract dub dream-weavers SKRS INTL. & WZRDRY remerge at the behest of Bristol’s Accidental Meetings for a super lush dose of wormholing ambient dance pressure tipped FFO Rezzett, Peak Oil/False Aralia, Second Woman. ‘Orbit Flares’ combines the two Canadian units for the first time in over a decade, naturally reprising an empathic level of vibes in a half hour of music that betrays illusive tekkerz developed over the interim. Any semblance of sharp edges are smudged to a brilliantly psychedelic, polychromatic lustre and laced with disciplined, yet properly wayward rhythms that tumble, buckle and vaporise in fractious delirium. Each new SKRS drop is welcome around ours but, jeez, they really push into their most impressive work here, possibly thanks to wzrdryAV’s synaesthetic suss. Front to back it feel likes they catch minds/bodies in the split second before going under anaesthesia, and extrude us into pitch-bent helical vortices of plonging dub chords and gooey bass, finding bold new realms of computerised dub suss. Handrails are slippery as fuck, ground melts beneath feet, leaving bodies gyring in space between the weightless dub techno inflections of ‘1.1’, into air-stepping chicanery on ‘1.2’, or glitching like a hair-kissing Vladislav Delay on ‘1.3’. The smeared chords and scudding subs of ‘2.1’ call to mind Second Woman emulating the illusive dub-soul of False Aralia drops, and ‘2.3’ feels like distant rig heard on a Nitrous-induced permo. Sheer class for harder to please future dub freaks.

Detroit’s dub techno lineage continues to evolve as cv313, Stephen Hitchell of Echospace, teams up with Federsen for Altering Dimensions Part Two, another collaborative EP set to land on Federsen’s Alt Dub imprint.

"Today's dancefloors are wakes in remembrance of a mythological era of openness that never was. Remember where you were. See where you are.... I'm in Kami-Sakunobe." (K-S.H.E) "Routes Not Roots" is the debut album by K-S.H.E (Kami-Sakunobe House Explosion), the newest project from internationally celebrated producer, label owner and DJ Terre Thaemlitz. K-S.H.E "Routes Not Roots" combines Comatonse Recordings' notorious "Fagjazz" sound with the classic NY Deep House and Cross-over dancefloor sensibility of "DJ Sprinkles' Deeperama," Thaemlitz' bi-monthly event held at Club Module, Tokyo. The results are spacious, bass-heavy, epic dance mixes filled with dark humor and harsh realities. As people have come to expect of Thaemlitz releases, "Routes Not Roots" mixes a wide range of social themes such as identity vs. immigrant status; community vs. tranny-on-tranny violence; authenticity vs. cultural decontextualization; openly gay African-American club imagery vs. gay sex on the Down-Low; innocence vs. childhood fantasies of violence; and more. From HIV drug trials to tranny and women's unemployment rates to sexually amorphous Japanese cross-dressers posing as high school girls, K-S.H.E doesn't miss a beat.

It is often said that we find it hard to stare at the light, however, the universe never lights out. This first premise from As Above, So Below is the base point for the setting of what follows. A group of rabble-rousing guerillères from the commune decide to go bowling. They had entered the forest, followed its winding paths, and emerged blind after staring at the universe for too long. No longer able to find their way by observing the stars, they now have to climb on the houses and feel the vernacular roofing to find out in which direction they’re heading. They get to the bowling alley all amped up. The punters insist on lighting their cigarettes - they’re not interested in matches but rather in the cardboard cover that attaches them. The only striking going on is the sound of the skittles getting scattered, syncopating with saturated basslines, mixed vocal techniques, heavy fx, and feeding into an arsenal of bells and percussions. They start stomping on the alleys as if this was a housewarming party and they had to break in a newly laid wood floor. Moving in circles, they eventually fall through it and end up in a room where the light has been swallowed. A band including none of its original members is performing, they can only hear a warm yet throbbing hum. They soon realise the massive rolling sub is getting louder and louder and adjusting its pitch. The dust their feet was lifting is slowly sweeping around the floor and gathering in patches and lines, drawing out the Chladni figures they had seen in their dreams, experiencing the same thoughts at the same moment, they inscribe them on a loquat leaf.

