Electronic / Experimental

Multila was the third album by Finnish producer Sasu Ripatti under the moniker Vladislav Delay. It compiles the Huone and Ranta 12" EPs Ripatti released on Basic Channel's Chain Reaction label in 1999 and 2000. The album features six hauntingly murky dub ambient tracks and the impressive 22-minute techno odyssey "Huone". 20 years after its original release as a full-length CD album (Chain Reaction), these timeless recordings of modern electronic music are now finally available for the first time as a double-vinyl edition. The label Keplar has been on a long hiatus and is now back with its KeplarRev series presenting vinyl re-issues of essential electronic albums from the '90s and '00s, as well as new recordings by momentous electronic and ambient artists. Drawings by Kaisa Kemikoski; Layout by Marco Ciceri. Remaster by Rashad Becker and vinyl cut by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering. Includes download code.

"Life films us exactly. Our experience of it, though, lies beyond images and descriptions. Emotions, coming in irrational flashes, are non-figurable. We lose our little connection to them very quickly. We look for forms which promise to take us to our own experience. We construct forms with this in mind: that they can take us to meet the subconscious. Multila's construction is principled this way. Fragments of experience, moments without definition or localization are captured within tiny fragments of time and then within one's mind space. We can look into it and see that experience has left some of its data to us. As we receive it, again and again, we are connected and reconnected to certain indefinable moments. Both during and after its recording, Multila is a tool to learn about the unintentional states of us. It is a way to see our own emotional loops. Multila is a soundtrack for vision." --Vladislav Delay (2000)

All copies are HAND-MADE, silk-screened by C. Julien (Marga studio). Produced by Mambo Chick for Symbole Records. Symbole presents the first ever release of Patrick Jean-Marie's  'Atika – LIVE !' Made from the original master tape, recorded in mono during a TV Live Show on RFO in GUADELOUPE, 1982. A real miracle these moment were captured and this fragile magnetic tape have survived ! The no ‘music studio’ conditions and spontaneous mood with lots of improvised sequences gives a unique feeling of the vibrant & silent dialogues between musicians, crossing dimensions. The Jean-Marie’s brothers as their top! All tracks composed & arranged by Patrick Jean-Marie (Except ’De Bougies’ composed by Daniel Jean-Marie

Recorded onto a Tascam 388. The following instruments were used: Arp Odyssey, Yamaha CS-01, Korg DW-8000, Hohner Pianet T, Roland TR 606, Roland SH 101, Bamboo Alto Saxophone, Clarinet, Electric Guitar, and Electric Bass.

Presenting our second look at the music of Roger Doyle and Operating Theatre, a little known proto synth-pop act and experimental theatre group that he led, what you have here is a remastered and repackaged collection of two very different sides of this project. In reverse chronological order the second disc contains music from the United Dairies release of 1979 – ‘Rapid Eye Movements’. Experimental tape work heavily influenced by the French school of music concretists and recorded at various points during the 70s in Finland, Holland and Ireland, although it is most certainly a Roger Doyle solo record the label ran by Nurses With Wounds John Fothergill decided to release it under the group name for reasons now lost to the fog of time. After this a volte-face towards a more accessible sound, coming via his friendship with future Hollywood actress Olwen Fouéré and her connection to the theatre. It also featured the vocals of a young Spanish immigrant Elena López- bucking the 80’s trend by moving to, rather than, from Dublin. With Fouéré adding the theatrical element to the group (an almost essential part of any early 80s synth act) alongside pulsing synths, brass, a vocoder and the electro acoustic production talents of Doyle himself, it was the first time a Fairlight sampler was used in an Irish studio setting and gives a prescient but alternative take on the new wave sound that came to dominate the charts soon after. Doyle’s work on the newly released Fairlight sampler had brought him to the attention of U2’s Bono who had seen a feature about his sampling experimentations and reached out to him for piano lessons. This led to a deal on the bands embryonic Mother records for what Doyle calls his first “popular song” - Queen of No Heart - which alongside “Spring is Coming” made up the backbone of the EP which was released some years later (1986) on the Mother Records label. Established by U2 in 1984 and initially intended to launch Irish bands, many of the acts – including this one – were subsequently unhappy about the label’s haphazard approach to releases and lack of promotion. The record was released as a die cut 7 inch with the two main tracks and a 12 inch EP with additional tracks – ‘Part of My Make-Up’ / ‘Atlantean’ / ‘Satanasa’. The Mother experience was for Doyle and the rest of the group a frustrating one with no promotional plan and no tour. After that Operating Theatre as a quasi pop project ‘just kind of fizzled out’ says Doyle. Doyle, the musical maverick at the heart of the act, continues to produce to this day and has released 30 albums. A frequent collaborator we round out the record with a remix from another Irish outsider - Morgan Buckley of the Wino Boys.

