MUSIC

A collection of transfixing, storm-like compositions, "Drifts” draws you into its heightened sense of quiet. The album’s twelve tracks revel in elegant, tranquilized vapors — one part ambient Classical, one part Club-adjacent ambience.

Pitched, reduced, sampled and re-sampled, the album’s glowing, elliptical abstractions — using piano, harp, strings & modular synthesizer — explore the emotional terrain between aftermath and renewal, blending the unstructured immediacy of improvisation with the elegant sculpture of composition.

Featuring collaborations with Patrick Belaga, Marilu Donovan (LEYA), and Takuma Watanabe, the album’s cinematic suite of impressionistic, ambient works invite the listener into a vast, mapless space of dreamlike non-linearity where interior and exterior landscapes bristle with intimacy and electricity.

“Sinsekai,” the 1994 masterpiece by Tanzmuzik, a Japanese techno/ambient/IDM unit formed by Akiwo Yamamoto and Okihide Sawaki, who were based in the Kansai region and helped shape the dawn of Japanese techno. The album blends YMO-inspired lyricism with elements of European techno, creating a unique musical identity, while its soft and dreamlike soundscapes envelop the entire record.

For years, Takuro Okada has carried a quiet question: how can a Japanese musician honor the music of African Americans without simply borrowing it? That search shapes his new album Konoma, a work guided by the idea of “Afro Mingei.” The Tokyo guitarist, producer, and bandleader has lived inside this tension since childhood, drawn to blues, jazz, and funk records that nourished him, yet hesitant in the face of the histories they hold. The concept of Afro Mingei, which Okada first encountered in an exhibition by artist Theaster Gates, gave him a way forward. Gates connected Black aesthetics with Japanese folk craft, both rooted in resistance — “Black is Beautiful” defying racism, the Mingei movement preserving everyday beauty against industrial erasure. That kinship became the compass for Konoma, a record attuned to echoes across cultures and time.

Konoma holds six originals and two covers, all shaped by this dialogue. The elegantly unhurried “Portrait of Yanagi” drifts like a standard half-remembered from another era, while the brief but potent “Galaxy” gestures toward Sun Ra’s late 1970s electric organ experiments, the fractured propulsion of Flying Lotus’s early beat tapes, and the shadowy atmospheres of trip-hop. Okada’s choice of covers sharpens the conversation: Jan Garbarek’s “Nefertite” shimmers with the cool austerity of 1970s ECM, reframing Europe’s own search for identity inside jazz, while Hiromasa Suzuki’s “Love” channels the electric vibrancy of 1970s Japanese fusion, when musicians fused psychedelia, funk, and folk into a distinctly local dialect. Together, they anchor Konoma in a lineage of artists who bent borrowed forms toward something new.

Okada’s life has been shaped by such crossings. He grew up in Fussa, where the Yokota U.S. Air Force base loomed large, learning guitar in rowdy clubs for American servicemen while teaching himself recording at home. That hybrid education led to collaborations with Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, James Blackshaw, and Carlos Niño, and to a body of work spanning film soundtracks, collaborative projects, and exploratory solo albums. Earlier this year, Temporal Drift released The Near End, The Dark Night, The County Line, which features selections from Okada’s expansive archive of recorded material, cementing his reputation as one of Japan’s most adventurous contemporary musicians. With Konoma, co-released by ISC Hi-Fi Selects and Temporal Drift, Okada delivers his most personal and expansive statement yet: a meditation on connection, influence, and the beauty that survives across cultures.

