Electronic / Experimental
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B. Close’s B. Chamber (Stratum B) follows Stratum A, completing a two-part collection drawn from over 130 pieces recorded in rural Connecticut between 2021 and 2025. The Los Angeles artist works with tangled rhythms, fractured electronics and unpredictable samples, moving between abstract sound design and restless footwork. 'Mediatic' features the drawn-out vocals of Woodson Robins Legrand, while 'Botanic Circuit' incorporates floating vocal fragments. Elsewhere, 'Mourning Class' picks up the pace and 'Playing Possum' collapses into wonky trumpet sounds. An intriguing selection from a remarkably prolific experimental musician.
Okayama drummer and electronic musician Takafumi Okada, aka Nboj Tespo, follows Blessed Planet with Stories In The Womb. Inspired by the birth of his child, the album imagines the development of a fetus through low-end electronics, pulsing rhythms and enclosed, womb-like sonics. Real-life recordings are worked into the music: ‘Umbilical Chant’ incorporates the sound of the baby’s umbilical cord, while ‘Bye Placenta’ captures its first cry alongside pinging synths, polyrhythmic percussion and organ-like figures. A psychedelic electronic take on growth, birth and the strange business of arriving in the world.
Better late than never, we’re incredibly excited to finally announce a very special upcoming release on our label. One of the most rewarding aspects of music is its ability to create meaningful connections across borders and cultures. Through that shared language, we connected with rush2theUnknown, a Japan- and New Zealand-based duo with roots in the foundation New Zealand jungle / drum & bass scene, and it’s a true privilege to now be releasing their music. Ancient / Future is a journey through time, influence, and emotion. Drawing from the duo’s diverse musical backgrounds and inspirations, the EP bridges ancient echoes with futuristic sound design, balancing antediluvian nostalgia and far-future energy in equal measure.
Morgan Buckley and Ben Donohoe present SWORX, a dense and disorientating collision of paranoid electronics, fractured polyrhythms and dystopian ‘crowdrock’. Released via Wah Wah Wino, the record plays like a corrupted transmission from a near-future network overseen by the mysterious titular modem ‘Sworx’, endlessly sorting coded signals into hidden archives. Blending IDM textures, restless percussion and warped digital atmospheres, the duo construct a world where surveillance, malfunction and synthetic consciousness blur together. Equal parts hypnotic and unnerving, SWORX feels beamed in from a damaged post-fibre-optic reality where even your dreams are under observation.
For Takuro Okada, this marks his first physical release since *Konoma*, which received high praise from media outlets and listeners both in Japan and abroad. This work was created for the campaign promoting the new “MT2” footwear line designed by TOKYO DESIGN STUDIO New Balance. The campaign video is available on New Balance T-HOUSE’s owned media platform. Side A, “Still Water,” features Shouei Ikeda (flute) and is composed of a minimalist ensemble that strips the arrangement down to the bare essentials while incorporating elements of folk and Afro-music. Recorded based on improvised performances and captured on analog tape, the track evokes the subtle fluctuations of sound and rich spaces reminiscent of a still water’s surface. Side B, “Dohman Sehman,” takes the mood of vintage funk as its starting point while weaving in a melodic sensibility and folkloric resonance reminiscent of Japanese folk songs and kayōkyoku. Featuring up-and-coming musicians such as Kei Matsumaru (alto sax), Mei Katsumaru (tenor sax), Yuma Koda (Wurlitzer / Farfisa), Yuka Konishi (bass), and Hayate Ebihara (drums), this track is marked by a powerful groove created by a spatial mix reminiscent of dub techniques and a robust rhythm section. With “Still Water,” which is imbued with serene stillness, and “Dohman Sehman,” which contains a powerful groove, these two contrasting tracks showcase the breadth of Takuro Okada’s creative evolution since *Konoma*.