LIMITED JAPAN EXCLUSIVE "Asagao" EDITION. Flora is an album that is listened to perpetually,
Passed on from one listener to another,
And the charm of the sound- and music-loving figure 
known as Hiroshi Yoshimura,
Just might come drifting through.
Like the scent of a small flower.
—Junichi Konuma

Announcing the worldwide reissue of Flora, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s underrated work originally recorded and completed in 1987 and first released on CD in 2006, three years after his passing in 2003.

Flora is chronologically and stylistically a follow-up to Hiroshi Yoshimura’s acclaimed 1986 works Green and Surround, wherein Yoshimura continues to play with the ambience of sound and the sound of ambience, underscoring his mastery in the field of environmental music. Listening to Flora is like taking a stroll in a park, absorbing the colors and textures of the natural environment—flowers, insects, the swaying of the leaves—as Yoshimura often did at his beloved Edo-era park near his home in Tokyo. As Junichi Konuma describes in his liner notes, Yoshimura’s music “only begins to emerge as it exists at the intersection of passive and active.” Yoshimura's approach to sound and melody invites the listener to hear the intricacies of the music with intent, while simultaneously allowing the aural textures to exist as part of the background of our everyday life.

This reissue marks the first time the album will be available on vinyl (2LP, 45 rpm) and cassette, and includes liner notes written by music scholar Junichi Konuma and remastered audio by Grammy-nominated engineer John Baldwin. Reissue design and layout was handled by Tiffanie Tran. 

- This is a solo performance by SG, recorded May 19, 2019, in the Waiting Hall of Union Station in Los Angeles.

- Instruments used include alto saxophone with an early version of his poly-sax effect, along with a Suzuki Waraku III synthesizer.

- In "Cosmic Love", at 04:27, you can hear the train announcer reading the preface to the book When Will Jesus Bring The Pork Chops? by George Carlin: "I'm an outsider by choice, but not truly. It's the unpleasantness of the system that keeps me out. I'd rather be in, in a good system. That's where my discontent comes from: being forced to choose to stay outside. My advice: Just keep movin' straight ahead. Every now and then you find yourself in a different place."

- Moments before going on stage SG asked if the train announcer would read this at any point during his set over the intercom system, and somehow they agreed. No one knew when they would read it, so it is easy to miss.

- "Miss U Sonny" is dedicated to the memory of Sonny Abegaze.

On Wednesday June 21, 2023 LA-via-Rio composer Fabiano do Nascimento had organized - with Leaving Records and an ensemble of contemporaries in the local scene - a one-night-only seated concert at a historic venue in Northeast Los Angeles. Do Nascimento and his band set out to perform a curated selection of original music and other favorites from cherished composers.

Behold Solstice Concert - the raw recording of what went down that evening - straight from the board, solstice vibes glistening, full band synchronized, audience stoked. Although unintended to be a full-length album release subsequent to the performance, the tape was indeed rolling however unknown to the band on stage and those in attendance.

On Wednesday June 21, 2023 LA-via-Rio composer Fabiano do Nascimento had organized - with Leaving Records and an ensemble of contemporaries in the local scene - a one-night-only seated concert at a historic venue in Northeast Los Angeles. Do Nascimento and his band set out to perform a curated selection of original music and other favorites from cherished composers.