- Words by Randall Roberts

Barely known outside of his home country during his lifetime, the late Japanese ambient music pioneer Hiroshi Yoshimura has seen his global stature rise steadily in the past few years. The 2017 reissue of his lauded debut, Music For Nine Post Cards, along with a slow building cult internet following has helped ignite a renaissance in his acclaimed body of work, much of which has never been released outside of Japan. Known for his sound design and environmental music, Yoshimura worked on a number of commissions following the 1982 release of Music For Nine Post Cards, including works for museums, galleries, public spaces, TV shows, video art, fashion shows, and even a cosmetics company. Originally released in 1986, GREEN is one of Hiroshi Yoshimura’s most well-loved recordings and a favorite of the artist himself. Recorded over the winter of 1985-86 at Yoshimura’s home studio, the compositions unfold at an unhurried pace, a stark contrast to the busy city life of Tokyo. As Yoshimura explained in the original liner notes, the album title in the context of this body of work is not meant to be seen as a color, but is rather used to convey “the comfortable scenery of the natural cycle known as GREEN”—which perfectly encapsulates the soothing and warm sounds contained on the album, although it was created utilizing Yamaha FM synthesizers, known for their crisp digital tones. This edition marks the first reissue of the highly sought-after and impossible to find album. It features the original mix preferred by Yoshimura himself, previously available only on the initial Japanese vinyl release (a limited edition remixed version of the album, with added sound effects, was released on CD in the US). Additionally, this release is the first in our ongoing series, WATER COPY, focusing on the works of Hiroshi Yoshimura.

The newly remastered edition of "Evidence For Real" will be released November 14th on vinyl, digital, and streaming platforms, restoring the powerful work of a drummer, composer, and bandleader who chose to walk his own path, well outside the mainstream.

Born Robert Charles Sheppard Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, and later known as Ambonisye Lord Shepherd, the artist carried a life story as inspiring as his music. From his formative years in Omaha’s historic 24th & Lake district to his creative explorations in Los Angeles, Shepherd forged a sound that was at once fiercely personal and universally searching.

Recorded in late-night sessions across Hollywood and Hermosa Beach with a close circle of collaborators, Evidence For Real reflects Shepherd’s spiritual journey in the wake of his mother’s passing, embodying his belief in music as a vehicle for healing and higher consciousness.

This 2025 reissue finally brings Shepherd’s vision back into the light.

30 years!!!

Produced in 1995 by the gold-grilled hardcore/jungle/D&B pioneer, engineered by Rob Playford, Dillinja, and 4Hero’s Dego and Mark Mac, with vocals by the legendary Diane Charlemagne (R.I.P.), ’Timeless’ was and still is an ambitious and enduring example of British Afrofuturism. The album’s sense of discipline and crucial style was symptomatic of the scenius developed by a tight circle of mostly Black and mixed race British artists who drew on their African and Afro-Caribbean roots to develop a unique artform that expressed their identity, which would in course become adopted by a wider generation as their own.

A pinnacle of its artform, arguably never bettered, the album was practically ubiquitous during the mid-‘90s, with its introductory anthem ‘Inner City Life’ - part of the album’s opening three-part suite - a staple on MTV2 and mainstream radio, which helped transcend its urban roots and infect a whole generation beyond big cities and their clubs. It’s almost hard to imagine such a futuristic album quite like this appearing and exerting so much effect on the popular consciousness in 2021, but the ‘90s was a very different place and time, and we can only live in hope that the next decade will foster the next Goldie.

Oh, one last thing - Gerald's 'Black Secret Technology' came out almost exactly 5 months before 'Timeless', it didn't have the same promo budget behind it, but it's legacy seeps even further and deeper than 'Timeless' - and is perhaps, on the quiet, one of the most influential and enduring electronic albums of the late 20th century. Just sayin.

An intimate, mesmerising record about loss and change, sorry i thought you were someone else is K-LONE’s most personal album to date and his debut release on Incienso.

Made after his father’s passing, the album became a place of escape and reflection. A warm, hypnotic space to drift within.

Conic Rose's debut album has finally come to life on stage. After two years of playing it live, the music has grown, shifted, and deepened. This live album captures that process -- recorded in one night at Kantine Berghain, Berlin. A unique blend of jazz, indie and electronic elements -- the signature Conic Rose sound.

Wally Badarou is a synth pioneer and musical polymath. But rarely does he sing over his sumptuous tracks. The 6 songs that comprise new record Simple Things finally realise Wally's vision for select backing tracks from his beloved Colors Of Silence.