Originally released in the wake of ML Buch's art-pop modern classic 'Suntub', "Suntub Extras" paints in similar shades, fixing up its precision-engineered sketches in a personal space between Kate Bush's 'Hounds of Love', OPN's 'Replica' and Cocteau Twins' 'Victorialand'. Without the pop accouterments that made 'Suntub' so tantalizing to the almost-mainstream, Buch's tangled productions lay bare the various ingredients that have shaped her taste over the years. Fleetwood Mac was maybe the most obvious reference back in 2023 and undoubtedly her vocal harmonies and precision songwriting looped right back into the radio rock of the '70s and '80s, but strip the vocal away and something very different emerges. Her repeating guitar phrases - heard so vividly on the gorgeous 'Sway walking' - sound far more meditative and moving when they're isolated, decoupling the music from AOR and jacking it directly into the new age continuum. Here, Buch has more in common with Daniel Lopatin (or even Mark McGuire), playing out familiar riffs but treating them as if they're Reichian iterations. She introduces a larger (laptop-powered) ensemble on 'Suncrumb trail, Staging', providing a virtual tune-up with willowy guitars, boxy drums and that warm fretless bass that was all over 'Hounds of Love'. But as soon as any of these tracks seem to move towards their goal, Buch inevitably cuts away to a different scene. Here, she diverts our ears to alt-rock pastiche 'Growing eyes, Blade of cloud, Rolling chill', caking her Rembrants guitars in tape echo before picking up the thread again on the generous 'Moving Light, Change', a slo-mo reverie that provides the album with its thematic apex. But it's the brief finale that has our hearts; on the impeccably-titled 'Halfdark, Slow blinking', Buch accurately duplicates Robin Guthrie's groggy processes, strumming decelerated chords into cavernous echoes.
'Denshi Ongaku No Bigaku Vol. 4' is Cosmocities' new compilation put together by label owner Matt Soulie which further explores the depth and diversity of Japan's electronic underground music scene. "Since its inception, the Denshi Ongaku No Bigaku project has celebrated the artists and sounds that have profoundly influenced the Cosmocities vision. Across four volumes, the series has journeyed through ambient soundscapes, deep house, boogie, jazz-infused electronics and forward-thinking club music. Volume 4 shifts the focus firmly towards the deeper end of the dancefloor, bringing together timeless classics, rare gems and sought-after reinterpretations from some of Japan's most respected producers. Opening proceedings is Kaoru Inoue's remix of Soft's "Art Farmer", a rolling percussive Afro-house excursion rich in hypnotic groove and organic rhythm. XTAL's "Heavenly Overtone" follows with a beautifully cosmic house journey, combining shimmering keys and celestial atmospheres that perfectly capture the compilation's expansive spirit. On the B-side, Slow Didi's "Follow Me (Hidaway Mix Instrumental)" delivers a deep and hypnotic groove before Tokyo Black Star's "Fantastique Voyage" channels the soulful, sophisticated energy of classic 1990s deep house. The journey continues with Manabu Nagayama and Soichi Terada's "Low Tension", presented here in a sublime instrumental remix by Satoshi Fumi and Yoshi Horino, where warm piano melodies and elegant synth work create a timeless late-night mood. The final stretch moves into more driving territory. Hiroshi Watanabe's "The Orionids (2025 Revised)" subtly raises the tempo, blending deep house sensibilities with sleek tech-inflected textures. Kaoru Inoue's "Ground Rhythm", reworked by The Backwoods, plunges deeper into hypnotic territory with a heads-down groove designed for intimate basement spaces and low-lit dancefloors. Closing the compilation is Bitowa and YAMADAtheGIANT's "Forest (Mixtacy Exclusive Version)", a trippy, immersive finale that leaves listeners suspended in a dreamlike state between nature, rhythm and imagination. A carefully curated collection of deep, cosmic and forward-thinking sounds, Denshi Ongaku No Bigaku Vol. 4 once again showcases the enduring creativity, innovation and global influence of Japanese electronic music."