Psychedelic sorcerers Nuke Watch return with a definitive blast of improvised studio shenanigans on London’s Sagome, after celebrated turns with TTT, PPM, and patience. Proper outerzone madness, tipped FFO Pekka Airaksinen, Wolf Eyes, Marshall Allen, Sperm. Expanding from a duo to a trio with the addition of Zack Stafford on wind and electronics, Nuke Watch emulate the effects of some legit Lucy for a particularly skewiff and trippy session on their 8th studio album ‘Fusion’. The key to the LP is in the titular nod to psych jazz and rock hybrids of the ‘70s, where styles began to melt into one another via the extraordinary musical virtuosity of the likes of King Crimson, Tony Williams, and John McLaughlin. But rather than overly intricate key changes and showmanship, Nuke Watch distill a confluence of inspirations - contemporary urban beats, dub, trip metal, outernational trance, US basement noise, raga drone - with an alchemic, imaginative ingenuity they can safely call their own. The trio, plus the likes of Daryl Seaver on EWI MIDI and instrument, a la Marshall Allen or Wolf Eyes, giive it hot and sticky with a flow of intuitive ideas best representing a prolific creative practice of open-ended jams. But again, they deftly sidestep the more hoary connotations of psych with a freezer fresh zing and grasp of groove that, just about, lets us know it’s the 2020s, not the 1970s, or at least somewhere along that timeline. This uchronic approach, factored by extramusical prompts from psyops, eschatology, and contemporary political clusterfucks, yields a brace of hypnotic, hallucinatory projections in progression from the swingeing groove and smeared apparitions of the opener, thru the mutant raga of the ‘War Lock’ section, to a properly unbuckled ‘New American Psycho’ movement squirming in space between Sperm and Wolf Eyes’ trip metal.

kishun is a duo: ISHIKAWA Ko, player of the shō (mouth-organ), and NAKAMURA Kahoru, player of the gaku-biwa (Japanese court lute). Since 2015 they have used only shō and biwa. Their idea is to bring out the hidden sound in what they call “gagaku without melody.”

Gagaku is the ancient court music of Japan. It is more than a thousand years old. In the Heian period, nobles gathered old songs and dances from Japan and pieces that had come from Korea and China between the 5th and 9th centuries, and shaped them into one art. As gagaku took root in Japan, it was arranged and rebuilt. The form we hear today is unique to Japan. By the Heian era, it was already close to its present shape. Gagaku lives in two worlds: as court music at the Imperial Palace, and as sacred music for rites and festivals at temples and shrines. Because of this history, it was kept by nobles and professional musicians, away from the taste of ordinary people. Its instruments and dances are very different from most other Japanese traditions.

Gagaku has four main kinds: bugaku (dances, including those from the continent), kangen (an instrumental ensemble), kuniburi-no-utamai (old songs and dances from Japan), and utamono (vocal music from the Heian period). Among these, kangen is rare in Japan: it is a full orchestra made only of instruments. Most other Japanese music centers on singing. When there is instrumental playing, it is often in small groups or as support for theater and dance. Kangen stands apart.

The kangen ensemble is called “three winds, two strings, three drums.” The winds are shō, hichiriki (double-reed), and ryūteki (transverse flute). The strings are biwa and so (zither). The drums are kakko, taiko, and shōko (gong). The hichiriki and ryūteki carry the melody. The shō wraps them in chords. The string parts frame the rhythm. Kishun plays only shō and biwa, both in classic pieces and in improvisation.

The shō is a free-reed mouth organ with 17 bamboo pipes of different lengths and pitches. Each pipe has a small metal reed. In the classic style, players do not use tonguing. They shape phrases with breath. The shō is not loud. In ensemble it plays long, steady chords called aitake. These chords color the melody and show the center of the mode (scale).

The gaku-biwa is a lute. Today it has four strings and four frets, and is played with a plectrum. Its back is flat and the body is shallow. Its sound is strong at the start, then fades quickly, with almost no ring. For this reason, the biwa speaks more in rhythm than in harmony.

kishun leaves out the melody instruments of kangen. They focus on the shō, which builds a field of sound through aitake chords, and the biwa, which draws the rhythm. This is their experiment: to bring forward the voices that hide behind the melody. With the skill of two masters, they reach this goal. Sounds that the full gagaku ensemble often covers without notice step into the foreground and speak to us in a fresh, striking way.

(*1) ISHIKAWA Ko — Studied shō and gagaku song with MIYATA Mayumi, BUNNO Hideaki, and SHIBA Sukeyasu. He began performing in 1990. He plays classic and new works with Reigakusha, a well-known gagaku group, and also performs as a soloist. He has taken part in many projects with artists such as SAKAMOTO Ryuichi and Evan Parker. He is also active in free improvisation.