The tracks were originally developed back in 2001 for the release of the original CD; here, Wally has “simply" added overdubs and vocals to their mastered mixes with some discerning edits.

Simply put, Simple Things is another slice of simply stunning Wally Badarou genius.

Katie Schecter makes smoked-out, introspective indie rock that sits somewhere between hazy retro glamour and sharp present-tense songwriting. Raised in New York and now based in Nashville, she threads a line between swagger and sweetness – as if she’s stepped from a parallel timeline where pop, soul and indie rock all grew up together in the same neon dive bar.

Produced by Nick Bockrath (Cage The Elephant) and performed with a heavyweight cast including Homer Stenweiss and Leon Michels, this LP has a slow-unfurling depth that reveals new colours with every listen. The record has a lived-in warmth and dusty elegance to it – the kind of songwriting that feels confident without losing its vulnerability, and soulful without leaning into pastiche.

RIYL the songwriting weight of Sharon Van Etten, the sly hooks of Caroline Rose, and the smoky gravitas of Amy Winehouse.

A confident, stylish and quietly addictive set – a record built on feel, not fuss, and one that rewards repeat spins.

Originally released on CD in 2002, this LP features archival recordings dating back to 1959 alongside recordings made by Hal Willner in January 2001 (Jan 7th - 10th).

For the first time ever on vinyl, ‘DIE ON ME’ has been re-mastered & newly edited by Kramer. Within this historic collection are the last voice recordings of the legendary Beat poet Gregory Corso.

Intimate and raw, he muses on his life in conversation with friends Allen Ginsberg, Marianne Faithfull, and the legendary Chicago writer Studs Terkel, discussing and reciting some of his most beloved poems. The recording process illuminates Corso’s thoughts on his own work in deeply revealing detail.

No other spoken-word LP shines a brighter light on its subject.

Marianne Faithfull playfully incites him to tell stories, and upon his request, graces him with her own recitations of his poems.

This LP is a unique compendium collecting the works of the single most underappreciated master of American poetry, produced by the late great Hal Willner.

Corso's closest friend Allen Ginsberg told Kramer, “People say that I’m the greatest American poet of the 20th Century. I tell them they’re wrong. GREGORY CORSO is a far greater poet.”

Gregory Corso died on January 17th, 2001 at the age of 70, just a few days after many of these historic recordings were completed.

Corso’s ashes were laid to rest in Rome on May 5th, 2001 at the foot of Percy Bysshe Shelley’s grave in the Cimitero Acattolico. John Keats lay nearby.

Gregory Corso was both the youngest and one of the most prominent members of the Beat generation, alongside notable figures like Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg. Born in 1930 in Greenwich VIllage, Corso survived a traumatic childhood which included orphanages, foster homes, reform school, prison and mental hospital experiences. It was during his prison term he was able to self-educate and develop a unique poetic style that combined classical language alongside the newer lexicons of modern verse.

He became involved with the Beat literary scene, meeting influential writers and traveling with them extensively. His first book of poetry, ‘The Vestal Lady on Brattle’ was published in 1955. His subsequent published output was sparse, as he would labour for years over a handful of poems.

His closest friend Allen Ginsberg told Kramer, “People say that I’m the greatest American poet of the 20th Century. I tell them they’re wrong. GREGORY CORSO is a far greater poet.”

In the words of Hal Willner Excerpted from the original liner notes* (2002):

“Michael Minzer and I had been trying to produce a Gregory Corso album for years. For our series that featured Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, as well as Kathy Acker and Terry Southern, Gregory was someone we needed to include - besides, he was always my favorite poet to listen to. He had a wonderful, romantic, and beautiful voice; his readings never lost the sense of the unexpected and dangerous.” …

“Somehow the record that emerged is (in my opinion) incredibly beautiful, moving, sad—but not depressing, and often funny. Not to sound silly, but I felt that we had help with this record from some unknown source that guided and directed it. Just writing about how the record was made makes it even more amazing to me that it got done at all- and I’m very proud that it came together in this way. …”

"Amusing the Amazing" is a four song EP by American stoner rock band Slo Burn, originally released in 1997 by Malicious Vinyl. The band was fronted by vocalist John Garcia, formerly of Kyuss, and included guitarist Chris Hale, bassist Damon Garrison, and drummer Brady Houghton. The EP was co-produced by Slo Burn and Chris Goss. The EP is being remastered and pressed on 12” vinyl for the first time, with audio on one side and a custom etching on the other.