"4 more additions (under various guises around 1984) to the beautiful world of Jan Van den Broeke in response to the almost 10 year anniversary of `11000 Dreams` "
In 2009, the label Art Yard sent a probe into the outer regions of contemporary electronic music, releasing Berliner Ring's "Orbital" album, a dub techno hymnal for Berlin’s orbital ring road. Drawing together the disparate elements of invented instruments, modified keyboards, customized rhythm and string machines, it was built around moods and themes drawn from the Berlin landscape. One member of the Ring, Alexander Christou, also a part of the Berlin electro rock group Elecdrones, recording for Katzensonne. The band were “not interested in the crafting of chunks of music ready to be consumed”. Christou has since been recording under the moniker Al Chem, crossing analogue and digital realms, synthesizing a kind of philosopher’s stone. As Al Chem, he released on Tummy Touch Records, and now follows with a collection of foggy electronic dub meditations recorded between 2000 and 2005 in a full album. In the battle to harness the elements, ancient mists permeated Chem’s music. A murky, mercurial humidity saturates the project. A distinctly north European descendant of dub, a kind of Seventh Seal that Bergman could have made, if provided enough hydroponic infusions. No Hopper is a rework of the Ras Michael song No Hoppers, from his legendary album, Rastafari Dub, Chem's version shuffles the pack of electronic percussion with organic, Moondog-like rhythms and hazy atmospheric chords; The Prophet pinpoints Chem's GPS firmly in Berlin, just as The Red Tower blurs that kick-drum parallel between reggae and house music; Baudelaire sputters digital delay, piling on the pressure, a clatter of surgical implements performing an operation out of Dead Ringers, the patient storming out of the theatre with loosely fitted mechanical body parts; the instrumental No Hopper only serves to highlight the distant gathering storm. Ladder of Perfection rounds off the set with a drone, creaking with bubbling digital mud pools.
Kim David Bots and Lyckle de Jong's "Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel" via South Of North. "Environments are sticky, they stick to whatever happens within them. They can’t help it. And neither can you. Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel is a collection of musical ‘figures’ written and recorded in 2022 and 2023 using a method Lyckle and Kim call the ‘snelkookpan’, translated as the pressure cooker. The ’snelkookpan’ in essence is trying to write and live-record as many musical figures in a given timeframe in a specific place. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ this was an afternoon and evening in an exhibition Kim had curated about collecting and memory in The Hague. For ‘Songs of St. Michel’ this was 6 days in the basement of an art institution in Maastricht where they were joined by Otto de Jong on guitar. The figures are usually worked out by ear, sometimes improvised, sometimes written down, but often they are simply remembered and soon after recording forgotten. For ‘Land of the Few and Far Between’ they recorded ten figures. For ‘Songs for St. Michel’ fifteen. Of each a selection of five ended up on this seven inch. F. van Abeelen (one of whom’s drawings is pictured on the sleeve of this seven inch and of whom 750 drawings were part of the exhibition mentioned above) was forced as a boy to hide in a basement for years. Only a small window gave access to the outside world. That sliver was his reality. After these years in hiding he began drawing his sliver of reality obsessively. Daily series of similar drawings that he would meticulously catalogue in an organizer. We never met F. Our friend who discovered the drawings in a closet of psychiatric nursing home Dorestad never met F. We only recorded ten musical figures next to 750 drawings by F. St. Michel is a house that stands on the outskirts of Maastricht. It is built on the floodplains of the river Maas and living there you see the river change daily. It is a river fed by rain. No rain means a low river. Rain means a river that sometimes comes frighteningly close to flooding. Which it sometimes does. Due to the ebb and flow of the Maas, stuff is deposited in the boggy areas that are its floodplains. A shoe, a CD, a drone, some wood. Places impress themselves onto what you are doing. You become an unwitting prop in the place’s story. The first ‘snelkookpan’ happened in 2017 in the water-basin of one of the earliest concrete structures in the Netherlands; a bunker that was part of Amsterdam’s defensive line, built around the 1890’s. Something that used to house water was now empty. For three days Kim and Lyckle recorded improvised music there, which is still alive on a hard drive somewhere. In 2020 they recorded ‘the third of May’ at an old pumping station in Den Helder; an eleven part piece of auditory historical-horror which was released by South of North in 2024. Since 2023 Lyckle and Kim have mainly recorded live shows. With a Clarinet, kawai K1, Ipad, organelle, samplers and a variety of instruments curated for their minimal size or odd sound they’ve made chains of brief and improvised mini compositions inspired by browsing environments (digital and otherwise). Land of the Few and Far Between / Songs for St. Michel adds to this growing collection of recordings for environments that are somehow sticky."
