Electronic / Experimental

Shinichi Atobe has managed to stay off the grid since he made an appearance on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction imprint back in 2001. He delivered the second-to-last 12" on the label and then disappeared without a trace, leaving behind a solitary record that's been selling for crazy money and a trail of speculation that has led some people to wonder whether the project was in fact the work of someone on the Basic Channel payroll. That killer Chain Reaction 12" has also been a longtime favorite of Demdike Stare, who have been trying to follow the trail and make contact with Atobe for some time, whoever he turned out to be. A lead from the Basic Channel office turned up an address in Japan and -- unbelievably -- an album full of archival and new material. Demdike painstakingly assembled and compiled the material for this debut album. And what a weird and brilliant album it is -- deploying a slow-churn opener that sounds like a syrupy Actress track, before working through a brilliantly sharp and tactile nine-minute piano house roller that sounds like DJ Sprinkles, then diving headlong into a heady, Vainqueur-inspired drone-world. It's a confounding album, full of odd little signatures that give the whole thing a timeless feeling completely detached from the zeitgeist, like a sound bubble from another era. This is only the second album release on Demdike Stare's DDS imprint, following the release of Nate Young's Regression Vol. 3 (Other Days) (DDS 007LP) in 2013. Who knows what they might turn up next? Mastered by Matt Colton at Alchemy.

From The Heart, It's A Start, A Work Of Art has its origins in early 2000, before Chain Reaction released the legendary Ship-Scope 12" (later released by Demdike Stare in 2015, DDS 014EP). Three of the tracks here are taken from an acetate cut at Dubplates & Mastering at that time, but which wouldn't see the light of day until now, including another batch of tracks taken from original masters. Only five copies of that acetate were ever made, so this is the first time any of these tracks are available for public consumption, and they rank among the finest and most distinctive in either the Chain Reaction or Shinichi Atobe's vaults. The material is effectively some of the Japanese producer's earliest work, showcasing the sort of tender, feminine pressure that would bubble up on the Ship-Scope EP and later be revealed in his new productions, Butterfly Effect (DDS 010CD) and World yet, for many reasons, they would lay sunk in his archive for the next 17 years. The tracks taken from that acetate are labeled "First Plate 1-3" and really are quite remarkable, having taken on so much character and added weight over the years that the incidental crackle of surface noise imbues proceedings with an added dimension that's hard to fathom. It basically sounds like a lost transmission making its way from Paul-Lincke-Ufer at the turn of the millennium to a new, completely changed world all these years later. The patina of crackle lends a mist-on-bare skin feeling akin to summer garden parties at Berghain in the stepping "First Plate 1", and gives a foggier sort of depth perception to the hydraulic, Maurizian heft of "First Plate 2", but it's the submerged euphoria of "First Plate 3" that hits the hardest; a heady, bittersweet reminder of days gone by. The other four tracks are crisply transferred from master tapes, relinquishing a sublime, impossible to categorize house variant that recalls everything from DJ Sprinkles to Ron Trent, yet with that weird, timeless production tick that by now has become something of a signature for this most distinctive and hard to categorize producer. Buoyant dub house and techno with lush, gaseous synths and keys. Remastered by Matt Colton from original tapes and worn actetates -- grit included; Limited copies.

‘Quintela’, the debut album by Carme López, a performer, teacher and researcher of traditional oral music from Galicia, is a new experimental work for Galician bagpipe. Influenced by the approach of composers like Éliane Radigue or Pauline Oliveros, the Spanish composer creates slowly modulating sound environments, and stretches the sonic the possibilities of the bagpipe to its absolute limit. ‘Quintela’ is structured in four movements, plus a prologue and an epilogue, which serve as a link to the contemporary language of the instrument.

The bagpipe is strongly tied to traditional musics; its use in different genres and musical contexts is extremely limited and unimaginative. ‘Quintela’ brings it to a wholly unknown field, decontextualising the bagpipe in order to elevate a personal approach, and leaving behind its male-dominated past (in which it relates to ideas of prestige, dominance or carries even sexual connotations). López expertly demonstrates its grandeur and breadth; the music on ‘Quintela’ ranges from barely audible sounds of air passing through the hide bag through rhythmical use of its reeds to all-encompassing drones with complex harmonic structures and vibrant overtones.

