Electronic / Experimental

“Summer Jam” is back! A long-awaited repress of this powerful and joyful tune described as “acid pied piper”, with new artwork and new flip-side. EM Records is very happy to again bring you our & your favorite tune from the artist known as Tapes, here in a 10-inch vinyl/download format that, with its good vibes, positivity and major-key delightfulness, will rescue you from any doldrums you are experiencing, whether personal, societal or cosmic. “Summer Jam” is a solo recording from 2019, but it soars over the worries of the year, any year, with an uplifting rhythmic lilt, a positive tonality, non-annoyingly catchy melodies and some lovely sonic textures. There’s something here for fans of bass music, mid-80s-and-beyond electronic music, and pure toe-tapping good times. There’s a sweet chord progression and background drift in the title track that are particularly pleasing, and the flip-side is a very satisfying “acid” live version with his ally, 7FO, that will lovingly catapult you to another major-chord heaven. The sun can shine anywhere, anywhen, so enjoy!

A beautiful album re-emerges from realms of mystery! The long- awaited vinyl reissue of a Japanese neoclassical/experimental/new age/electronic music classic, originally released in 1978. ”Crystallization” is a work of unwavering perfection, whose sparkle has become even more brilliant over time, in the midst of the new age music revival that has emerged in recent years and the rediscovery of Japanese environmental music so-called Kankyō-ongaku. This was SAB's first and only solo album, recorded at his home and a studio in Osaka by a 19-year-old musical prodigy who, after the album's release, left Japan for the U.S. to follow the teachings of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and has never been heard from again. Two other musicians provide instrumental contributions, but the majority of the album was recorded and produced by SAB himself with multiple recordings & overdubs of various instruments, captured and crystallized on magnetic tape. The arrangements and instrumentation on this album show the influence of Brian Eno and the Obscure label of the time, but SAB's weave of electronics, field recordings and conventional instrumentation simultaneously avoids those influences and sits outside any direct electronic music lineage; it has achieved the status of a new classic for audiences in the 2020s. This reissue of the second release on the legendary Osaka label Vanity Records, run by the eccentric producer Yuzuru Agi, is a 24bit/48kHz A/D transfer from the original 1978 master tapes, high-quality cutting. Comes with Japanese/English liner notes, a lot of rare photos.

The 5-CD set ‘The Way of Raku’ is a grand experiment that shatters conventional musical concepts. Electronic music and soundscapes merge, inviting the listener's consciousness into an infinite universe. With this work, composer Eloa pursues the ‘path of sound’ and opens up new horizons of aural experience. In this work, the composer Eloa combined Western musical traditions with Eastern thought to create a unique musical world.

The Way of Music is not just a musical work, but a meditative experience that takes the listener's consciousness into the abyss. It encourages the flow of time, the expansion of space and a dialogue with the self.

‘The Way of Raku’ eschews any visual elements and appeals solely to the sense of hearing. The listener is immersed in a flood of sound, weaving his or her own story.

Disiniblud, the thrilling new collaborative album project from the composers/producers/multi-instrumentalists Rachika Nayar and Nina Keith. Rachika and Nina meet on complementary but seemingly disparate musical grounds. On her 2022 breakout LP Heaven Come Crashing, Rachika departed from her usual ambient guitar in favor of maximalist synths, sub-bass, and flickers of Amen breaks. Her distinct fusion of post-rock and electronica earned her accolades as Pitchfork's Best New Music, on several best of the year lists (The New York Times, Stereogum, Fader, GQ, Bandcamp, etc), and as the opening act on tour with M83. Nina, meanwhile, is best known for her self-trained approach to composition, as evident on her 2019 debut MARANASATI 19111 and its delicate medley of cello, piano, clarinet, and flute, used to explore a personal history marked by community tragedy and paranormal incidents. On Disiniblud, the two’s self-described “wordless conversation,” orbits such themes as mortality, reinvention through destruction, and sublimating fractured histories into music—all resulting in a work that suggests sweeping transformation can come from embracing old wounds with childlike wonder. Nina envisions this as she and Rachika's younger selves packing a satchel, holding hands, and daring one another to run away into a place of "wounds and wonder," only to discover an unforeseeable magic in an amalgam of post-rock, glitchy indie electronica, ambient, and pop genres in this co-created realm. Disiniblud features guest appearances from Julianna Barwick, Tujiko Noriko, Cassandra Croft, ASPIDISTRAFLY, Katie Dey, June McDoom and Ponytail's Willy Siegel.