Garefowl is an international collective of musicians combining strings and electronics: Nathan Bontrager (viola da gamba/harmonium/banjo), Stuart Graham (bouzouki/harmonica/harmonium), Chris Jones (concertina/mandolin), Ewan Macdonald (fiddle/smallpipe drone), Richard O’Flynn (island sounds/percussion/XRD drones), Jess Whelligan (cello). "Garefowl is a project connected to the archipelago of St Kilda, Scotland. Ewan Macdonald and his father Murdo, relatives of one of the men who killed the last Great Auk (Garefowl), conceived the project to reflect on and mark this family history. Things That Vanish was recorded on Hirta, the main island of St Kilda, at night. The soundscapes of Hirta breathe across the record: a quiet rolling swell of winds, waves, birds, and the otherworldly thrum of the snipe. Taking influence from the traditional folk music of St Kilda, the tunes on the record are inspired by the threatened seabirds of the islands. The band were intrigued by the folk stories around these birds, and how they often are depicted to imbue a primal, dark and haunting nature. In such tales, the birds retain a quality akin to a sea monster: preying upon calves and sheep, and believed to be the pelagic souls of drowned sailors or the cursed spirits of cruel captains. No synthesizers were used on the recording. Instead, the production draws entirely on sampled and processed field and hydrophone recordings collected on St Kilda. Additionally, drones were created through a process pioneered by Richard O’Flynn and Joe Gardner. Rock or bone samples are analysed using X-ray diffraction (XRD), which creates a spectrum with peaks corresponding to the sample’s chemical composition; this spectrum can then be mapped to sine waves, forming a drone." Stock Status and Shipping Information In our checkout you can opt to group items in your order into a single shipment, or opt to ship them separately, as they become available. If a physical stock item shows as “On Backorder” that means that the item is, to the best of our knowledge, available from the supplier and should ship to you within the time-frame indicated. If there are any issues with availability, we will notify you. Please also note that all shipping dates for Pre-Orders are estimates and subject to change.
Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (2) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (3) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (4) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (5) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (6) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (7) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (8) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (9) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (2) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (3) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (4) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (5) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (6) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (7) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (8) Mystica Tribe & Scopeotaku - MYSTICA TRIBE MEETS SCOPEOTAKU artwork (9) Buying Options CD (Compact Disc) Available Now SPS26126 CD | Release date: 8th October 2026 £14.99 LP (Black Vinyl) Available Now SPS26126 | Release date: 8th October 2026 £25.49 LP (Colour Vinyl) Available Now SPS26126 CV | Release date: 8th October 2026 £30.49 Blue vinyl with hand written insert. Mystica Tribe and Scopeotaku, having formed an international dub alliance, release "Mystica Tribe Meet Scopeotaku" via 13 / Silentes. "Taking their sounds into melodic experimental electronic dub territory. Previously, both have fused their own cultures and personalities into numerous dub releases. Now they are expanding their parameters by collaborating on a project that encompasses both their love for psychedelic and electronic audio combined with heavyweight dub reggae rhythms. Mystica Tribe is the musical alias of Tokyo, Japan based producer Taka Noda. Drawing on a wide range of influences from dub, soul, bass and rhythm & blues. Mystica Tribe has been developing a very distinctive sound that exists in a weird freaked out zone, between dub and techno. Noda is especially interested in deep psychedelic music and this is reflected in his productions. Which are equally suited for late night listening sessions or on bent broken dancefloors. Scopeotaku is the alter ego of Scott Prentice, a Glasgow, Scotland based artist. Scopeotaku has experimented with audio since purchasing a sampler and a four track cassette deck many many moons ago. His love for left-field dub and eccentric sounds have led him to create a variety of output, from industrial ambient, illbent electronics to mutant dub."