The narrative arc focuses on the composer’s past, its people and places, and could be conceived as a journey in and of itself. A homage to those in our memories, but also a step into the unknown, ‘Quintela’ is an ambitious, graceful and captivating debut.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 340px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1107883793/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://carmelopez.bandcamp.com/album/quintela">Quintela by Carme López</a></iframe>

This film was produced for the feature film “Untamagiru” (1989, distributed by Parco) by Takamine Go, a film director from Ishigaki Island, Okinawa. The film expresses a warm and weary atmosphere and an open-minded spirit in a way that dares to stray from the melodies of traditional Ryukyuan folk songs. It is a work that could be described as strangely ambient music, depicting an imaginary Okinawa filled with aesthetic appeal. The piano version of the film's theme song “Untama Giru” (“Piano Music” 1999), “Mekaru's Room” and “Machibui Vortex” from the film “Dreamy Ryukyu: Vine Henry” directed by Tsuyoshi Takamine were added as new bonus tracks for this release. The album includes three additional bonus tracks.

HAPPY's "Ancient Moods Mahollova Mind" is their third full-length album in five years, and most of the songs were recorded in the members' home studio, which was built up during the pandemic disaster. As the album title suggests, the theme of the album is an ancient fascination and an exploration of the mind, and it has a new sound with an exotic atmosphere, as is typical of HAPPY's exploration of music that has never been heard before. In addition to their usual instruments, the members themselves play a variety of instruments such as the Taishogoto, lyre harp, bansuri, conga, and djembe, expanding their range of expression while maintaining the catchy approach of their previous works. Mastering was done by Timothy Stollenwerk, who has worked with Wooden Shjips and Drugdealer, and the depth and dimension of the sound has been increase.

Agartha, Personal Meditation Music is a 7 CD boxed set, originally released on cassette in 1986, at the height of New Age, as an aid for meditation and alignment. Bringing to mind 20th century composers like Eliane Radigue, La Monte Young or even Brian Eno's Shutov Assembly, the time-stopping, enveloping, electronic music contained in this series sounds eerily modern, mysterious and moving. Characterized by deep analog drones, rising overtones, floating frequencies surfing on sine-waves and intervals with mystic modulation, this is truly moving, vibrational music.

In Agartha, the individual notes of each Harmonic Triad proceed in a fashion that is neither improvisational nor chance-based, nor is it generative. Instead the music flows outward as if being transmitted— or channeled — from a place outside human consciousness. There is a profound sense of cosmic depth expanding ever outward as the music fills the listener with waves of emotion, and a palpable somatic response is felt, although there are subtle differences with eachunique Triad.

Each disc is individually packaged in original replica sleeves and housed in a heavy duty cardboard clamshell box. Digitized and remastered by Jessica Thompson. Liner notes include extensive instructions for use from the original text and an essay by library music scholar David Hollander.

The original edition of Agartha, Personal Meditation Music, featured one track 30 minute track per tape repeated on both sides. Subsequent editions had unique Side B tracks on all but two of the 7 volumes. We have included all tracks in this boxed set.

"if you liked Light In The Attic’s crucial box set I Am The Center, do not sleep on this." Quietus <iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1116134619/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://imprec.bandcamp.com/album/agartha-personal-meditation-music-1985-7-cd-box">Agartha: Personal Meditation Music (1985) 7 CD Box by Meredith Young-Sowers</a></iframe>