No digital version available 

This is the long-awaited, first-ever vinyl release from the Osaka-based band goat. The five tracks are compiled from their debut album “New Games” (2013) and their second album “Rhythm & Sound” (2015). The titles of those releases provide a hint: a sense of joyful play within defined structures, and an emphasis on propulsive pulse and a prioritizing of pure percussive sound over melodic content. With guitar, bass, drums and saxophone, goat create music which is unlike most rock bands, utilizing harmonics outside standard tonality, as well as clever muting, to craft intricate, driven, forceful compositions by Koshiro Hino, aka YPY. goat is currently going through a period of new development and further exploration of intertwining patterns of rhythmic repetition; this compilation is the bedrock. Superbly recorded and mixed by Bunsho Nishikawa, mastered and cut by Rashad Becker, cover art by Tomoo Gokita, this release will be a revelation for your turntable. 

TRACKS: 
A1. New Games 
A2. std 

B1. Solid Eye 
B2. Ghosts Part 1 
B3. On Fire

Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke's fifth collaboration remixes live material from their 2023 European tour. Pareidolia weaves improvised performances from France, Switzerland, Italy & Ireland into a dynamic sound collage, blending computer-generated textures with flute & harmonica. A meditation on perception & randomness.

For this collaborative release, Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke edited and remixed material captured at shows they played during a lovely two week tour through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland in April 2023. Pareidolia shapes an ideal collage from the best resonances and relationships from those nights. A dynamic medley of colour and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air around you, appealing to your suggestibility, wherever you find it - "the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern; to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness."

Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke toured Europe for two weeks in 2023, a wonderful passage through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland. Pareidolia, the duo's fifth collaborative release, is a remix made up of resonances from those shows. The movement of sound in each performance and the relationships of sound between them; a dynamic medley of colour and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air immediately surrounding you. Improvisation is the preferred collaborative mode for Eiko and Jim. They both prepare separately, without discussing anything beforehand. The dialogue in the moment determines the performance; anything that takes place is a possible point of departure, allowing for a unique experience each time they play. These 2023 shows marked the first time Jim and Eiko had played together outside Japan. Perhaps the flow of parts unpacked from their respective computers was inspired by the experiences of the tour: the nature of the assembled audience, the quality of the meal on the day at hand. Additionally, Eiko played flute and they both played a bit of harmonica intermittently throughout the performances. These live acoustic signals were routed back to the hard drives, to provide further material to play with — and as they travelled, recordings of the previous nights' shows were among the materials for the next performance. With all this to play with, there was much fun to be had every night. Pareidolia's final mix is one further rearrangement of the elements — comping — say, a bit of Jim from Paris against Eiko in Dublin for a minute, before bringing them both back into the same room for a spell before another set of interactions comes into play. The choices and edits represented here make yet another unique dialogue, as well as a kind of 'best' version of what they were doing on the tour.

For us at home, the sense of inevitability in the parts as they flow together might suggest structure; happily, this occurs without Eiko and Jim really committing to anything of the sort. Their available sound sources could present as a hot-wired noise onslaught, with all faders up full. Endless possible interpretations to be had on either side of the experience! This is one of several ways that the LP title and sequence of song titles come into play. Listeners hearing something more should have a good look in the mirror and perhaps consider the old saying: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

Following their collaboration on 2021’s Oscar winning Drive My Car, Eiko Ishibashi & filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi up the ante with a deeply inspired synergistic exchange: music for images, visuals for sounds. Eiko’s score initiated the project that has become his celebrated new film (Best Picture – BFI London Film Fest, Asian Film Awards, Silver Lion – Venice Film Fest, Best Score – Asia Film Awards). Every nuance mixed & mastered by Jim O’Rourke.

In Sheep’s Clothing is excited to announce our first archival release: Electric Satie, a one-off conceptual project by acclaimed Japanese electronic music producer Mitsuto Suzuki. Originally released on CD-only in 1998, Gymnopédie ’99 reimagines Erik Satie’s beloved piano compositions in electronic form ranging sonically from downtempo bossa-nova (featuring Brazilian percussionist Marco Bosco and vocalist Silvio Anastacio) to freestyle ambience and chillout room IDM, not far from the music featured on Music from Memory’s Virtual Dreams or Warp Record’s Artificial Intelligence.