After some years of (non)hiatus, Contagious are back with a new album that furthers the evolution of their uncompromising sound. The album features the high caliber talents of guests: Valentina Magaletti, Sofia Jernberg and Andrea Belfi. “Being” is conceived around the different activities pursued by the band since the release of their first (self-titled) album. Members: Sabine Erklenz, Andrea Neumann and Mieko Suzuki have been concentrating on performing, composing and organizing their own event series “Partners in Crime” at Morphine Raum, Berlin. This series is an ongoing process of inviting musicians to collaborate, share and record new material - unrestricted by genre or anything else. It was during these sessions, “Being" was conceived and recorded. Inspired by the wide range of lifeforms found in nature, the track titles are once again dedicated to species that challenge binary notions of sex. The album conveys the band’s brutal approach to improvised processing - tense buildups, powerful grooves and delicate release. Contagious’ signature sound very much suits the wild vocal extensions by Sofia Jernberg, obsessive drum patterns by Valentina Magaletti and the Moondog-esque, hypnotic percussion of Andrea Belfi, all of whom offer powerful contributions to a tracks on the LP. The overall result is a blissful and loving punch in the stomach
"In August 2025, we gathered in Tindafel, a village by the sea in the north of Morocco, with a bunch of instruments our friend Abdou had lent us, along with a few things we brought ourselves. At the core, Pablo plays gimbri, Miguel plays drums, Juan plays guitar and keyboards, sings and handles the radio transmissions, and Javier sings, plays keyboard and works with digital effects. Loops were created interchangeably by Pablo, Miguel and Javier, while Pablo would often also pick up the guitar or keyboards, with everyone moving between instruments and roles throughout the recording. Nothing was written beforehand. All tracks were improvised and recorded in a single take using a room microphone, so no mixing was possible. To this day, as we write this, none of the tracks have been played again — yet!"
MTMS2 - Mystica Tribe Meets Scopeotaku 2 Following the duos first release - Mystica Tribe Meets Scopeotaku on 13/Silentes. "Mystica Tribe and Scopeotaku push their collaborative adventures further with MTMS2. Creating psychedelic dubs with rich textures, tape saturation and echo chambers. Utilising acid synths combined with deep dub rhythms and melodic electronics evolving into a new dimension of dub. Deep psychedelic electronic steppers blend with bass pressure and heavyweight rhythms drifting into techno, ambient and mutant dub. Creating a sonic adventure where tradition is often pushed into unfamiliar territory. Two distant worlds, one frequency. Nine tracks for the mind and body. Deep dub frequencies. Psychedelic textures. Heavyweight rhythms. Mystica Tribe is the musical alias of Tokyo, Japan based producer Taka Noda. Drawing on a wide range of influences from dub, soul, bass and rhythm & blues. Mystica Tribe has been developing a very distinctive sound that exists in a weird freaked out zone, between dub and techno. Noda is especially interested in deep psychedelic music and this is reflected in his productions. Which are equally suited for late night listening sessions or on bent broken dancefloors. Scopeotaku is the alter ego of Scott Prentice, a Glasgow, Scotland based artist. Scopeotaku has experimented with audio since purchasing a sampler and a four track cassette deck many many moons ago. His love for left-field dub and eccentric sounds have led him to create a variety of output, from industrial ambient, illbent electronics to mutant dub."
Early 2000s Japanese house project Two Faith released just one EP, tucked away on which were two lengthy Ron Trent remixes of '現在 / The Current'. Both the vocal and dub versions stretch beyond nine minutes, bringing Trent's signature deep house sound to this little-known gem. Both mixes are now given room to breathe on this welcome reissue.
Serengeti, one of hip-hop’s most singular and imaginative storytellers, returns to the expansive world of Kenny Dennis with KennyV. For more than a decade, Serengeti has used his mustachioed, Chicago-born alter ego to build one of rap’s funniest, strangest, and most unexpectedly poignant character studies. Kenny is a blue-collar hero, family man, sports obsessive, aspiring entertainer, and endlessly unreliable narrator whose everyday victories, anxieties, grudges, and digressions have grown into a richly detailed mythology all their own. Across twelve tracks, KennyV opens another chapter in that saga, balancing absurdist humor, intricate world-building, sharp wordplay, and genuine emotional weight. Serengeti’s conversational performances make even Kenny’s most surreal observations feel lived-in and deeply human, revealing new layers of the character while remaining accessible to listeners encountering him for the first time. Production comes from Backwoodz Studioz mainstays Messiah Musik, known for his work with Armand Hammer, billy woods, and Mach-Hommy, and Steel Tipped Dove, whose credits include Fatboi Sharif, Doseone, ShrapKnel, and milo. Together, they provide an evocative and unconventional backdrop perfectly suited to Serengeti’s unmistakable voice and unpredictable storytelling. Previously available digitally, KennyV now receives a long-awaited physical edition from Backwoodz Studioz on vinyl, CD, and cassette. A distinctive addition to the Kenny Dennis canon and Serengeti’s celebrated catalog, these editions are essential for longtime fans, adventurous hip-hop listeners, and collectors of truly original independent rap. Quantities are extremely limited.