A high-octane tour-de-force widely considered in Japan to be one of the all-time greatest punk records, 1981's Don’t Eat Food! remains shockingly unknown to the rest of the world. Led by literate but unhinged Machida Machizo, a magnetic stage presence who sang in a thick Osaka dialect that sounded like nothing else at the time, INU came from the same scene as Aunt Sally and took Japan by storm in the late '70s with their powerful live show. Their membership changed frequently but INU's final lineup -- the group that recorded Don’t Eat Food! -- was sharp as a knife, and the band's airtight debut still wows forty-plus years later. Excerpted from Syojiro Ishibashi's essay on INU: Unlike Tokyo — Japan’s economic and cultural center, where everything is consumed in a fashionable way, and even the tiniest subculture can turn a profit — Kansai’s cities (Osaka, Kyoto, and Kobe) will forever live in the capital’s shadow. But this underdog dynamic informs the region’s rich, unique culture. Kansai folk are known for resenting Tokyo, but also for plainly and incisively sussing out the true nature of things with their singular aesthetic sensibilities and deeply ironic, humorous dispositions. It was in one of these “secondary” cities, Osaka, that Kou Machida (then known as Machizo Machida) formed INU (Japanese for “dog”) in 1979. INU’s original lineup was Machida (vocals), Naoto Hayashi (guitar), Takeshi Nishimori (drums), and Keisuke “Osho” Tanaka (bass). They were all 17 to 18 years old at the time. In the late ’70s, outdated music styles — blues covers sung in broken English and (mostly) original, acoustic folk tunes sung in Japanese — were all the rage in Kansai. There was a small group of bands in the area who’d been inspired by the global punk/new wave movement, but few could draw audiences larger than 20 to 30 people. They also didn’t have many places to play — few clubs welcomed their sort of music — so they frequently booked their own gigs on university campuses, which tended to be comparatively laid-back spaces. Around the same time, a dozen or so Tokyo bands — Friction, Lizard, Mirrors, Mr. Kite, S-Ken, etc. — began calling themselves Tokyo Rockers. Inspired by international punk/new wave, they got a lot of attention in Japan for championing a new style of music. Young Kansai musicians watched this movement with keen interest, but some saw Tokyo Rockers (with a couple of notable exceptions, like Friction) as simply more of the same old-fashioned rock ’n’ roll, and openly shunned them. These young musicians were determined to create a new type of music unlike anything that had come before. In ’78, bands from the Tokyo Rockers scene shared a bill with a handful of young Kansai groups at Kyoto University's Seibu Koudo Hall (incidentally, home to one of Japan’s few squats at the time). Later writing in his Outsider fanzine, a pre-INU Hayashi strongly criticized the Kansai bands on the lineup (SS, etc.) for being punk “in style only.” But Hayashi also wrote in Outsider that he wanted to “hear local bands channel the sound of the city,” and it was this desire that led him to support Kansai bands. As if in response to Hayashi’s entreaties and criticisms, Osaka’s INU (now including Hayashi) and Alcohol 42%, Kobe’s Aunt Sally (featuring Phew on vocals), and Kyoto’s SS and Ultra Bidé (featuring Hijokaidan’s Jojo Hiroshige on bass) — all creative young Kansai bands who’d been influenced by the worldwide punk/new wave movement — joined forces. Picking up on the sincerity behind Hayashi’s words, these bands welcomed the criticism. At the time, no one else took young bands seriously enough to offer a thoughtful analysis, and his earnest, critical voice was valuable to the scene. Dubbed the “Kansai No Wave” tour by Hayashi, these five bands performed around Tokyo in ’79 (playing five shows at four venues), and music fans throughout the country were soon taking note of the new Kansai scene and the creative groups from the region. INU made a particularly strong impression, not only for its aggressive stage show and witty, literate lyrics, but also for Machida’s intense personality. His provocative behavior toward audiences often got him into trouble, but his skirmishes only elevated the band’s profile. In March ’79, after the Tokyo tour, Hayashi left the band and was replaced by Keita Koma. With Koma in the group, INU pivoted away from the simplistic sound of their early years and became a bit more pop. In May of that same year, Naruko Nishikawa (bass) and Hiroshi Kitagawa (drums) joined the group, and in August, Masahiro Kitada replaced Koma on guitar. Shinichi Higashiura then replaced Kitagawa on drums. These musicians made up the final INU lineup — the same one that would record Don't Eat Food! In ’81, the major label Tokuma Japan released the band’s debut album, Don't Eat Food! Machida’s witty lyrics, delivered in the unique rhythm of the Kansai dialect, were already literate enough to foretell his future receipt of Japan’s top literary award, the Akutagawa Prize, in 2000. The title track actually dated to the Kusareomeko era of the group. Machida was 16 years old when he composed the lyrics to this song. INU rarely played outside of Tokyo or Kansai, so even though they quickly earned a reputation as an incredible live band, very few people had actually heard them. With the release of this album, however, both INU and Machida became quite well known throughout Japan. Three months after the release of Don't Eat Food!, INU disbanded. With its impactful cover art, memorable tunes, tight performances and provocative vocals, INU’s Don't Eat Food! is a legendary work, and one of the country’s most celebrated ‘80s punk albums. Highly influential even today, its presence continues to be felt well beyond the punk sphere. -Syojiro Ishibashi (F.M.N. Sound Factory)

One of truly iconic figures in the Japanese alternative rock scene ever! Originally released in 1973 this was Magical Power Maco’s highly visionary debut album. An eccentric mix of psyche, folk, kraut elements wisely filtered with Oriental sensibility.

THE LAMPINAK came first out in 1982 on Merzbow's own label ZSF Produkt in a small edition. Since than, this tape was never re-released in its entirety (a couple of tracks are available only on the "Merzbox") and is is much sought after. Finally OEC is re-releasing such tape in 149 hand-numbered copies. Special Yellow Cassette shell with full print / Special Yellow Cover Handanumbered eidition of 149 copies. All sounds by Masami Akita using metals, loops, voice, percussions, flute, chains, cymbals, effects, ritual orchestrations and chants. Recorded and mixed at ZSF Produkt - August / September 1985 Remastered at Munemihouse June 2019.