A deeply imaginative composer and arranger, Suzuki was inspired early on by Yellow Magic Orchestra to develop his own style of synthesizer music. Suzuki’s first releases include 1994’s Voices Of Planet, an acid techno set under his ARP-2600 moniker, and “Medium Feedback,” which was included on Haruomi Hosono’s 1996 Daisy World Tour compilation album.

On Electric Satie, Suzuki harnesses a unique mix of drum machines, synthesizers (Prophet 5, Memorymoog, PPG Wave, Juno 106, JX-8P, nord modular & nordlead, AKAI & Emu samplers), live percussion, soprano saxophone, piano, and spoken word to craft a lush and vividly futuristic sound world. Compositions like Gymnopédie, Sarabande, Son Binocle, and Musique D'ameublement (Furniture Music) are reimagined with electro-rhythms and inventive digital effects processing, while retaining the sweet melodic simplicity and otherworldly modal harmonies of Satie’s timeless piano works.

FJLP-05 continues with Forest Jams recent trend of Japanese re-issues from the 90’s. This one is E.S. Island’s “Southwind from Hachijo” a deep ambient exploration that is more tribal and spiritual than prior E.S. Island releases. This was recorded on Hachijo Island featuring several traditional instruments with the bulk of the music being played by Eisuke Takahashi (R.I.P.) and Nene Sanae. Limited copies.

At the end of my armA finger, a thread, a vanishing pointWhere nothing can be seen and the air is movingAnnie A, the one-off collaborative project between Félicia Atkinson, Time is Away’s Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, Christina Petrie and Maxine Funke, arrives on A Colourful Storm with a profoundly inquisitive, exploratory composition evoking questions of inconstancy and reconciliation, vastness and finitude, and the sometimes cruel deception of human perception. Who will conduct our dreams if we never wake?Annie A quietly observes and attempts to compartmentalise the answers. A geographically diverse yet determinedly like-minded ensemble, its seeds were sown during a spring night in London, where time on stage was shared and cherished by Atkinson, Time is Away and Petrie after years of mutual appreciation. Atkinson had found solace in Time is Away’s Ballads, Funke’s Seance and particularly the voice of poet and performer Petrie, whose remarkable delivery, first heard on Ballads, here drifts effortlessly from a wide-eyed stream of consciousness to crystalline sensory expression: “The wind is full of creases / It is shaking the weak threads in the cliff / The coast is releasing teeth and nails into the air”. It is the perfect accompaniment to Atkinson’s hushed tones - a sometimes textural, if not spectral, presence - spoken sensitively like a mother to a resting child, reflecting upon the forces of nature, the fragility of ecology and the surrendering of self to air, rain, and earth.Devotees of Atkinson’s practice will recognise the significance of the natural world in her work, her evocative sonic landscapes formed from a toolbox of keyboard, voice and materials collected from everyday life on the dramatic rocky coast of Normandy, as well as field recordings from places far and wide. She breathes life into liminal spaces, the sound of wind, whispers and the distant clatter of rocks conjuring visions of places both beautiful and eerily familiar. Petrie wanders curiously in these places. “First the Crocus” introduces her desirous cries above a wistful electronic signal, the alternation with Atkinson’s whispers suggestive of each other’s distant presence. “The wind that had not touched land, moving with the warm gyre of the sea / Is now touching land / And is beginning to draw the dust”. What is her fate when this wind touches land? The meeting of the other, the crossing of paths. Their voices, layered and dreamlike, drift and entrance each other with gossamer intensity.Interpreting and arranging the field of sonic accoutrements is Time is Away, whose weaving, layering and sensitivity to detail is likened to the meticulous assembly of an Anni Albers textile. The spirit of Albers guides the piece’s entirety, Petrie’s recounting of her loom and thread a symbol of endurance, vitality and seeking wonder in intricacies: “Every thread needs to pass through the eye of a needle before you begin / I keep wondering, I just keep wondering what will happen”. The piece concludes with a timely appearance by Funke, whose meditation on vulnerability confronts and surrenders herself to the enchanting natural world.

Andrea Burelli unveils her latest work, 'Sonic Mystics for Poems (of Life and Death of a Phoenix).' Rooted in her autobiography and metaphorically intertwined with myth, this work opens a portal to a mystical perspective on life, seamlessly weaving into the tangible fabric of our vulnerable human existence.