The raw, thunderous power of Charley Patton resounds once again in this essential second volume of Father of the Delta Blues: Selections from Paramount Recordings. These tracks capture Patton at his most urgent and unfiltered, delivering fierce slide guitar, hollered vocals, and lyrics steeped in mystery, defiance, and deep Mississippi soul. This volume continues the excavation of Patton’s singular legacy: part preacher, part trickster, part storyteller. Lovingly restored and remastered by Dave Gardner, Volume Two is not just a document of early blues—it's a glimpse into the roots of American music itself, where rhythm met rebellion and history was etched into shellac. Pressed on color vinyl exclusively for RSD Black Friday 2025.

In their short time together, Albert Ayler and Don Cherry created a body of music that genuinely exists in the moment. Oblivious to rules and aesthetic boundaries, they played what they felt on their nerve-ends, embracing mistake and wrong turns as part of the experience of making art in the moment. Now over sixty years old, these recordings breathe as strongly and sound as vividly as they did when they were made. This 4xLP box set contains four sets of recordings from the fall of 1964, including live sets at Copenhagen's Jazzhus Montmartre and a VARA Radio session in The Netherlands. The audio has been remastered and compiled together for the first time on vinyl. Albert Ayler's vital free jazz quartet featured Don Cherry on cornet, Gary Peacock on double bass and Sunny Murray on drums. The release includes a fold-out insert with extensive liner notes from Brian Morton.

In a daring, hypnotic tribute to Detroit’s primal avant-rock roots, drummer Larry Mullins (aka Toby Dammit) and legendary bassist Mike Watt stretch The Stooges’ haunting mantra “We Will Fall” into a sprawling near 40-minute ritual of repetition, restraint, and raw atmosphere. Mullins and Watt channel the eerie pulse and narcotic drone of the original 1969 track, pushing its trance-inducing core into uncharted territory. Mullins, known for his work with Iggy Pop, Swans, and Nick Cave, builds a minimalist landscape with his shruti box, Moog electronics, tabla, and gongs. Watt’s signature low-end thrum mutates from subtle heartbeat to full-body hallucination. What emerges is not a cover but an extended invocation. Part séance, part dirge, part free-form exploration of mood and mind. It’s a slow burn of sonic devotion, honoring the spirit of The Stooges while opening the door to something entirely new: a deep-listening descent into the sacred and strange. This meditative and menacing piece is split into two full sides for a 12” vinyl pressing, available exclusively for RSD Black Friday 2025. Half of the pressing comes on gold vinyl and half on black, selected at random.

OSMIUM is a collaboration between Oscar-winning Icelandic composer and cellist Hildur Guðnadóttir, James Ginzburg (emptyset, Subtext), Rully Shabara (Senyawa), and Grammy-winning producer and sound designer Sam Slater.

Forging burnished electroacoustic soundscapes with metallic drones, barbed rhythms, and bio-mechanical vocalizations, OSMIUM’s debut album resists any fixed vision of the future. Instead, it channels a viscous, unorthodox flow of sonic speculation—smoldering through echoes of ancient pasts while blazing toward a volatile frontier of fate.

Driven by questions around the relationship between humans and machines, tradition and progress, individual and collective expression, OSMIUM channel their deep expertise into a set of forward-thinking sonic interrogations. The music draws from folk, doom metal, 20th-century minimalism, industrial, and extreme noise, yet never settles fully into any genre.