Merzbow (Masami Akita), the seminal Japanese noise project since 1979, remains one of the most influential and prolific figures in modern electronic composition. Originally a limited CD-only release on Waystyx in 2005, ‘Scene’ is now available on vinyl for the first time with remastering by Masami Akita and an exclusive bonus track from the original recording session. Scene is revered by fans as one of Merzbow’s best surrealist works from the mid-2000s ‘laptop era’. The intro track, Part 1, immediately grabs listeners with hysteric carnival music. The ascending parts then warp into hallucinatory passages with rhythmic drum patterns, metalworks, echoing bird calls, and eerie wind chimes tinkling atonally in the gossamer moon. Ultimately, Scene is a vital part of Merzbow’s ever-evolving experimentations with analog and digital manipulations. Limited to 300 copies, the long unavailable Scene is officially back in our hands.

Released in March 2004, the genius Squarepusher's masterpiece “Ultravisitor” is not only one of the most popular releases in his illustrious discography, but also a milestone masterpiece that has defined his reputation. From the anthemic title track to the classic “Iambic 9 Poetry,” a fan favorite since its release, to the furious electronica of “Steinbolt” to the blissfully sunny melodies of “Tommib Help Buss,” the blend of studio and live recordings This album, a blend of studio and live recordings, is a perfect example of the diversity of music that Tom Jenkinson, aka Square Pusher, creates.

All tracks remastered from the original tapes
Black Ultravisitor 2LP in 5mm wide spine sleeve, printed inner sleeves
Bonus Venus No.17 Maximised 1LP in square die-cut sleeve, poly-lined inner
16 page 12" x 12" booklet
All housed in printed O-card outer sleeve

Colin Self travels to and from one realm to another on ∞ levity for the nameless ghost in crisis, the Berlin and New York-based artist’s third album, conjuring uncanny voices through their own singular singing style. Material and immaterial, fixities and fluidities, bodies and souls: such distinctions matter little in the looping, ever-crossing world of r∞L4nGc, where radiant, limitless beauty and boundless, inescapable terror are one and the same.

After critically acclaimed reissues of their mid-90s material, Seefeel return with their first new music since 2011.

Everything Squared is a one-off 6-track mini-album which presents a contemporary evolution of their trademark sound. Mainly composed and performed by the core duo of Mark Clifford and Sarah Peacock, with bass on two tracks from Shigeru Ishihara.

Mastered by Berlin-based engineer Stefan Betke aka Pole at Scape Mastering, and housed in a sleeve designed by Ian Anderson at The Designers Republic.

Barely known to the international public, the Electone pioneer and virtuoso Shigeo Sekito is the man behind four LP volumes titled “Special Sound Series” published by Nippon Columbia between 1975 and 1977. One of his masterpieces from “Vol. 2” titled “The Word II” gained great popularity after inspiring Mac DeMarco to cover it creating one of his most acclaimed tracks to date, an unforgettable tribute to Sekito’s blissful compositions. Quavo feat. Travis Scott, Eevee and others followed sampling this track to create new tunes. During the past years youtube’s music recommendation algorithm also did its part popularizing this track and the whole vol.2 LP online as well as creating an unsatisfiable demand for the highly sought-after 12” which hadn’t been reissued to date. Shigeo Sekito studied piano as a child and aspired to become a composer, studying composition at Osaka Kyouiku University. He was later attracted to a new Yamaha instrument called “the Electone”, and won the first prize at the National Electone Competition in 1967. He was one of the leading figures in the world of the Electone, while teaching younger students. He also performed and composed music on the piano under the name of Ken Akishino (秋篠健) and published some of his works on his YouTube channel before passing away in 2021. Originally released in 1975, Shigeo Sekito’s “Special Sound Series Vol. 2” is one of the best examples of his Electone works as a composer and pioneer. As a Malaysian newspaper described in a 1991 article: “His fresh, energetic, rhythmic and sometimes humorous style of playing is attracting a growing number of fans and enthusiasts to try and play Electone, and is expected to develop new possibilities in the Electone world. He is actively engaged in numerous concerts and recordings, both at home and abroad, practicing up to 14 to 15 hours a day. Sekito’s music can be described as “careful as the devil and daring as the angel itself”. His selection of tone color and miraculously sound manipulations make us find ourselves all of a sudden pulled back to our past inner experiences or thrown away into an opened future cosmic space. This is indeed a demonic work and may also result from the sweetness and purity of the angelic whisperings."

A compilation of reworks of Haruomi Hosono’s iconic solo debut, Hosono House, celebrating 50 years since its release. This compilation sees musicians from the Stones Throw roster and beyond offer up their own interpretations of Hosono’s songs.
Haruomi Hosono is the legendary artist best known for Hosono House and his tenure in the seminal band Yellow Magic Orchestra.
Hosono House still sounds as fresh as it did in 1973. Its impact stretches far beyond Japan, with an unexpected surge of interest when Harry Styles cited it as a leading inspiration for his Grammy Award-winning album Harry’s House.