(*2) NAKAMURA Kahoru — While at university, she met the revival of Bankaso (the oldest known biwa score, reconstructed by SHIBA Sukeyasu) and began to study gagaku. She studied ryūteki with Shiba Sukeyasu, and gaku-biwa and umai (right-dance, a style with roots in the Korean peninsula and northeast China) with YAMADA Kiyohiko. A member of Reigakusha, she has performed since 1990 at festivals in Japan and abroad, and as a soloist. She also works to bring lost classic pieces back to li

Feedback Waves — the new imprint from independent label Rings of Neptune — is proud to present Trill, the first and only album by Palomatic. Almost thirty years after its original release on CD in 1995, this beautiful nine-track work is now available on vinyl for the first time. Palomatic is an alias of Koji Takahashi, an active member of the bubbling Japanese electronic music scene of the early-to-mid 90s. Besides his solo work, he was a core member of Takahashi Tektronix (with Nic Yoshizawa) and Mutron (with Kiyoshi Hazemoto, aka Interferon), as well as working as a synth programmer for supergroup Denki Groove. Following the release of his debut track ‘Halo’ on Syzygy Records in 1993, Takahashi made a series of contributions to compilations on the scene-defining Transonic label. His first and only full-length album, Trill, combined these tracks with original material to form an absorbing and versatile standalone statement of the Palomatic sound. From the oscillating lilt of ‘Flutter’, which opens proceedings at a measured 104bpm, through to the symphonic epilogue of ‘Soar’, Trill is rooted in the fertile territory between organic and synthetic sounds — ground that was nourishing the work of many likeminded producers worldwide at the time. West Coast psychedelia and East Coast funk, the moody bass weight of Bristol trip-hop and Sheffield bleep, and the chemical rush of German techno and Belgian trance: with a distinctly Japanese sensibility, Trill drew these strands together into an elegant musical tapestry. The result is timeless — indeed, album centrepiece ‘Foaming Waves’ would sound right at home on the faster-paced dancefloors of today.

Last spotted on production duties for Yungwesbster’s ‘II’ as well as turns for Nostalgians and Dj Loser’s Magdalena’s Apathy.. Seattle-based Jaqueline Lawson aka Matryoshka shows serious emotional range on her debut album, channeling Burial, Shinichi Atobe, Space Afrika, Malibu and Surf Gang, seemingly all at once…. Matryoshka has already built a reputation as a producer for DJ Loser's Magdalena's Apathy imprint as well as work for the Nostalgians, an under-the-radar ambient rap collective featuring Yungwebster, Mdb, tnotsobad, Nopaprr and ogpra1. Her musical roots - dubstep, trance and hard dance - tell some of the story here, but she transmogrifies those influences into haunted, Basinski-esque memories like the gaseous traces and decelerated remnants of the club. On album opener 'Lifelover’, Burial's hazed interludes spring to mind, or perhaps the 4am cityscapes of Space Afrika's now mythical 'Somewhere Decent to Live’. Background ambiance simmers below Lawson's pensive FM pads, but once she establishes the mood, things take an unexpected turn with a pitch-bent bassline that might have been lifted straight from a 6LACK loosie, and a rhythmic pulse that traces the thin red line of Shinichi Atobe. If it's dub techno, it's a strand that hasn't been codified quite yet. 'Surface Tension' uses deep, Maybach Music-coded bass womps to twist through her skittering slow rhythms and sadcore pads. But it’s Matryoshka’s harmonic instinct that stands out; if you heard the airy 'otr' or 'fantasize' from Yungwebster's 'II' you'll know exactly what we mean, and she takes it even further here, weaving cinematic, languid harmonies that bridge the gap between Steve Roach and Future. Check 'Where the Dancers are Spinning' with its levitational, almost orchestral sweeps that Lawson counterbalances with thudding subs, or the brief title track, an Akira Yamaoka-style save room loop that dissipates into a dreamy, dissociated fog, for further proof. Then there's the second side's centrepiece 'Parted by the Sea', where a ratcheting Chain Reaction-style rhythm builds to a tense crescendo only to get splintered unrecognisably in the second half, its broken pieces pillowed by Lawson's billowing time-stretched chords.