Behold Solstice Concert - the raw recording of what went down that evening - straight from the board, solstice vibes glistening, full band synchronized, audience stoked. Although unintended to be a full-length album release subsequent to the performance, the tape was indeed rolling however unknown to the band on stage and those in attendance.

Don't miss it! Known for his collaborations with big names such as Ry Cooder, Vampire Weekend and Moses Sumney, and as the leader of the jazz trio Inga, he has been active in a variety of fields, from psychedelic to outsider to meditative. This is a follow up to his last album, which was self-pressed in 2018 and has been reprinted many times since then and is a huge best seller in our store. The collaboration with Sam Wilkes is now available on cassette from Leaving Records, and is a continuation of the previous album recorded between 2017 and 2018. The album is a confident work that combines a sophisticated jazz mind with a unique, experimental sound that is full of the free spirit of the West Coast, and sublimates it into a unique, even meditative, sound. The muffled sound image with a perfect balance makes the listener feel even better. Limited edition of 350 pieces. Whether you were baptized by the previous album, missed it, or haven't experienced it yet, this is a must-have album for this year.

Welsh musician Aisha Vaughan presents The Gate. It is upon us to renew the deep-cut, heavy-weighted melancholy of Celtic New Age for 2024. New Age music from the Celtic/British Isles crossed over into the mainstream in the late 80s - notably with Enya (and her band Clannad), the perhaps now lesser-known instrumental Celtic harp music of Patrick Ball, and the slew of now mostly forgotten various artist compilations that saturated the New Age CD and cassette music market in the early 90s.

The Gate earnestly gives reverence to the landscape that she calls home (as cinematically portrayed consistently in Vaughan’s self-shot videos via her social media). Now living in converted barn in mid-Wales, Vaughan writes and records her music to red kites and eagles hunting in the mountains outside her windows. The notably welcomed layers of ASMR sound design and computer music production supplement the main instrument here - her voice - woven within campfire crackle, wind chime, cricket, bird, harp, flute, synthesizer pad & sfx, and new moon wolf howl to channel celestial guides conjured from her remote homeland.

Using composition as catharsis stemming from a traumatic upbringing where music was banned in her childhood household, and the inherent occult history that surrounds the art form, Vaughan does not shy away from precisely stewarding this particular - often still-overlooked - musical tradition through her generation’s ambient lens.
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Gendel on C-Melody Saxofone and Wilkes on Fender P-Bass arrangements of selected material and original compositions a document of specific variations in instrumentation, sound, and repertoire, with a focus on melody, execution of arrangement, and total freedom The Doober follows the release of Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar (2018) and Music for Saxofone & Bass Guitar More Songs (2021).

Mesh-Key is thrilled to announce a deluxe, expanded reissue of Moon Beams by Tokyo visionaries, Tsuki No Wa. Originally released on CD by Japan's Soundscape label in 2003, Moon Beams is a bonafide opus -- a masterful mix of jazz, latin, folk and electroacoustic, topped with bandleader Fuminosuke's soaring, spectral vocals. Bassist Takuyuki Moriya was also a member of Ghost, and drummer Yuta Suganuma is a long-time member of the Shintaro Sakamoto band. The quartet's third album in as many years, Moon Beams found Tsuki No Wa taking a gigantic leap forward in both compositional sophistication and sonic experimentation. Beautifully recorded in a (since demolished) Meiji-era ballet studio, and featuring guest performances from such underground luminaries as Yoshihide Otomo and Ami Yoshida, this timeless, ambitious work sounds just as spellbinding today as it did a couple decades ago. Our reissue features an updated mix from the band and brand new album art with unseen photos of the group in their heyday. The vinyl (2LP, mastered by Josh Bonati and pressed at RTI) comes in a full-color, double panel gatefold jacket with eye-popping gold foil lettering.

Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands is an autobiographical record, comprised of four songs that Hoff refers to as ambient media. Each track is composed from sources drawn from his own involuntary aural landscape, specifically musical earworms and tinnitus frequencies. Neither sound nor a daydream, the earworm (or stuck song) emblematizes music as a commercial form—immediate, ubiquitous, and persistent. Likewise, tinnitus is inaudible and unscrupulous, manifesting across a spectrum of frequencies at will. The cognitive swirling of these phenomena provides an ambivalent, internal soundtrack that scores a person’s movement through the world. Those suffering from tinnitus or those who have grown accustomed to the “Tinnitus Effect” in movies will likely recognize the buzzing pitches on the record, but will likely not recognize the songs. Distorted and distilled, Shadows Lifted from Invisible Hands features altered versions of four commercial pop songs: Blondie’s “Heart of Glass,” David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” Madonna’s “Into the Groove,” and Lou Reed’s “Perfect Day.” Having been haunted by these songs on and off for years, Hoff tweaks the tracks, transposing and recomposing them for orchestral instrumentation. Speaking back to these involuntary echoes, these tracks go to great lengths to obfuscate their sources; to be sure not to simply re-introduce each earworm, as though they were samples. Otherwise, what’s the point? No one needs another stream. Besides, earworms are not music, although we perceive them as such. They are non-cochlear and exist as an affective force that is neither subjective nor objective, which is to say they are an invasive—and alien—phenomenon. Like tinnitus, they are aggravated by economic, social, and environmental forces as well as emotional states, mental health, and aging. Hoff doesn’t underplay his own struggles with mental health in discussing the record—noting a long history of depression and its acuteness over the last few years, which serve as the backdrop to the composition of this record. Scratch any pop song hard enough and you’ll find sadness underneath it. Subdermal, the songs on this record evoke a type of ephemeral weariness and despair. By recasting the original songs through their shadowy doubles, Hoff provides a window into the dark core of pop music. At the center of which lies capitalism’s desperate attempt to replicate itself through a cheap high built on echoing refrains. Just below the surface the listener finds a hangover of shadows dancing through the mind. — James Hoff is an artist living and working in New York. His work encompasses a variety of media, including sound, video, painting, and publishing. Hoff’s multidisciplinary approach begins at the user level—the level at which we interact with consumer technologies, media, and data. He has worked with computer viruses, inaudible data signals, ear worms, culture bound illnesses, dead zones, and hacked google maps as tools and framing devices for works that reimagine and expand the creative potential of digital and cultural networks beyond their economic and corporate-engineered use value. By exploiting and manufacturing technological and cognitive glitches, Hoff illuminates the social, political, and historical context of the software and media that we interact with on a daily basis. Hoff co-founded Primary Information in 2006 to publish historical and contemporary artists’ books. The organization has published hundreds of titles, including facsimile editions of Art-Rite, Broken Music, Black Art Notes, Cornelius Cardew’s Stockhausen Serves Imperialism, Godzilla: Asian American Art Network, The New Woman’s Survival Catalog, and Womens Work as well as new works by Lawrence Abu Hamdan, DeForrest Brown Jr, Tony Conrad, Dara Birnbaum, Constance DeJong, Alexandro Segade, Martine Syms, and Flora Yin-Wong, among many others. He has exhibited and performed at Artists Space, Bergen Kunsthall, the Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts at Harvard, Contemporary Arts Center (New Orleans), The Centre d’Art Contemporain (Geneva), Hessel Museum of Art, ICA London, The Kitchen, Kunsthall Oslo, The Royal Theatre of La Monnaie, MassMOCA, MoMA/PS1, Museum of Contemporary Art (Denver), and the Onassis Cultural Center, among many others.