Great news for fans of electronic music: Reiger Records Reeks is set to release a new 5-CD box set dedicated to Roland Kayn’s Cybernetic Music. The collection is based on the original recordings from the Lydia and Roland Kayn Archive, which were sensibly remastered by Jim O’Rourke,

The box set includes the tracks from legendary opuses MAKRO I, II, III, created at the Institute for Sonology, and Elektroakustische Projekte, featuring works like Cybernetic I, II, and III, which were recorded at the Studio di Fonologia in Milan, alongside Entropy PE31, Monades, and Eon. These pieces – previously available only on rare out-of-print vinyl editions – highlight both Kayn’s innovative approach to musical structures and his significant impact on the development of electronic and cybernetic compositions.

Recent years have seen the release and reissue of dozens of hours of Roland Kayn’s music, on several labels and in both physical and digital formats. Our interconnected yet chaotically imbued age seems to be the setting in which Kayn has truly found his audience. The scene is now set for one of the most momentous works in his oeuvre to return to the shelves. ‘Infra'. One of the titanic cybernetic works Kayn originally released on the Colosseum label in early 80s, ‘Infra’ (1978-79) has come to occupy a very special place in the hearts of fans lucky enough to have copies of the original vinyl box sets. Now lovingly remastered from the original archive masters by Kayn devotee Jim O’Rourke, ‘Infra’ has finally found its way to CD for a new generation of admirers to discover.

"My music is a landscape for you to enter your own journey," sings Luiza Lian's crystalline voice after the ceasing of a sonic collage that blends a lament on the keyboard, church bells, hummed vocals, distorted speeches, syncopated beats, and a striking bass line. "Minha Música" (My Music) is our first encounter with 7 Estrelas| quem arrancou o céu? (7 Stars | who tore off the sky?), the fourth album of the São Paulo-based artist, and her third collaboration with french/brazilian music producer Charles Tixier.

Nearly five years after the celebrated Azul Moderno, the duo returns to the scene they materialized before a period of darkness that rewrote Brazil's history. And this new visit pushes the boundaries even further with resources that the singer-songwriter had only started exploring on the previous record. The following tracks, "Tecnicolor" (featuring the only guest appearance on the album, as Luiza is joined by singer Céu) and "Homenagem" (Homage), continue to explore this new horizon, which becomes increasingly bizarre and deceptive.

In addition to layering noises and electronic elements over her musicality, Luiza also explores the range of her vocals by digitally distorting them. The first tracks are just the initial steps in this new work: a profound reflection on how we distort our lives based on false reflections we see both digitally in our use of social media and materially in an increasingly consumerist society. The new album recreates this artificial context in an almost caricatured way, deliberately exaggerated distortions to generate the estrangement we should feel towards the values we cherish and reject based on this false reality we force ourselves to believe in.

While Azul Moderno invited us on a journey of spiritual purification, now Luiza summons us to another voyage, one that confronts the darker side of our nature in songs that resonate with politics and mysticism without distinguishing one from the other, such as "Forca" (Force), "Cobras" (Snakes), and "Viajante" (Traveler), and then leads us towards the light in existentialist yet renewing songs ("Eu Estou Aqui" (I Am Here), "Desabriga" (Shelterless), "7 Estrelas" (7 Stars), and "Deságua" (Unleash)), making the end of the album more playful and lucid, hopeful and danceable as it concludes its reflection.

Composed in 2019 and reworked over four years, the album is another release from the RISCO label in partnership with ZZK Records and will be launched during a series of shows in August at Sesc Pompeia, performances in which Luiza delves even deeper into the exploration she proposed in the live version of her previous album. 

ZZK Records Presents: Cruzloma’s Mitos & Ritos, a dialogue with the past, present and future of traditional Ecuadorian music

The hostile times humanity is going through have awoken a need to get back to our roots, reclaim ancestral knowledge, and question where the excessive exploitation of natural resources has led us. We have heeded that urgent call to care for everything that seems unlimited but which is increasingly scarce. And so we have looked to the past to understand our relationship with what surrounds us and establish a dialogue between the past, the present and the uncertain idea of the future.