While each member brings along a laundry list of accolades, the project is far greater than the sum of its parts. Widely known for her aforementioned soundtrack work and run of acclaimed solo albums on Touch, Guðnadóttir plays the halldorophone, a unique cello-like electroacoustic instrument designed by Halldór Úlfarsson that allows the performer to harness unstable feedback loops.

Taking his cues from this process, Sam Slater - who's worked alongside Jóhann Jóhannsson, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Ben Frost and others - generates rhythms using a self-oscillating drum he custom designed with KOMA Elektronik, and Ginzburg – one half of emptyset and curator of Subtext Recordings - responds in kind, producing booming tambura-like sonorities from a device he developed himself based on the monocord, an ancient single-stringed resonator.

OSMIUM synchronize the three unique instruments using a custom system of robotics to generate basic rhythms that underpin their improvisations and experiments, and although Shabara just uses his voice, it's his alien tones that supply the band with their conceptual fulcrum. The vocalist is one of South Asia's most recognizable underground artists, and the sounds he's able to create using exhaustively rehearsed extended techniques are so distinctive that he's been studied by scientists back home in Indonesia. As part of OSMIUM, Shabara attempts to merge with the band's machines, warping his vocal cords to mimic the robotics and originate hoarse percussive cracks and eldritch tonalities.

At the center of this volatile assemblage is Rully Shabara, whose voice forms the band’s conceptual and emotional fulcrum. One of Southeast Asia’s most singular underground artists, Shabara employs exhaustively rehearsed extended vocal techniques—so unique they’ve even drawn scientific attention in Indonesia. Within OSMIUM, his vocalizations merge with machines, producing hoarse percussive cracks and eldritch vocal tones that blur the line between human and mechanical expression.

“I first composed this music for myself as an adjunct to meditation, Tai Chi, and bodywork, and as music to play in the background of life, to replace the everyday cacophony with new and ordered sounds of an unpredictable nature. New sounds freed from preconception. …over time, friends who heard the music asked if I could make them copies. I then wrote two more pieces with the same intent: to relax the body, mind, and spirit and facilitate meditation.” - Lou Reed Lou Reed’s final solo album, Hudson River Wind Meditations, is one of his most personal musical works, combining Reed's love of creating drone music with his passion for Tai Chi, yoga and meditation. The album's ambient soundscapes have been described as a counterpoint to his intense Metal Machine Music album—but they are similar outliers in Reed's 40+ year exploration of drone music and feedback harmonics. It's for a certain time and place of mind. The album has been remastered by the GRAMMY®-nominated engineer John Baldwin with vinyl pressed at Record Technology Inc. (RTI). The Double LP and CD releases are designed by GRAMMY®-winning artist, Masaki Koike and feature new liner notes by renowned Yoga instructor and author, Eddie Stern, who guided Reed’s practice for years. Also included in the physical editions is a fascinating conversation between author/journalist Jonathan Cott (Rolling Stone, The New Yorker) and Reed’s wife, artist Laurie Anderson, who discusses the album, as well as her husband’s devotion to Tai Chi – one of the album’s primary inspirations. Hudson River Wind Meditations marks the latest release in LITA’s Lou Reed Archival Series. Launched in 2022 in tandem with the late artist’s 80th birthday, the ongoing series has celebrated one of America’s most influential songwriters through such acclaimed collections as Words & Music, May 1965 featuring many of Reed’s earliest (and previously-unreleased) recordings, including the earliest-known versions of “I’m Waiting for the Man” and “Pale Blue Eyes.”