Well known for their Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar series—also familiar to Meditations—Sam Gendel and Sam Wilkes return with a new duo work. This time, they step away from their signature sax-and-bass pairing and move toward a fresh approach centered on guitar and synthesizer. Compact at eight tracks and roughly 27 minutes, the album builds a distinctive world through a sequence of short, interconnected pieces.

With But remember what you have had, Stephen O’Malley continues and expands his musical approach by transposing it to multiphonic electroacoustic writing and acousmatic listening. Drawing not only on his extensive experience as a composer and live instrumentalist, but also on the countless studio production and mixing sessions he has taken part in the course of his many projects (in solo, with SUNN O))) or KTL, to name but a few), Stephen O’Malley’s work on this new piece is ambitious, engaging in an inspired research that delves into the deep intricacies between polyphony, intonation and timbrality, enhanced by melodic motifs. To do this, O’Malley summons up his own very personal sound universe, constellated with amplified textures, instrumental sustained tones and raw energy, in order to diffract them into wavefronts, waves and blows that weave a complex, rich and fascinating matter. But remember what you have had stands out as an important work in Stephen O’Malley’s repertoire: it brings together the multiplicity of his musical approach in an exemplary way, while laying the foundations and promises for the future of an already extraordinary journey.

When you’re running a label, a demo occasionally comes across your desk that makes you reconsider everything you thought your label was all about. For Balmat, such was the case with this stunning album from Stephen Vitiello, Brendan Canty, and Hahn Rowe. It sounds like nothing we’ve released so far—and that very otherness opened up a whole new world of possibilities for us. Fans of ambient, experimental electronic music, and sound art will be familiar with Vitiello, a New York native, long based in Virginia, who has collaborated with a cross-generational list of greats: Taylor Deupree, Steve Roden, Lawrence English, Tetsu Inoue, Nam June Paik, Ryuichi Sakamoto, Pauline Oliveros, and many more. On labels like 12k, Room40, and Sub Rosa, he has explored a wide range of minimalism, microsound, lowercase, ambient, improv, and other styles. But this album is something different. It may begin in ambient-adjacent territory, but it quickly veers off, and it just keeps zigzagging, taking on elements of krautrock, post-punk, dub, and the groove-heavy interplay of groups like Natural Information Society and 75 Dollar Bill. This stylistic turn is thanks in large part to Vitiello’s choice of collaborators. “We’re coming from three different schools,” Vitiello says: “sound art, art rock, and punk rock.” Active since the early 1980s, Rowe—a violinist, guitarist, and producer/engineer—has played with, or manned the boards for, a frankly jaw-dropping list of musicians: Herbie Hancock, Gil Scott-Heron, the Last Poets, Roy Ayers, John Zorn, Glenn Branca, Swans, Live Skull, Brian Eno, David Byrne, Anohni, R.E.M., Yoko Ono, and many more. But he might be most closely associated with Hugo Largo, a one-of-a-kind New York quartet—two basses, vocals, and Rowe’s violin—that in the late 1980s helped lay the groundwork for what would eventually become known as post-rock. Canty, of course, is the legendary drummer of Fugazi, the visionary DC post-hardcore group, as well as Rites of Spring before them, and, currently, the Messthetics, a Dischord-signed instrumental trio with guitarist Anthony Pirog and Fugazi bassist Joe Lally. Vitiello’s trio first collaborated on First, a 17-minute piece released on the Longform Editions label in 2023. Second picks up where the freeform drift of First left off, channeling the trio’s exploratory energies into more intentionally structured tracks and—in a real first for Balmat—some almost shockingly muscular grooves. “Sometimes my projects are more conceptually driven,” Vitiello says, “but I think this was more musically geared. I just wanted to open up the references and bring in an incredible drummer, bring in some melodies, and I’m sort of the center.” But his collaborators, he stresses, are “vastly creative in making anything I might suggest better.” Like its predecessor, Second took shape in phases, shifting between improvisation and collage. Vitiello laid down the skeleton of the music at home, sketching out initial ideas on Rhodes keyboard and acoustic and electric guitar; he then fed the parts through samplers and his modular system, recording 10- or 20-minute jams. Once he had edited them into more structured forms, he hit the studio with Canty, who added not just drums but also bass and piano; finally, Vitiello took the results of those sessions to Rowe, who played violin, viola, electric bass, and 12-string acoustic and bowed electric guitar, and assisted in some of the final structuring and mixdown. A few more surprises along the way: Reanimator’s Don Godwin, the studio engineer where Vitiello recorded with Canty, contributed what he calls “resonant dustpan”; and none other than Animal Collective’s Geologist, who just happened to be in the studio that day, sits in on hurdy gurdy on “Mrphgtrs1,” the album’s gorgeous, stunningly atmospheric drone closer. “I love these chance encounters,” Vitiello says. “Somebody I admire, a group I admire—that was an unexpected gift.” An unexpected gift is a great way of describing Second as a whole: three veteran musicians venturing outside their usual zones and finding a new collaborative language together. The results can’t be neatly slotted into any given genre; they belong not to any given category, but to the spirit of conversation itself.