Applied to music, this has aroused the interest of artists and producers who use the rich folklore and traditions of Latin America to replicate that dialogue between what was and what will be. With this in mind, Mitos & Ritos (“Myths and Rites”), the debut EP by the Ecuadorian group Crvzloma, consolidates in its six songs a spirit of promoting traditional rhythms in contemporary styles, a process of reinvention and self-discovery in homage to the indigenous peoples of the Ecuadorian jungle and the riches of ceremonial music, based around the bambuco style from Esmeraldas on the northern coast, and the bomba del chota and the san juanito from Imbabura province. On this EP there are also sacred prayers of the Shuar nation, called Ujaj and Anets, including ceremonies like the taking of ayahuasca and of the tzan tza, all in a mix featuring electronica, global bass and dembow.

It is a journey into mysticism, the jungle and the dancefloor, reflecting a search for musical identity that is at once contemporary and futurist. 

ZZK Records Presents TORNA #1 - ‘Hermetics’

New York. London. Berlin. These places are often regarded as electronic music’s most important hubs, but anyone who’s been paying attention during the past few years knows that the genre’s most interesting contemporary rhythms are coming out of Latin America. Reggaeton, cumbia, guaracha, raptor house… that’s just a partial list, and while these sounds have been popping on Latin dancefloors for decades, they’re no longer a strictly regional concern. Ravers around the world have developed a taste for these mutant (and usually bass-heavy rhythms), and TORNA is here to give them what they crave.

A new offshoot of ZZK—a label which has been pushing the limits of Latin music since 2008—TORNA is a new release series that’s specifically focused on the dancefloor. Its name is inspired by the concept of “La Torna”, an economic institution developed by indigenous Atacama Lickan-Antay, Aymara and Diaguita peoples (in territories now occupied by Argentina, Bolivia and Chile) with the aim of working together for the common good, for the benefit of the whole community.

This new iteration of TORNA takes a similar approach, providing a platform for groundbreaking Latin artists whose view of electronic music looks beyond the usual European and North American canon. First up is Hermetics, a Buenos Aires-based Colombian producer who’s previously appeared on powerhouse labels such as R&S, Optimo Music and Multi Culti, and has also been tapped to remix the likes of Nicola Cruz and Chancha Vía Circuito.

Curated by ZZK co-founder DJ Nim, the two-track TORNA #1 puts Hermetics’ talents front and center, along with his penchant for psychedelic atmospheres and hybridized sounds. “El Cordón Dorado” (“The Golden Cord”) taps into an ancient current of ancestral knowledge, its hypnotic Andean flute and fortified dembow evoking the magic, mysticism and wisdom that’s been passed from one generation to the next over the course of several millennia. “Uruz”—which takes its name from the second rune of the Nordic alphabet—follows a harder, darker and more dramatic path, splicing together slow-motion techno and half-time drum & bass as it evokes the archetypal tale of an untamed warrior being tested by the fires of battle.

TORNA is rooted in Latin America, but it’s aimed at dancefloors around the globe, and this is just the beginning. 

Honey for the Ants completes an ‘alchemical trilogy’, after The Funnel and Syphon. These albums are informed by mystical and gnostic texts, celebrating the weird, unhinged and occasionally beautiful.

In this forthcoming album the tonalities have shifted from mediaeval and renaissance to modernist dissonances. New singers and instrumentalists contribute to an emotional and textural richness achieved in a collaborative process. Distant musical periods, real and fictitious, are nonchalantly interwoven to create a delirious mongrel that salutes the imagination.

Wojciech Rusin is a Polish-born audio visual artist based in London. He draws inspiration from alchemical and gnostic texts, early renaissance choral music and Eastern European mythologies. He released Syphon LP on AD 93 in 2022 and The Funnel LP on Akashic Records in April 2019. He designs and makes 3D-printed reed instruments, reworking ancient designs with contemporary 3D modelling technologies.

In 2020 he released Meat for the Guard Dogs on Cafe OTO’s Takuroku digital imprint, and the Rufus Orbis cassette for Boomkat Editions / Documenting Sound series. His music has been featured on BBC Four and he has worked for The National Theatre and The Southbank Centre.

Artist, composer and producer James William Blades’ score Pare De Sufrir will be released via AD 93 on the 4th of October.
Pare De Sufrir (translating to ‘End of Suffering’) is the official soundtrack to A.G Rojas’ film of the same title.

Spanish-born, Southern California-raised filmmaker AG Rojas is known for creating videos and working with the likes of Jamie xx, Gil Scott-Heron, Kamasi Washington, Spiritualized and Mitski. Rojas’ sensitive eye and subjectivity has brought him from the world of music videos to creating his first independent film: a 48-minute featurette following three people as they navigate the liminal space between life and the afterlife in an attempt to heal themselves and each other. Rojas’ film is a fragile, wordless meditation on grief and how it can transform and baptise the body and spirit.