Structured around Andrea's evocative poetry, the album delves into the profound complexities of being, navigating shadowy depths while basking in the illuminating light of life. Burelli's vocals traverse landscapes lost in the sands of time, capturing the essence of captivating sunsets, the boundless infinity of the sea, and imaginary lands teeming with magic.

The sonic journey unfolds across 15 meticulously crafted pieces, showcasing the virtuosity of esteemed violinist Mari Sawada and cellist Sophie Notte, distinguished members of the renowned Berlin ensemble Solistenensemble Kaleidoskop. Drawing inspiration from a diverse palette, including experimental electronica, classical, and Mediterranean music, the album orchestrates both simple and intricate polyrhythmic structures and harmonies influenced by classical and folk traditions. Burelli's flexible vocal range intertwines seamlessly with the emotive resonance of acoustic strings, the textured tones of FM synthesis, minimal Machinedrum kicks, and deep Moog Synths basslines.

"'Sonic Mystics for Poems' is a work that has taken on profound meaning for me," confides Andrea. “When I think of where this record developed, my memory leads me to my origins, the Mediterranean. Its waters are home to me." The album's thematic richness derives from the Mediterranean diverse cultural influences, from Southern Europe, to Middle East and North Africa. Her texts are filled with colors, an imagery derived from her past practice as a painter, in stark juxtaposition to her black and white analog videos, which portray an intimate world of symbols and poetic associations, leaving open to one’s interpretation the possibilities of their significance.

Central to the album is an imaginary journey of a phoenix, an invisible pilgrim guarding Burelli’s world of dreams, symbolizing rebirth and creative transformation in her own artistic evolution. : “Involuntarily, my poetry becomes symbolist, occasionally revealing confessional undertones." The album encapsulates change, with water as its elemental force, signifying beginnings, endings, and the eternal cycles that arise. Andrea Burelli's 'Sonic Mystics for Poems' beckons listeners to embark on a transformative journey, where the boundaries of genre dissolve, and the magic of music transcends into a realm of timeless resonance.

She concludes with a heartfelt wish echoing through the waves of her evocative melodies, saying “I dedicate this album to my sea. May the peoples of its shores one day coexist in peace."

One of the definitive albums of 2024, edited and remixed by close pals and admirers; Conrad Pack, ML Buch, Blood Orange, Valentina Magaletti, Lolina, Smerz, Slauson Malone, HVAD and more.

The judicious pick of editors render the downbeat charms and quietly reflective, penetrating lyrics of ‘Great Doubt’ into spaces faithful to, adjacent, and far removed from Astrid Sonne’s beloved originals. Variously teasing its baked in ingredients of chamber music, art-pop, and R&B from curious new perspectives, they range, for example, from the plonging industrial dub rework of ‘Boost’ by Conrad Pack, to a standout 12 minute expansion of ‘Light and Heavy’ along moonlit, Autechrian lines by an ever reliable HVAD, whereas avant R&B star Blood Orange emphasises the breezy soul of ‘Give My All’ is a bright, lustrous overhaul refreshed with tumescent art-pop harmonies, and ML Buch puckers ‘Overture’ to a sparkling whorl that highlights her collaborator’s instrumental tekkerz.

Valentina Magaletti (whose work rate, at this point, makes us wonder if she’s a tulpa) can be counted on for a dusted downbeat take on ‘Everything is Unreal’, and Lolina likewise reliably enhances the oddness of ‘Almost’ in her elusive way, whilst the likes of pop duo Smerz and Slauson Malone amplify Sonne’s infectiouus hooks with a dance-pop appeal.

With a clutch of EPs under his belt spanning a wealth of pallets, Henzo narrows the focus on his debut studio album “The Poems We Write For Ourselves” - a culmination of persistent iterations over several years, distilling his sonic milieu into something that feels decidedly his own. The album proper is coupled with a debut live performance which reinterprets the tracks and splices them with omitted material from the time of writing - recorded in full in the intimate confines of Manchester’s growingly infamous Stage and Radio basement. Honing his craft in the shadows of Lancashire, Poems is an expansive reflection of the producer’s time spent away committing to the scope of an LP.