Midori Takada and Jakob Bro follow "Until I Met You with" From "Such a Blue Sky", recorded at Tokyo’s AVACO Studios. "The Japanese percussionist and Danish guitarist build an intimate form of acoustic ambient from piano, percussion and acoustic guitar, with delicate melodies unfolding through spacious, meditative arrangements. Both musicians share an exploratory approach to sound, and their close interplay gives the record the feel of an unhurried conversation, moving between subtle rhythmic detail, melodic guitar and open stretches of sound."
Lyonnaise folk experimenters Adiciatz pucker up a fine debut of pastoral strum and creaky, subtly psych-tinged electronics drawing from Occitan folk and weft with harp-like taisho koto, calling to mind Natural Snow Buildings via C93. “Musique Domestique marks the debut full-length from French duo Adiciatz, a project that emerges from the shared musical curiosity of Manon Nogier and Guillaume Lespinasse. Living near Lyon and making music together since before the pandemic, the pair developed their sound during lockdown improvisations at home — a creative process that quickly revealed a unique musical chemistry rooted as much in folk tradition as in experimental exploration. Drawing on a wide palette of influences — from Occitan poetry, delicate folk to drone and spontaneous sound exploration — Adiciatz makes music that feels both intimate and expansive. Nogier’s voice and amplified taisho koto weave through Lespinasse’s keyboards, machines and percussive touches, forming a sonic world where ritualistic soft folk melodies coexist with subtle electronic textures. Their live performances, including an appearance at the Meakusma Festival, where their set blurred the line between concert and séance, have already shown how this blend comes to life in front of audiences, with hypnotic vocals, spiralling chords and slow, trance-like rhythms inviting listeners into a space that is both meditative and evocative. On Musique Domestique, those live-rooted sensibilities are distilled into recorded form. The album moves fluidly between rich pastoral folk and instrumental meanderings. Musique Domestique announces Adiciatz as a compelling new voice at the intersection of folk, experimental and electronic music crafted with care and intuition.”
By gathering so many far-flung but fully committed experiments within 78 minutes, the greatest accomplishment of White Elephant is laying bare his febrile creativity and commitment to growth. Head scratching has never been so much fun.” Peter Margasak, The Wire “An enormous sense of fun underpins this exhilarating ride…Leo's art is tantalising in every sense.” Daniel Spicer, New Internationalist “A dazzlingly chaotic, care-free compilation… Confrontational, complex and utterly compelling.” John Parry, Backseat Mafia “The ideal introduction to a deeply political artist whose output grazes tropicalia, funk carioca, samba, noise and even free jazz.” Boomkat Hive Mind are excited to have worked with Rio de Janeiro based label QTV, to bring you this retrospective from the cosmic joker of contemporary Brazilian music, Negro Leo. NEGRO LEO - White Elephant 2LP It's hard to know where to start with Negro Leo. I could start by saying that Negro Leo's background is in Anthropology and Sociology, and that he didn't start making music until he was 28 years old. I could tell you that in 2020 Paula Gaitán (who has also made films about Arto Lindsay, Eliane Radigue and Agnès Varda) made a documentary film called Riverock: É Rocha e Rio, Negro Leo about him. I could also tell you that in 2021 he became the subject of a scholarly book called Deixa Quimar (Let It Burn) written by philosophy professor and music critic, Bernardo Oliveira. I could also tell you that during his recording career over the past nearly 20 years he has collaborated with a who's who of artists at the cutting edge of contemporary Brazilian music including producers Sergio Machado and Renato Godoy and musicians such as Fábio Sá, Lucas Pires, Kiko Dinucci, Juçara Marçal, Domenico Lancellotti, Ricardo Dias Gomes, Eduardo Manso and of course his wife, Ava Rocha. These are some of the artists who have over the years, helped Negro Leo de Pindaré-Mirim (Maranhão), or Leonardo Campelo Gonçalves as shown on his passport, realise his unorthodox, unpredictable and deeply political musical vision. The music on this retrospective, which draws together songs from his 14 albums, EPs and singles released since 2012, ranges widely and wildly across genres and styles, from the urgent and angular no-wave inspired punk-funk of Niños Heroes or Ilhas de Calor, through the psychedelic hoedown of Noite Invertida or the beautiful and delicate Esferas and on to the maximalist hyperpop of more recent works like RELA or Desejo de Lacrar. Negro Leo consistently confounds, confuses, disturbs and provokes. His music is explicitly and fiercely Brazilian and draws on the history of black Brazilian music for inspiration - Gilberto Gil and Tropicalism, Itamar Assumpção and the Vanguard Paulista, Funk Carioca, the Boi's rhythm from the northern carnivals, the samba of the streets and the country - it's all thrown into the mix, along with free-jazz, noise and various chunks of non-Brazilian pop. Leo's music and songs serve as an essential documentation of the country's rapidly shifting social fabric in the digital age, a time in which the country and its people feel lost in a 'jungle of pixels'. Some of these surreal songs can feel overwhelming at times, like a wall of noise full of unfamiliar sounds and rhythms, but there's an unapologetic punk spirit behind it all, alongside a genius composer. It's worth pushing through the that sense of overwhelm to the place where the beauty and complexity of the composition and songwriting shines.