Underground rock festered and splintered as it spread through the U.S. in the mid-’90s, the alternative boom giving rise to microcosmic regional scenes singularly focused on feral powerviolence or screamo songs about breakfast. Boston’s Karate emerged as a force that could grip a national youth movement whose disparate tastes still commingled in the inky pages of fanzines overflowing with florid prose and on concert calendars for volunteer-run DIY spaces, community centers, and bowling alleys. In this world, Karate’s music was an enigma, one equally inviting to sneering punks and highfalutin indie-rock aficionados. Their 1996 self-titled debut, issued on Southern Records, set the standard. Lasooing together white-knuckle posthardcore tension, sharply focused slowcore serenity, and resplendent jazz complexity, Karate eschewed settling in any one definiable style. But they certainly used the language of punk to get their point across; occasionally, guitarist Geoff Farina abandons his warm, hushed cadences for a hoarse shout that made him sound ragged, intensifying an aggression that burst out with every snaggletoothed guitar riff or drum snap that went off like canonfire. Few followed their path—but who could keep up? Karate could make pensive moods blossom into feverish rollicking (“What Is Sleep?”), gracefully tip-toe around aggressive punk explosions without getting bent out of shape (“Bodies”), and stretch out slowcore’s quietest reveries till their reflective notes sound ripped from an improvisational jazz session (“Caffeine or Me?”). Karate formally introduced the trio as a vital part of an independent U.S. punk scene stubbornly flowering in the face of the major labels’ ’90s harvest.

いざ、第4の扉へ。自国のソウル、ゴスペル、ファンクにとどまらず、ニューエイジ・ミュージック始祖ヤソスや日本からは原マスミまで、世界各地のオブスキュアなサウンドを掘り起こしてきた米国の大名門であり、コンピに定評のある〈Numero〉から新物件！ニューエイジ・ミュージック始祖の1人IasosやLaraaji、Joanna Brouk、Don Slepian、Master Wilburn Burchetteといったレジェンドが残した傑作曲を一挙特集した、「Private Issue New Age (PINA)」の世界への、新たな入門盤的コンピレーション・アルバム『Bliss Out For Days』が登場！シアトルの〈Light in the Attic〉が手掛けた自主盤ニューエイジ・コンピ金字塔『I Am The Center』と是非セットで聴きたい内容！静かに漂う弦楽器や、くすんだ録音の、しかし美しいピアノがアンビエンスの宇宙として広がる、極上の逸品！オールドスタイルなチップオンジャケット仕様。32ページのブックレットが付属。

Morio Agata's incidental masterpiece from 1980. The important work "The Vehicle Book", which later influenced Jim O'Rourke and the rest of the world, has been officially re-released on CD and LP in the U.S., and the LP has been distributed exclusively in Japan. [Completely limited edition

1977 "I Love You." Morio Agata, who had disappeared from the stage for about two years after his major work "Eien no Toukoku" (Eternal Faraway Country), which he had been working on since its release, was approached by Yuzuru Agi, editor-in-chief of Rock Magazine, the sharpest cultural music magazine in Osaka and the leader of Vanity Records, and in November 1979, in order to reset the music for the coming 80's, he created the album in two days. In November 1979, he created the "Vehicle Pictorial Book" in two days in order to reset the course for the coming 80s. This was an important work that became the basis for Morio Agata, who soon became a child of A, formed Virgin VS, and once again enjoyed success in the first half of the 80s.

 

When electronic pioneers, Coldcut, dropped their groundbreaking Journeys by DJ mixtape in 1995, one of its standout moments came towards the very end of the mix. Amidst the era’s finest beat-makers and electronic visionaries, the DJ duo teased a hypnotic, looping double bass line, followed by haunting sax, thunderous drums, and guitar, before seamlessly blending into the Radiophonic Workshop's Doctor Who Theme. That earworm bass line? It’s the signature sound of Red Snapper’s Hot Flush, forever etched in the listener’s brain.

Fast forward 30 years, and Red Snapper is reissuing their Reeled & Skinned compilation on Warp. The collection includes Hot Flush in both its original form and the remix by Andrew Weatherall’s Sabres of Paradise. It brings together the trio's self-released early EPs from ’94 and ’95, a time when they quickly gained a reputation on the London live scene, captivating jazz, hip-hop, and dance heads alike.

Now, Reeled & Skinned is available on vinyl again for the first time in decades, remastered and featuring an additional track, Area 51, recorded during the same period.
 

An eclectic compilation album celebrating twenty ‘tips of the tongue’ from David Keenan, released to coincide with a book of his collected music writing.