A thread of stratified sound design weaves throughout the record, but with a discerning dancefloor proclivity mostly prevalent. Cold opener “Noggin” riffs on noughties Raster-Noton a la Byetone rebuilt with fractal tear out DnB, with closer “Indulgence” following suit on a puckered plod of Dub Techno ambience. More club-focussed moments come in the form of “Rustica Slump” and “Blue Will...”, the former’s sickly sweet vocals resolved by the latter’s stoic UKG/Techno rudeness. “A Bouquet of Clumsy Words” channels mechanical shuffle with a stripped back 2/4 pulse whilst maintaining a firmly FWD>>energy alongside “Plant Your Roots In Me” on a similar vector - swapping out a straight kick pattern for a bludgeoning 808 assault on an early Hessle-indebted tip.

“Take Stock, Touch Grass” harks to golden era ClekClekBoom and Night Slugs with a bare bones kick and vocal motif, updating the formula with a tweaking lead line that places it firmly in the contemporary space. “Swell:Shrink” sings from the same sheet with a shrieking, space age wobble doing the heavy lifting, knocking the pace back to a shoulder-lean swagger on a slow fast conundrum Henzo has shown his flair for on previous releases.

The outliers to Henzo’s more known approach, “Worm Grunting” with Belfast’s Emby, an amalgamation of halfest time DnB and illest mannered Road Rap, plus “The Rest Is The Mess You Leave”, a starkly anti-retro Ghettotek endeavour, give grounds to the LP. Clearly rooted in the comfortable universe of the dancefloor, these tracks expand the producer’s realm into loftier heights as he graduates into long play land.

We are delighted to present the new 12" maxi on Dubatriation records, two extended tracks for complete immersion ! This opus defines the encounter of Panda Dub and Adi Shankara, two artists already signed to the label.

Like buried treasures, these tracks from a joint studio session have been unearthed and reworked for this release.

Infused with the orientalist flavours of French dub, these two tracks elevate the genre with their neat sound design. Panda Dub's ethnic samples and catchy melodies blend with Adi Shankara's rough and hypnotic textures.

Following the label's signature style, this record offers a deep and solemn musical experience. Embark on an introspective journey without further ado !

Al Wootton samples a museum-worthy haul of vintage drum machines on this sick Library Record for his Trule label - big one for anyone into his work in Holy Tongue, or curios from Tolerance, Freedom To Spend, R.N.A. Organism. Tip!

Wootton was invited to Melbourne's Electronic Sound Studio where he got to work sampling their collection of rare vintage drum machines. And it's those boxes that laid the groundwork to 'Rhythm Archives', the prolific producer's most satisfying full-length to date. Wootton's been at this long enough to realise that restraint is the key, and playing with Holy Tongue has no doubt sharpened his skills. There's not much going on here, but that's what makes it so enticing - Wootton lets the machines set the pace for each track, and adds only the sparsest additional instrumentation for colour. On 'March', the plasticky beatbox pattern is fascinating because it's so weedy compared to the sounds of more modern machines - the kicks are like fingers on wet cardboard, and Wootton shadows them with bone-rattling rim shots, filling in the silence with cinematic piano twangs, white noise and a snake-charming flute.

In the wrong hands, this material would creep towards cringe - there's more than enough artists making canned library music or hauntological slop. But Wootton vaults over the pitfalls, staying on the right side of kitsch. The dissociated voices on 'Slow Rock' that shiver next to his new wave-patented Roland CR-78 take us to the seedy world of 'Liquid Sky', not the postmodern sampledelia that followed, and the footwork-inspired 150bpm whirr of 'Shuffle' is sneakily anachronistic, only echoing the Chicago genre's polyrhythmic patterns, not repeating them to the letter. Wootton does a good job staying away from very obvious genre signifiers; there's the character of each machine that's present, of course, but he sounds like he's trying to subvert the application, wondering how these decaying rhythms might react to his various processes.

If there's any real reverence here, it's for dub, and the genre's influence on everything that followed: post-punk, bleep techno, industrial music, whatever - Wootton sounds right at home threading tape echo trails thru his stuttering cycles. It's a love letter to the drum machine, and it doesn't lag for a moment.