The almost silent film is a testament to Rojas’ trust in Blades’ composition to express the director’s voice and emotions. Rojas reached out to Blades after coming across his score for Keeping Time (dir. Darol Olu Kae). An intimate and unusual process unfolded. Rojas explained to Blades the personal narrative of the film, the two sharing unfurling conversations on the nature of loss and the human spirit. But Blades did not watch the film and instead worked on instinct to build out a concept of how the score would unfold, shaping its operatic, textural and granular tone. Blades went on to record the score in full, with orchestra and choir, without going back to Rojas for feedback, aware that he was taking a complete risk. “It was definitely something I felt had a gravitational pull,” says Blades of the decision. The score’s pull is reflective of the process of grief itself, how its moods and memories oscillate up and down into the past and lost futures, Blades hitting all those spaces with diverse and stretching notes.

The piano holds the memories of Blades and Rojas’ grandmothers, who both had out-of-tune pianos sitting in an empty room. The Silogo-De-Oro choir sing throughout, reminiscent of the broken phonetics of grief, the build up and release of tension and the inability to articulate complete sound or words. The harmony stabilises and then becomes distant, taking the griever away from the lushness of life and into the realms of loss, death and dream-like realities, as mirrored in Rojas’ layered vignettes. As the score closes, the harmonies become richer and fuller, marking a return to life. Understanding the power of sound to both respond to and drive narrative, Blades’ score weaves together field recordings, half-remembered conversations, choral movements, string arrangements and electronic fragments into a nuanced and evocative whole.
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James William Blades is a British composer and producer based in New York, whose work dissolves the boundaries between scores, sound design and music. Rooted in a meticulous sensitivity to melody and structure, he creates sonic landscapes that have the potential to refract meaning and tell new stories in the process.

It is through his multidisciplinary experience working with visual artists, directors, musicians and fashion designers that Blades has developed the unique musical aesthetic he is now bringing to the world of cinema. Blades began by collaborating with fashion designer Grace Wales Bonner, artist Theaster Gates, and film-maker Kahlil Joseph. Exploring the expressive possibilities of composition, his atmospheric sound collages for Joseph’s 2017 film Fly Paper and short film Process for the British music artist Sampha, subsequently led Blades to work with Beyoncé on Black is King for Disney in 2020, and more recently Renaissance, Beyonce’s self-directed documentary concert film.

Learning from visual artists, themselves reframing the relationship between music, sound and image, Blades has created a singular sonic language he describes in terms of landscape painting. “I like conveying a non-linear sense of sonics, playing around with combinations, depths, tempos, and making it feel like you’re in a moment surrounded. It’s visceral,” he explains. In each case, his approach involves periods of contextual and multi- instrumental research, working closely with directors to understand how best to support the specific emotions, moods and textures of the project at hand. “Thinking about the painting of a score is something that I'm trying to translate over a longer scale.”
This capacity to work on a variety of long-form projects is evident, whether in the scores he has had exhibited in a gallery context (Venice Biennale, Serpentine Gallery, 180 The Strand, Palais De Tokyo), or in the debut solo productions he is readying for release.

Other composer credits include Tendaberry, Hayley Elizabeth Anderson’s critically lauded debut feature film which premiered at Sundance 2024, the Showtime documentary NYC Point Gods produced by Coodie and Chike and Kevin Durant and Kiin a three part companion film directed by Fenn O’Meally and written by Letitia Wright and Tamara Lawrance.
A storyteller in the broadest sense of the word, Blades’ extensive inter-disciplinary experience marks him out as an artist in his own right, bringing an exciting and fresh approach to feature film composition. 

An album of hypnagogic nocturnes that relentlessly searches for a sense of calm in the great unknown, 'Is Peace Wild?' is German producer, drummer and visual artist Ludwig Wandinger's upcoming release on light-years. He dreamt it up while unpacking the breakdown of a long relationship, working in hotel rooms during the downtime between a series of chaotic live shows. To help empty his mind, Wandinger developed a suite of soulful reflections that prioritize harmony over rhythm and clarity over trivial complexity - music that confronts the eternal duality of romance and tragedy. Almost beatless and consistently sublime, 'Is Peace Wild?' is punctuated by hypnotic lyrical contributions from multi-disciplinary artist, poet and activist Yves B. Golden and producer and vocalist Evita Manji, both of whom bless the album with indispensable friendship and familiarity. "It's almost as if they were telling me a good night story," says Wandinger.