“To hear a tape containing their earliest demos, recorded on May 11, 1965, and locked away until now, is to hear traces of things rarely associated with The Velvet Underground: blues and folk, earthy and traditional, uncertain and hesitant… yet bristling with that rusty, caustic, Lou Reed spirit. It is a revelation.” – Will Hodgkinson, MOJO Light in the Attic Records, in cooperation with Laurie Anderson, proudly announces the inaugural title in their ongoing Lou Reed Archive Series: Words & Music, May 1965. Released in tandem with the late artist’s 80th birthday celebrations, the album offers an extraordinary, unvarnished, and plainly poignant insight into one of America’s true poet-songwriters. Capturing Reed in his formative years, this previously unreleased collection of songs—penned by a young Lou Reed, recorded to tape with the help of future bandmate John Cale, and mailed to himself as a “poor man’s copyright”—remained sealed in its original envelope and unopened for nearly 50 years. Its contents embody some of the most vital, groundbreaking contributions to American popular music committed to tape in the 20th century. Through examination of these songs rooted firmly in the folk tradition, we see clearly Lou’s lasting influence on the development of modern American music – from punk to art-rock and everything in between. A true time capsule, these recordings not only memorialize the nascent sparks of what would become the seeds of the incredibly influential Velvet Underground; they also cement Reed as a true observer with an innate talent for synthesizing and distilling the world around him into pure sonic poetry. Featuring contributions from Reed’s future bandmate, John Cale, Words & Music, May 1965 presents in their entirety the earliest-known recordings of such historic songs as “Heroin,” “I’m Waiting for the Man,” and “Pale Blue Eyes”—all of which Reed would eventually record and make indelibly influential with the Velvet Underground. Also included are several more previously-unreleased compositions that offer additional insight into Reed’s creative process and early influences. Produced by Laurie Anderson, Don Fleming, Jason Stern, Hal Willner, and Matt Sullivan, the album features newly-remastered audio from the original tapes by GRAMMY®-nominated engineer, John Baldwin. Rounding out the package are new liner notes from acclaimed journalist and author, Greil Marcus, plus in-depth archival notes from Don Fleming and Jason Stern, who oversee the Lou Reed Archive. The centerpiece of the inaugural Lou Reed Archive Series release is the Deluxe 45-RPM Double LP Edition of Words & Music, May 1965. Limited to 7,500 copies worldwide, this stunning collection was designed by multi-GRAMMY®-winning artist Masaki Koike and features a stylized, die-cut gatefold jacket manufactured by Stoughton Printing Co., with sequential foil numbering. Housed inside are two 45-RPM 12-inch LPs, pressed on HQ-audiophile-quality 180-gram vinyl at Record Technology Inc. (RTI) featuring the only vinyl release of “I’m Waiting for the Man – May 1965 Alternate Version.” A bonus 7-inch, housed in its own unique die-cut picture sleeve and manufactured at Third Man Record Pressing includes the only vinyl release of six previously-unreleased bonus tracks providing a never-before-seen glimpse into Reed’s formative years, including early demos, a cover of Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice, It’s All Right,” and a doo-wop serenade recorded in 1958 when the legendary singer-songwriter was just sixteen years old. An accompanying saddle-stitched, die-cut 28-page book features lyrics, archival photos, and liner notes Also included is an archival reproduction of a rarely-seen letter, written by Reed to his college professor and poet, Delmore Schwartz, circa 1964. The set includes a CD containing the complete audio from the package, housed in a die-cut jacket.

Psychotropic’s seminal 1990 12” Only for the Headstrong is reissued, reconnecting us with the raw energy of the early UK rave era. Emerging at the height of acid house, the track fused house, breakbeat and psych-pop into a euphoric anthem that still captivates today.

The duo of DJ Gavin Mills and cult psych-pop experimentalist Nick Nicely created the record in a single inspired South London studio session, using little more than an Akai S900 sampler, a Fostex 8-track and a Casio CZ-101. Its hypnotic loops, soaring keys and infectious groove captured both the chaos and innocence of the scene, while B-side ‘Out of Your Head’ added a funk-driven, Prince-style twist.

Beloved by DJs, collectors and ravers alike, Only for the Headstrong became an underground hit, topping London’s indie shop charts and cementing Psychotropic’s reputation for marrying psychedelic textures with club-ready beats. This reissue arrives with liner notes by Nicely, offering fresh context for a track that embodies the open-minded DIY spirit of late-80s warehouse culture.

Yokohama multi-instrumentalist Tokio Ono eases into the Accidental Meetings' family with an array of Japanese folk tinged avant-dubs, drenched in beautiful texture.