ZamZam 95 is a link with the enigmatic French producer Hiss Is Bliss. We’ve been fans since the very first drop on their 777Hz label and these two sides drive straight to the heart of the dub techno galaxy. Little is known about Hiss Is Bliss beyond the fact that they hail from France, are steeped in esotericism, and create tunes as masterfully grounded in roots reggae as they are in techno and related strands of electronic music. Their releases are utterly free of hype, beautifully crafted 10” vinyl plates that let the singers and tracks speak for themselves. At the risk of being cheeky, “Nope” is absolute dub techno bliss. The 808 kick propels the track relentlessly forward, saturated washes of color streak the night sky, while syncopated hi hats and warm, soulful chords bring life- dare we say funk- to a style too often stiff and clinical, too in thrall to the past to truly step forward. Matching Hiss is Bliss in mystery, Ras Lys’ vocal brings a Dread perspective on music and the sometimes shady business of music, a grounded contrast to the deep inner space explored by the tune itself. The B-side version “Abbadia” splits musical atoms through the desk, focusing squarely on the stripped 4/4 elements and gloriously distorted pads that echo and cycle like tides in a darkly shimmering sea.

The album includes the excellent track "Rasta Forever," which explodes with hypnotic and blissful dub techno sounds accompanied by powerful narration by Horace Andy.

On his latest full-length, Low End Activist swerves towards weightless grime and suspended hardcore miniatures to tell a very personal story. The UK-rooted producer continues his habit of zeroing in on a distinct approach for each release, leaving a logical breadcrumb trail of soundsystem science in his wake as he channels decades of bass absorption into 14 atmospheric cuts that prize patience and precision over obvious club functionality. Municipal Dreams plays out as a semi-autobiographical tour through the Blackbird Leys estate that the Activist grew up on. It’s a lived reflection on inequality and the ripple effect it has in working class communities, using the sonic palette to set the mood and scattering pointed samples throughout to spell out the story. In sampling the exhaust of a stolen Subaru Impreza, ‘TWOC’ looks back to the recreational car theft which was standard entertainment for the kids in his community. There’s an underlying idea that this ‘council estate sport’ wouldn’t have been so prevalent if there were public services and opportunities presented to the scores of disaffected youth looking for somewhere to direct their energy and frustration. In ‘Just A Number (Institutionalised)’ LEA alludes to the shattered juvenile detention system, growing up seeing friends and family members locked up at ease with little to no support on being released back into society, just meant that the same cycles of behaviour would play out over and over.

‘Violence’ samples from a short film shot by the drama division of the Blackbird Leys Youth Club to evoke the physical threat which formed a background hum to life on the estate. The industrial mechanics of the local car factory, which served an integral role as a workplace for many in the community, gets sampled in ‘They Only Come Out At Night’ while the ‘Everyone I look up to are either junkies or criminals’ sample in ‘Broke’ looks to a lack of positive role models. Municipal Dreams isn’t a one-note indictment of life on the estate, ‘Innocence’ captures the simplicity of a child at birth before their environment has time to shape them. The Hope interludes cut through the grim honesty of the longer tracks while a subtle thread of wry humour finds its way into some of the talking heads cutting through the signature LEA murk. But honesty is the operative word here, and the message feels all the more meaningful at a time when the UK’s social divisions are laid bare in the wake of a devastating stretch of austerity. Returning to Blackbird Leys to shoot images for the photo-zine and album cover, the Activist found the local community centre being demolished. The local pub stands derelict, its faded Welcome sign a grimly ironic portent of the options facing children of the estate in the wider world. Funnelling his memories, hopes and fears into a singular twist on the bass weight tradition, LEA captures evocative scenes that land somewhere between kitchen sink realism and rave futurism.

Some marriages are made in heaven and this is definitely one of them. Two of the great ambient masters of recent times concoct a stunning EP full of spine-tinglingly beautiful moments, subtle rhythms and soul-soothing tones. Echoes of Ry Cooder and Eric Satie mingle with found-sounds and warm electronics to create a landmark of ambient exotica.

Jim Coles’s fifth instalment of his best-selling ‘Acid Dub Studies’ series arrives in the form of the third set of original works exploring the infectious sound of the 303 bass-line in a dubwise setting. The album takes in traditional dub mixing approaches in a digital and roots/digi-dub style whilst also making space for more electronic and ambient processes to close the project.