The music on Horse Lords’ Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! feels both impossibly detailed and eminently human. The album’s twelve pieces are layered and interwoven, tonally and rhythmically complex––moiré-like patterns of interaction and tessellation that play out for both mind and body, full of sonic warrens with an inescapable groove. An electrifying leap forward for the band’s shared language, Demand to Be Taken to Heaven Alive! aims to liberate the listener into a spiritual, ecstatic, and utopic dimension of sound.

Key importers/translators of Japanese Kankyō Ongaku to the Western world, Visible Cloaks present a fine new bouquet of digital flowers pruned in-the-mix with help from Lifted’s Joe Williams and arranged with input by Félicia Atkinson, Yoshio Ojima, and Satsuki Shibano. Ryan Carlile & Spencer Doran’s Visible Cloaks have been instrumental in bridging the rarified world of ’80s Japanese environmental ambient and its modern offshoots since their self-titled debut of 2015. Their ‘Fairlights, Mallets and Bamboo’ mixtape and original productions inspired by that particular time and space - circa the emergence and application of game-changing musical technology - have been indispensable for discerning diggers and ears. Their first album since 2019, ‘Paradessence’ now marks the duo’s return to a sound they helped bring to wider interest, displaying cross-border/generational binds between experimental scenes in Japan, US, and EU across an intricately crafted and romantic spirited album defined by its technical sorcery and sense of adventure. Benefitting from the energy of their collaborators and time out to sharpen and reassess their sound, ‘Paradessence’ feels like the most fully realised iteration of Visible Cloaks’ illusive world building. 14 succinct pieces open out a fantasy playground where prior spars Yoshio Ojima & Satsuki Shibano chime into the pitch bent, shatterproof contours of ’Shapes’ and again with Félicia Atkinson’s french vox in ‘Thinking’, before Satie-esque piano phrases are refracted into hyaline hyperprisms glistening with Joe Williams touch on ‘Zinna’. The shearing shape of ‘Balloon’ impresses in its hyperreal tactility, and the synthetic wind-swept strings of ‘Swirl’ brings us teasingly close to oneiric dimensions also touched on in ‘Telescoping’, suffused with ultrasonic insect sounds that lend a frisson of waking dream detail for the susceptible.

Music Promenade (1964–1969), 20’29


Electroacoustic Music
World premiere for the Théâtre de la musique, March 16, 1970
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Permanent version for four stand-alone tape recorders. A series of colliding realistic sounds and sonic images. Whilst walking, a man is struck by the violence of his surroundings.
 Nature has disappeared in a whirlwind of warfare and industry in the midst of which he encounters a dying folklore and a lost young girl.

The "Installation" version is used to sonify a place in which walkers are free to choose their musical itinerary.

Unheimlich Schön (1971), 15’40


Musique concrète made in 1971 in the studios of the Südwestfunk in Baden-Baden.
Voice: Ilse Mengel.

“How does a young woman breathe when thinking about something else ?”
To be listened to at a low volume.