The elusive artist has spent much of his life in his hometown with a view of the Yokohama waters, before settling into a new environment in Tokyo where Peel gradually took shape. The essence of a given situation emerges as you peel it away, these tracks were inspired by the accumulation of days and flashbacks of memories: layers to peel joyfully from our lives, while offering a slightly shifted and refreshing perspective on one’s surroundings. It's a dreamy journey from open to close, Ono's world engulfs you in a blissful dubbed out wormhole. Featuring a flip from the sound system royalty of Seekers International to top it off, Peel is a unique and exquisite piece of work.

East Kilbride’s Scott Fraser finally comes good on a 25 year promise to his younger self with his debut solo album on his own label DX Recordings out of London. This record represents the closing of this chapter and the opening of a new one.

A truly international and collaborative project pulling together the help and talent of friends around the world with mastering by Radioactive man Keith Tenniswood, cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery and world class US visual art and design legends, Tim Saccenti and Nick Martin on photography, artwork and design.

Limited to 300 solid red heavyweight vinyl copies, brown kraft sleeves; individually hand stencilled and numbered by the artist, printed inserts feature a collection of moments and images from the last 25 years - the studio, the equipment, the people and the places that came together to make this release. Japanese rice paper inner sleeves.

Limited edition hand printed screen print by Niall Greaves at Newbridge Print Studios in Newcastle on the first 30 copies exclusively available via the DX Recordings Bandcamp page.

Musically diverse, crossing styles, flavours and moods, threaded meticulously with razor sharp Roland TR606 programming and glued together with a Space Echo, Expanded opens with the sub aquatic funk of ‘Eden And After’. Side one takes you through banging electro on ‘Energy In Constitution’, the dark dub techno of ‘To The Letter Of My Oath’, leaves you disappearing through a black hole on ‘The Path Of Helium Rain’ and the sound of aliens talking through FM synthesis on ‘Collected Stills’. On side two: a slice of dark, heavy instrumental hip hop gets things started with ‘Where Is That Perception? ‘. Next we get into some straight 4/4 club techno with cut up drums and bumping baseline in ‘Mi Dominante’ before moving through some blissed out Detroit vibes on ‘Earth Looking Inwards’, a rough as you like TR606 driven experimental electro groover ‘Object of Life’ and finally closing out with the Ectomorph inspired stark electro of ‘Steel (NB_BLOOD cut)’

As far as we know, or at least can discern from those letters and records published after his tragically early death at the age of 40, the author Franz Kafka had two great love affairs. The second, with journalist and translator Milena Jesenská, has been widely celebrated in the decades since the collected, one-sided Letters to Milena was compiled and published. In it, we see what must be the total store of his warmth and passion – everything lacking in his disorienting, menacing fictions. The Milena letters, strange and hot and highly questionable as they are, remain a source of fascination and inspiration for Kafka fanatics, erotomaniacs and historians alike.

Unfortunately, their intellectually salacious reputation means those Letters far overshadow an earlier, thicker, darker volume penned by Franz K to his first great love and one-time fiancée, Felice Bauer, a relative of his lifelong editor Max Brod. While Kafka’s real-life story is one of brutal sexual failure and alienation before, during and after these two longer-term relationships, he managed a depth of written intimacy with both of these women most accurately described as harrowing. This tendency to expose himself most in moments of bitter melancholy is far more apparent and striking in the collected Letters to Felice.

This cold zoetrope, which conceals and reveals at accelerated frame-rates, eventually making a complex picture from an endless sequencing of small repetitive gestures, is the scaffold supporting Aris Kindt, the ongoing two-piece ‘post-structuralist pop’ project from Francis Harris and Gabe Hedrick. With Now Claims My Timid Heart, Harris and Hedrick continue the experiment started on Swann and Odette, crafting closed systems that promote a hushed correspondence between their sonic (Basic Channel, drone metal) and literary influences (Kafka, Sebald, Pynchon).