‘Acid Dub Studies III’ arrives after 2 years of touring the material in a live setting at festivals and clubs including CTM at Berghain, Les Nuits Sonores, and Andrew Weatherall's Convenanza festival and is the culmination of some 5 years of experimenting with a style that has been met with critical acclaim, reaching far and wide into many a DJ’s box having been noted by some as a truly ground-breaking approach to working with the 303.

*300 copies limited edition* Drawing from field recordings collected during a trip to Japan, boring tables saturates sonic vignettes in sentimental key, replaying familiar traces of lived experience into something more abstract. The seven tracks on mathematical model 0010, Luca Quartarone's debut album, trail through evolving tonal expanses that envelop the environment in a perpetually expanding haze of serenity. Though sonic fragments hail from the everyday, the compositions themselves inevitably glide towards something much larger—just like a passing instant can extend into an ongoing remembrance.

The title of the album is inspired by a piece of land art by Hiroshi Sugimoto, which Luca encountered during a visit to the Enoura Observatory at the Odawara Art Foundation. The work features a metallic plane that embodies the geometry of a hyperbolic surface with constant negative curvature, continuously converging toward a 5mm gauge without ever meeting. Much like the geometry of this piece suggests a mathematical infinity, the album's sonic cartography evokes the feeling of intimate gestures within infinite expanses.

RIYL: The Focus Group, AFX, Mica Levi, Coil

Collaged from juddery electroacoustic rhythms, analog synth squelches, environmental recordings, text-to-speech poems and what Akira Umeda calls “ghost sounds”, ‘Clube da Mariposa Mórbida’ is a transcultural voyage into pure sonic fantasy. The São Paulo-based DIY maverick and former historian trades impressions and delusions with Nyege regular Metal Preyers, aka Jesse Hackett, imagining gory VR avatars, lovestruck arachnids, supermassive black holes and the titular morbid moth club, absurd iconography that stains their warped, mutable soundscapes. Hackett initially contacted Umeda after hearing last year’s sprawling ‘Gueixa’, an hour-long postmodern mixtape made from 202 fragments of the artist’s seemingly bottomless library of experiments. Spotting a similarity in the way they were both driven by collage and curation, Hackett embarked on four whirlwind months of exchange, sending Umeda audio snippets and concepts that the Brazilian eccentric would decode with Google translate. Umeda’s contribution was more uncanny; listening to the sketches on repeat until the sounds created “evasive impressions” in his mind, he used analog instruments and text-to-speech software to recreate these phantom occurrences. “Specters are never clear and always shifting, so the experience of synthesizing them is similar to clay modeling,” he explains. “To record these synthetic ghost sounds is like firing ceramic pots.”

And the hybrid nature of their collaboration doesn’t begin and end there. Both Hackett and Umeda work within visual art: Umeda has made films, ceramics and illustrations, while Hackett works on jewelry and sculpture with his father Bill, the proto-punk jeweler best known for creating Keith Richards’ iconic skull ring. Two of Bill’s artworks are featured on the album art and shadow the record’s themes, both carved in wood that’s stained with a shellac dye made from old 78rpm records. Umeda and Hackett’s music is similarly recycled, as if they’re dousing fresh art with long forgotten colors. On the opening track ‘One Eyed Weasel’, decelerated Brazilian funk syncopations are twisted with weightless voices, orchestral flourishes and canned screams before being lowered into eerie beds of unplaceable white noise. Even at the best of times, it’s difficult to pry apart what’s real and what’s synthesized; cyborg voices in different languages stutter around tangled, colorful musical threads: tablas, overdriven psych guitars, cryptic santur chimes and microtonal reed echoes. But Umeda and Hackett’s music isn’t an accompaniment to some post-Hassell Fourth World concept, it’s a projection into parallel future where our patchwork of cultures, digital and otherwise, has been reduced to hazy memories.

On ‘Boi de Piranha’, defective temple bells punctuate blown-out spiraling beats and unsettling backmasked chatter, and ruffled, featherlight rhythms and mbira-like repeating sequences quiver through sleazy 4/4 architectures on ‘Cut Throat Mickey’. Unfolding like a hypnagogic soundtrack to an unwritten queer, post-apocalyptic noir, ‘Clube da Mariposa Mórbida’ retches and heaves in the glamor of decay; slithering electro-plated music box earworms burrow into ‘Hora Do Slime’, while on ‘Olhos De Facão’ humid synth sequences chew on bone-rattling acoustic percussion and dissociated traces of humanity. It’s Hackett’s most bizarre offering yet, a few paces beyond ‘Shadow Swamps’ murking shadows towards Umeda’s kaleidoscopic concrète jungle.