As well as being the title of a book. Volcanic Tongue was a record shop that existed in Glasgow from 2005 to 2015, run by David Keenan and Heather Leigh, it championed contemporary DIY music from around the world, often released in tiny runs on homemade CD-Rs, and also sought to shine a light on forgotten artists from the past, who had often released their music as a ‘private press’ LP. The shop was also known for it’s weekly mailing list, with Keenan enthusiastically rapping about new arrivals, especially the record of the week, given the sobriquet ‘tip of the tongue’. This collection has been put together from releases that were a ‘tip of the tongue’, containing music that runs the gamut from outsider synth to psych-folk to damaged rock’n’roll, with tracks recorded between 1968 and 2013, a celebration of a vibrant and eclectic underground avant-garde.

Printed inner sleeves with original notes on each artist by David Keenan, housed in a sleeve designed by Julian House.

The Smile have today announced two new remixes of tracks from their critically acclaimed third album CUTOUTS, from James Holden and Robert Stillman.

The remixes will also be released as a limited edition AA side 12-inch on 28th March. Stanley Donwood’s sleeve design pays tribute to XL Recordings’ signature housebag series

Second album from the japanese psych-prog band that started out as Far Out in 1973. The record is basically a concept: "The Cave" is arriving onto our planet, and the group is generally celebrating the beauties of nature. Heavily influenced by Floyd (Atom Heart Mother era), the group lays down some very credible ambiances that even Waters & Co. could've pulled off. This album will draw Klaus Schulze's attention and he will collaborate with FEFB on their next one.

Incredible collection of rare King Tubby VS. Scientist tracks. These were some of the last ‘classical’ dub works created before dancehall ultimately mutated into a technologically-driven sound that largely did away with organic instruments and although these works already point in that direction, they still sound entirely fresh today because of the superb musicianship of the Roots Radics and the guiding hand of Jah Thomas in the producer’s chair, as well as Scientist and his cohorts, working their dub magic at King Tubby’s studio. Extensive liner notes by David Katz.

A thrilling collaboration between major experimental maestros from slightly different sound worlds. Don Cherry, in the middle of a very free-ranging phase, plays his majestic trumpet over the shimmering organ tones of Terry Riley, while Karl Berger adds vibraphone. Heady stuff. Reissue of a rare concert recording from 1975, in an edition of just 500. On Modern Silence.

New age for the suburban city, spun from a poor planting in the suburbs or from an apartment room along the national highway. "Suiyu" is the first album by Hajime Orikawa, a musician living in Chiba.

From side A, which is composed of home recordings and environmental sounds in a room at home, and contains a lo-fi yet theological resonance, to the title track "Suiyu" which exceeds 15 minutes and where various instruments such as autoharp, electronic piano, Moog synthesizer, organ, and tenor saxophone beautifully blend with a free-spirited singing voice like a wild rabbit running through the fields, the melancholy of the suburban city floats gently.

The cassette version includes a DL code for “Ikkojiteki,” a collection of outtracks, along with a DL code for "Suiyu". 

'Faith In Strangers’ was recorded between January 2013 and June 2014, and was edited and sequenced in July 2014. Making use of on an array of instruments, field recordings, found sounds and vocal treatments, it’s a largely analogue variant of hi-tech production arcing from the dissonant to the sublime.

 

 

Opener ‘Time Away’ features Euphonium played by Kim Holly Thorpe and closing track ‘Missing’ features vocals from Stott’s vocal collaborator Alison Skidmore. Between these two points ‘Faith In Strangers’ heads off from the sparse and infected ‘Violence’ to the broken, downcast pop of ‘On Oath’ and the motorik, driving melancholy of ‘Science & Industry’ - three vocal tracks built around a destroyed production style that's pioneering in spirit, buried in sentiment. 

 

 

‘No Surrender’ is a primitive spell making way for pitch-screwed woodblock drums, while ‘How It Was’ refracts sweaty warehouse signatures and ‘Damage’ comes like RZA’s ‘Ghost Dog’ re-factored by Terror Danjah. The title track is the album's most beautiful, gliding on a chiming melody and the hum of Andy’s mixing desk. 

Stone cold.