Composer and sound artist Robert Aiki Aubrey Lowe announces Manifestations in the Shadow of an Uncertain Land, a new album of voice, modular synthesis, and electroacoustic composition out June 12 on Kou Records, recorded and co-produced by Randall Dunn (Jóhann Jóhannsson, Hiro Kone). Moving fluidly between voice, electronics, and evolving tonal environments, the record unfolds as a meditation on memory, power, and perception through a language that is both cinematic and deeply personal. Known for his work across experimental music, performance, and film—including the acclaimed scores for Candyman, Grasshopper Republic, and vocal work featured in Sicario and The Arrival—Lowe has developed a singular practice in which voice, electronics, and composition function as shifting states within a single sonic field. Manifestations in the Shadow of an Uncertain Land extends this approach, moving between solemn contemplation and propulsive intensity as textures of voice and modular synthesis form a living sonic architecture. The album emerged through an intuitive and aleatoric compositional process shaped by two entangled investigations: lived experiences of bodies and minds navigating the ambient violence of imperial structures, and an exploration of the cross-pollination between sonic and visual storytelling. These currents converge in a work that treats sound as both narrative and atmosphere. Cinematic and literary touchstones that have long shaped Lowe’s imagination surface throughout the work. References to figures such as filmmaker Chris Marker, Franz Kafka’s In the Penal Colony, and Peter Watkins’ dystopian film Punishment Park echo through the album’s titles and conceptual framework—each confronting questions of memory, surveillance, and the machinery of power. These presences operate less as citation than atmosphere, reinforcing the sense of sound unfolding as a narrative environment. The record also marks a renewed engagement with film music as a compositional language. Drawing inspiration from figures such as Bernard Parmegiani and Ennio Morricone—alongside the unsettling orchestral architectures of Krzysztof Penderecki and György Ligeti—Lowe approaches sound as a vehicle for atmosphere, tension, and narrative implication. These influences resonate alongside the work of composer and scholar Olly Wilson, shaping a sonic environment that feels both cinematic and abstract. As Lowe describes the work’s guiding impulse: “The music finds catharsis through contemplation, terror, solemnity and propulsive energy—considering both the shattering of hegemonic structures and the anticipation of a new land.” The album’s visual world includes original artwork by Lowe, accompanied by a portrait by Chicago-based artist Damon Locks. Across its arc, Manifestations in the Shadow of an Uncertain Land inhabits a fragile space between dread and transformation, where composition becomes a way of listening through uncertainty toward what might emerge next.

Official remastered edition of COIL's 1998 drone/ambient masterpiece. “4 Tones to facilitate travel through time.” So begins the listeners’ journey into what has become one of the most treasured and revered pieces of COIL history ever released. Each of the four pieces on Time Machines is named after the chemical compound of the hallucinogenic drug that they were composed for, and the album was meticulously crafted to enable what John Balance referred to as "temporal slips" in time and space, allowing both the artist and audience to figuratively "dissolve time". Inspired by long form ceremonial music of Tibet and other religions, where the intent is to lose oneself in the music – to meditate or achieve a trance state – Time Machines became Drew McDowall, John Balance, and Peter Christopherson’s “electronic punk-primitive” answer to this tribal concept. Starting as a rough demo tape recorded solely by Coil member Drew McDowall, Time Machines started to take full form when McDowall enthusiastically delivered these demo recordings to Balance and Christopherson as sketches for a new Coil project with the primary goal of shifting Coil’s sound further into a more conceptually abstract direction. Largely recorded in 1997 using single takes with minimal post production, these four drones contain every intended fluctuation and tone, along with every glitch of the original – “Artifacts generated by your listening environment are an intrinsic part of the experience.”

The inimitable GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: STATE’S END encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography. Recorded and mixed by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording.

U.X.O. is unexploded ordnance is landmines is cluster bombs. Yanqui is post-colonial imperialism is international police state is multinational corporate oligarchy. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is complicit is guilty is resisting. The new album is just raw, angry, dissonant, epic instrumental rock. Recorded by Steve Albini at Electrical Audio in Chicago and mixed by Howard Bilerman and Godspeed You! Black Emperor at the original Hotel2Tango in Montreal.

Coming in October. A groundbreaking compilation album showcasing Japanese techno-pop for a new era—『TECHNO KAYŌ VOL. 1 - JAPANESE TECHNO POP 1981–1989』—compiled by none other than Dubby, one of Japan’s most renowned record diggers and the mastermind behind the influential record shop ONDAS (a key force in the post-obscure revival alongside Organic Music and Revelation Time), and Antal, head of Rush Hour. From the neo-classical/mutant funk gem “Last Battle” by Kazuo Ōtani (of SHOGUN fame), originally featured on the obscure film soundtrack Koiko no Mainichi, to the balearic house anthem “MicroWave” by Kyōko Koizumi—culled from the now-revered cult LP KOIZUMI IN THE HOUSE—this album masterfully weaves post-balearic and obscure city pop perspectives. A curated deep dive into the rich and underrated legacy of Japanese techno-pop, brought vividly to life in the context of 2025.

"David Jackman released the eight-part "Organum Electronics Subscription Series" via Die Stadt between 2023 and 2025; 'Mausoleum' is his latest work, created to further advance the trajectory established by that series.