Anderson do Paraíso is one of the most influential and seminal DJs and producers behind the downtempo and dark baile funk sound of the city of Belo Horizonte. At 27 years old, the artist gained notoriety with songs that draw an unusual ghostly atmosphere full of suspense and mystery to the frantic whirl of the famous Brazilian beat.

Anderson started producing music in his bedroom in 2012, taking the Tamborzão funk from Rio de Janeiro as a reference. But his sound went through a profound transformation between 2015 and 2016 when he started attending Baile do Serrão, the street party in Aglomerado da Serra—the largest favela in Belo Horizonte and the second-largest group of favelas in Latin America.

When Anderson started going to Baile da Serra, the funk parties in Belo Horizonte were also experiencing a remaking in their geography and sound. The city has a funk scene whose history goes back to the 1980s. However, until the 2000s, the main bailes took place in closed spaces, on sports club courts, like Baile da Vilarinho. The music back then was closer to hip hop, with MCs singing verses about the hard times in the hood, violence, crime, hope, and faith in better days ahead.

However, in the mid-2010s, the bailes were popping up in the streets of favelas. And it was there that a completely new musicality emerged. The MCs focused on verses about sex, drugs, and having fun, while the beatmakers began to invest in more minimalist and ambient arrangements, with slow pace and full of reverb, highlighting beats with high frequencies, as heard in "Sadomasoquista" and "Duvida Não Letícia". This is the sound of Funk BH (or Funk Mineiro), a scene that has been influencing musicians on a national scale as Belo Horizonte DJs and MCs amass hits on streaming charts and go viral on TikTok.

Anderson do Paraíso— o "queridão", the "dearest," as he is also known— is one of the sound architects of this music. His signature is the contrast of electronic elements (such as the robotic sounds of "Todas Elas ao Mesmo Tempo" and the trap hi-hats in "Pincelada de Angolano") with classical music instruments, such as the piano in "Se Faz de Santinha," the violins in "Aula de Putaria," the soprano backing vocals in "Quarentena Cheia de Ódio" and the timpani used as snare in "Blogueira Que Virou Puta". "União dos Rlk" is a collab with two other producers, Ph da Serra and Vitin do PC, that showcases a intricate sound craft and a futurist vision of the genre in mixing different types of baile funk beats in a single track.

Brazilian funk became internationally known for its chaotic energy. However, Anderson's music has an unorthodox and innovative approach that strips down its elements for a radical minimal sound, underlining silence to build a cinematic suspense. "Blogueira Que Virou Puta" showcases the whispery voice of MC Paulin do G floating in a refined and sparse structure oscillating between sensuality and terror, while the haunted bells of "Chama as Sua Colegas' and the choir of "Ultimo Medo do Ano" conjures an haunted aura of baile funk. And yet people create different ways to dance to this sound, stretching the boundaries of the dancefloor.

Hakuna Kulala debut from Kampala’s Catu Diosis — 7 tracks of mutant afrohouse, slanted Batida, and slow-burn Kuduro pressure. Deeply rhythmic, fiercely physical, and thrillingly unplaceable.

Stepping out from her work as a choreographer, MC, and co-conspirator with Rian Treanor, Catu Diosis delivers a remarkable first statement in Anyim — a body-moving, genre-splintering set that folds East African club DNA into warped afrohouse, achingly reduced Batida, and kinetic vocal meditations.

Opener “Chaa” sets the tone with a stunning post-rock/gqom splicer featuring Uganda peer R3ign Drops — all stuttering kicks and scorched atmosphere. From there, it gets deeper and stranger. “Legi” and the title track “Anyim” push into stripped rhythm experiments: skeletal percussive grids punctuated by breathy, mantra-like vocals, evoking a kind of ceremonial minimalism.

Across the record, Catu Diosis keeps things raw but fluid, staying close to the body and the floor. The beats swing but never settle, rooted in Kuduro’s momentum but constantly fracturing into unexpected pockets. It’s music as movement, shaped by a dancer’s ear for timing and a producer’s instinct for subversion.

One for the heads and the dancers alike. RIYL: Nazar, Nídia, Rian Treanor, Nkisi, Chino Amobi, Slikback.