AMEN is a word that moves between the sacred and the ordinary, across languages and cultures. An ancient, universal expression, born in prayer yet living beyond it — in daily life, especially in the Italian language, where it has become part of ordinary speech, used to accept, conclude, affirm, and let things be. The sixth release on e s p e r p e n t o opens a gateway into a timeless, transcultural dimension through a continuous, immersive sonic flow. While conceived as an intimate listening journey, this record emerged from a shared experience within the walls of Frequenze Studio (Monza). ESPER006 is the result of a three-hour improvised live session that brought together experimental music trio MYS and London-based producer Big Hands.
Archimboldos have clawed their way out of the starcaves of their primordial past and into the tranquil light of a coral garden on their third full length album, Crusta Arcana, a gumbo stewpot of transcendent electronica suffused with tribal rhythms and liquid ambience. Across a stereo field smeared with tolling bells, post-industrial folk percussion, and tinkling keys, Archimboldos soundtrack a science fictional journey, not into the depths of space, but deep beneath the waves. In the past the Chilean duo of Nicolás Carcavilla and Felipe Crocco have described their music as “liminal shrimp folk.” Here they continue this strange exploration when they visit the court of the prawns, producing stately electronic chamber orchestrations. Perhaps these are the frequencies used for ritual dream initiation into the mystery schools of drowned Atlantis. Weaving an ancient sacred science, Archimboldos take listeners on a mystic vovage into their singular crustacean mythology, the crusta of their hidden arcana. Archimbolodos are masters of conjoining cyclonic and centrifugal lines of electricity into spellbinding incantations. These deep-sea transmissions envelope the listener into aquamarine forcefields that are as hallucinatory as they are hypnotic. Navigating these strange fantasias could lead one to getting lost at sea, but the work is buoyed by the somnolent melodies of lonely harpsichords and swelling synth pads whose sustained tones reach towards distant shores. Sailing across a vast expanse of oceanic harmonies and percolating percussion, these pieces are as precise as the hand of a sailor on the rudder, moving with the tide. Casting their net wide across eight pieces, Archimboldos have made a big catch. From the emotive electronic counterpoint found on “Bursting Armor” to the blocks of seaweed tangled sonic sculpture trawled up from the ocean floor on “Aphelion IX.” Other songs are like samples of biological ambience collected from luminous tide pools: resplendent tones placed into a Petri dish of sound, swirled, cultured and fermented until it undulates with the rhythmic movement of microscopic lifeforms. Alternating between rippling minimalist sonority and pounding, progressive, synth-heavy entrancement, Crusta Arcana charts its own idiosyncratic itinerary of instrumental invention. All the while light is down streaming from the heavens to pierce the waters, here calm, there choppy. The intrepid musical captains commanding Archimboldos have laid a course for new archipelagos of the imagination, guided by heavenly constellations. -Justin Patrick Moore, author of The Radio Phonics Laboratory, Telecommunications, Speech Synthesis and the Birth of Electronic Music
A mysterious little release from Grace, with a cover of Psychic TV's 1983 track 'The Orchids' on the B-side. Most copies are being sold at concerts, with just a handful making their way into shops.