While 'Mausoleum' follows the lineage of the "Organum Electronics Subscription Series," long-time listeners will likely be reminded of earlier albums like *HORII* or *RASA* the moment playback begins. The placement of sounds, the handling of deep bass, and the unique sense of time driving the piece all embody the essence of David Jackman—qualities that have remained consistent since his earliest works.

The composition features a tanpura, layers of deep bass drones, church bells and gongs, and high-register organ tones that emerge like shafts of light breaking through the clouds. Each sound is constructed with a precise understanding of exactly when it should ring out and where it should be placed. Although it possesses the meticulous sound design characteristic of his recent output, *Mausoleum* is by no means a mere recreation of the past.

While the work shares a conceptual nature with the paintings of Rothko or the compositions of Morton Feldman, it asserts a powerful presence as a standalone piece rather than functioning merely through repetition or variation. It represents a coexistence of his unchanging artistic identity and a persistent drive to explore new forms with every release.

What makes this album truly special is its exceptional level of refinement. David Jackman’s work is not typically intended as entertainment; however, here, the precisely controlled sense of pacing and structural integrity come together at a high level, resulting in a work that captivates as a piece of pure music.

In this sense, 'Mausoleum' stands as a milestone in David Jackman’s recent body of work. At the same time, subtle signs of a shift toward a slightly different direction appear throughout, hinting at the evolution to come. This work embodies two facets: it is both a culmination of the artistic identity cultivated over time and a starting point for a new evolution..."

Continuing its faithful documentation of the early years of Monolake, Field Records proudly present the first-ever vinyl pressing of seminal 1999 album Interstate. In a kaleidoscopic lattice of micro-rhythms and exquisitely dynamic textural work, Robert Henke and Gerhard Behles fully collaborated for the final time on this record — and created an electronica landmark in the process.

Monolake's evolution from their earlier dub-techno-tinted works saw their exploration of Max/MSP go further out. The duo yielded greater complexity in the behaviour of their sound palette to achieve an organismic quality that remains an enduring influence on so many strands of experimental electronic music today. Interstate is a vivid record that builds up eight different ecosystems of sound and subtly threads elegant grooves through their root structures.

There's a house-like undulation to the low-end driving 'Tangent-I' and 'Tangent-II', but the infinitesimally detailed layers of sound on top swoon from techno synth shimmers to trickling waters, snaking delay trails and pin prick percussion. You can hear the unmistakable, snappy rhythmic thrust of drum & bass driving 'Ginza', but here it's used as an engine for the crispest array of designer percussion and dub-soaked synth chirrups. Across every track, Henke and Behles demonstrate a potent combination, both groovily instinctive and eternally fascinating to try and pick apart.

After Interstate, Behles departed to focus entirely on the development of Ableton Live and Henke steered Monolake towards a leaner — but no less pioneering — sound. Every Monolake record has its own unique context and sound, and the circumstances of Interstate could never be repeated. Capturing the leaps in progress that were being made in digital music production at the end of the millennium, it's an information-rich document of a moment in time that still sounds wildly futuristic 27 years later.

アルバムについて I first encountered Pascal Comelade’s music thirty years ago—and nothing has sounded quite the same since. I was immediately captivated: he is an artist like no other, whose sincere and selfless love of music is always evident, especially in his tender reworkings of other people’s songs. Comelade seems to work like a watchmaker: meticulous, precise, and obsessive—yet always drifting into something dreamlike. His music opens hidden doors, telling strange and beguiling stories filled with obscurity, kindness, and reserved humour. Back then, my fascination was instinctive. Today, with a few more words at my disposal, I look to this exceptional 70-year-old French musician and feel exactly the same pull. Métaphysique Du Hit-Parade is the first vinyl compilation devoted to Pascal Comelade’s favourite cover versions. It spans a forty-year career and traces sixty years of rock and roll history along the way. “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” becomes a soft, soothing lullaby that may well have made the Ramones weep. Then there are his idiosyncratic tributes to Jonathan Richman (“Egyptian Reggae”) and The Kinks (“Sunny Afternoon”), alongside nods to formative heroes such as The Gun Club, Captain Beefheart, and MC5. Two exclusive recordings stand out particularly: Bob Dylan’s “Girl from the North Country” and Nirvana’s “Come As You Are”—a song that shaped my early youth. Both were recorded especially for this release. Jan Lankisch, January 2026