With a series of albums and EPs under his belt already, Wandinger is a tireless solo artist and a prolific collaborator. He's released material for Orange Milk, Gin&Platonic, Creamcake, 3XL, and he worked alongside artists such as Evita Manji, Sara Persico, Grischa Lichtenberger and Brodinski. 'Is Peace Wild?' though emerges as Wandinger’s most personal work to date. The title track opens the album, and Golden's voice breathes softly over Wandinger's warm, lulling arpeggios. "Balloons and birds delight in the flow of air between rooms," she murmurs, floating her surreal phrases in a tranquil pool of pitch-skewed pads and chiming, music box synths. But this airiness doesn't last long: on the noisy, sombre 'Vien', Wandinger interrupts his elegiac, organ-like synths with metallic crashes and distorted, rasping bass, weaving twinkling, pensive notes into the spaces in-between. The oscillation between darkness and light is remarkably even-handed, capturing the aching sense of longing - or "Sehnsucht" - that's at the core of German Romanticism. And it's even more evident on 'Xhausted Form', one of the album's heaviest tracks. Unfolding initially with affecting, sacred chords, the serenity is challenged by eerie, dissonant crunches and unsettling feedback shrieks, yet the spark of romance, in all of its intricacy, never diminishes.

Meanwhile, the album's illusory qualities are fully dilated on 'Fire'. Manji's hypnotic freestyle was recorded in a single take as they were lying in bed on the verge of falling asleep, and provides a quiescent counterpoint to Wandinger's muted trance vibrations. "The world is on fire drowning in its own fluids," they slur into the abyss, vocalizing playfully while Wandinger freezes the sentiment in vanishing 4/4 thuds and dissociated processes. This makes the baroque 'Overlife' and the noisy 'Eternal Image' all the more dynamic. On the latter, Wandinger creates a noisy, apocalyptic atmosphere for Golden's sardonic words, cooling his euphoric synths with hissing white noise and burnished cybernetic textures. "They are afraid of loud noises," Golden mouthes. "Bodies like mine are made for turbulence."

Open-ended and tangled with emotional paradoxes, 'Is Peace Wild?' can be interpreted in many different ways. Wandinger's own serenity is personal, but laying himself bare, he provides listeners with a cracked mirror to consider their unique patchwork of conundrums. 

Multi-instrumentalist and composer Isaiah Collier connects with the divine ancestors on a transcendent Direct-To-Disc session, Parallel Universe Chicago-based innovator and educator Isaiah Collier is opening up new dimensions in the jazzwise continuum. A saxophonist by trade whose multi-instrumental talents and compositional prowess have stretched the limits of the form, Parallel Universe represents a new chapter in Collier’s musical journey. Having already performed with a diverse range of musicians such as Chance The Rapper, Waddada Leo Smith, Chicago jazz royalty Angel Bat Dawid and his own band The Chosen Few, Collier’s latest work as a bandleader explores the shared musical heritage of the African diaspora with a sense of grace and assurance that belies his years. Embracing the risk and vulnerability that comes with the live process, Collier and his band tapped into the frequencies of improvisation that fired up so many of the most timeless jazz recordings. “Recording direct-to-disc gave me a really fortunate opportunity to experience what our musical predecessors almost a hundred years ago were dealing with,” he explains. Name-checking Sun Ra, Ras G, J Dilla, Fela Kuti, Miles Davis, Gil Scott-Heron, Whitney Huston, Aaliyah and Frankie Knuckles, the opening of track of Parallel Universe imagines a genreless musical lineage that resonates with the polyphony of stories his band bring to the table, from Chicago and beyond. Featuring gospel soul singer Jimetta Rose, AACM and former Art Ensemble of Chicago trumpet player Corey Wilkes, blues-rooted guitarist Michael Damani, regular collaborators Julian Davis Reid, James Russell Sims and Micah Collier, the 8-track album bristles with a sense of love and understanding between players at the top of their game. Nowhere is this more evident than on the album’s 13-minute centrepiece, ‘Village Song’, in which Collier evokes the spiritual, psychological and emotional home of the African diaspora in song. “I want to speak to everybody of the African diaspora, truly in its entirety,” he explains, “from all the way of being back in the motherland, to the new lands we’ve come to.” Rooted in the percussion of Sonny Daze and the kalimba of Radius, ‘Village Song’ is a joyous and affirmative celebration of that unity. Picking up the flute, Collier explains, was also a part of that narrative: “The saxophone was not made in Africa so the concept of going back into the village we have to go back to our village instruments and dialect.” With vocals sung in Yoruba - inspired by a gift from legendary saxophonist Kenny Garrett - ‘Village Song’ soars between rhythms and references, from Afro-Cuban syncopation to the deep triplet swing of mid-‘60s Coltrane. Laying the foundations for the album as a whole, the result is truly exhilarating, “Give me that feeling that makes me feel like I’m alive,” Collier enthuses. “People can tell when you’re taking chances. I know that’s what everybody is looking for.”