Their commitment to this insular, architectural thesis resolves itself yet again with a record that manages to be simultaneously alienating and deeply human. This is largely due to the novel and particular ways the band achieves its trademark sound: For Timid Heart (their first record since 2017 as well as their first release on NYC’s Quiet Time Tapes), Harris eliminated much of music’s normal dependence on physical space, instead creating hermetically sealed sonic ‘rooms’ where the songs can live by sending samples and loops through convolution reverb. Each of the eight tracks on Timid Heart is fundamentally, thus, a field recording from an inaccessible world.

Nowhere is this more apparent than on ‘Letters to Felice,’ which contains some of the album’s most Kafkaesque, dystopian atonality, as well as the most obvious influence of storied producer and engineer Phil Weinrobe (Adrienne Lenker, Big Thief), who oversaw mixing for the record. This is about as upbeat as Aris Kindt gets; listening closely and taking into consideration the Rembrandt painting that gave the band its name, one can only hear the ravings of the human heart in a biomechanical sense. Not the stuff of love letters, but the operating table; not throbbing with lust, but electricity. It is the sort of music that begs the listener to remain at a slight remove for their own safety, to avoid going out in the way that desire, once sated, also ceases to be.

Now Claims My Timid Heart is, in this way, both a continuation of and an advancement upon Swann’s speculative emotional landscape; it maintains the band’s mystic sense of intimacy while simultaneously moving it in a more interior, cautiously analytic direction. Like viewing the Aris Kindt of Rembrandt’s masterpiece, or the vulnerabilities of Kafka on the private page, Timid Heart feels at times like getting a peek into an autopsy in progress. Simultaneously raw and clinical, it pulses inside the listener, encouraging retreat – if only into oneself.

"Vancouver producer Patrick Holland aka Project Pablo’s house music goes breezy and back to basics on his debut full length and first release since moving to Montreal this Fall. “I Want To Believe” is a blue-tinged walk through Little Italy; chunky disco and hybrid house inspired by ultra-real types of smoothness like George Benson, Sade or Steely Dan (“Aja”, that is) and relocating perceivably dated cafe-culture styles of groove-focused house into a newly sincere context. Project Pablo’s bright and deep slant on easy-listening is built on sturdy but loose percussion, heavy bass grooves (some of which are provided by Jeremy Dabrowski of Montreal band Noni Wo) and insanely catchy/whistle-able melodic hooks. It’s traditionally funky but backlit with existentially spaced out textures and skewed by genre-splicings that spin cheesier elements into honest and at times meditative drifts, like opener “Sky Lounge” with reverberant synth fades on top a chunky 4/4 disco-influenced beat, or the downtime of “In The Mat” with a shuffled pace interspersed with pitched vocal “woop” snippets. Focusing on solid, functional dance components, “I Want To Believe” is scattered with taped out and wonky synth leads and punctuated here and there with goofed-out cappuccino clink-equivalents of cascading percussion and melodic keyboard flutters, blurring “lifestyle” ideals into rich, taped out moods for club and kitchen use."

Operating on the fringes of pure improv, organised chaos, minimal composition, lo-fi electronics and Italian spaghetti westerns, wide-eyed and with a healthy dose of DIY aesthetics lies the world of Jaan. It’s a poetic & cosmic universe, exploring “discreet music” whilst wandering on the edges of the Cat People soundtrack & Brian Eno’s more experimental output, in which you might yourself find floating, wandering or in the middle of a market place.

Jaan is a collective of one, a deliberately anonymous activistic unit with strong ties to the international art scene. Purposefully bypassing the know-it-all of the the internet & embracing the bygone mystery of dusty old archives and deep-dive searching, remarkably little is known about this project. Jaan is lead by veteran experimental sonic alchemist Jaan; they operate between Greenland, the Middle East and Europe, with frequent associates Lisqa, Mashid & Schneorr N. acting as local hubs for collaboration and exploration.

The purpose of this wilful obscurity: full focus on the actual music, whether live events or on recordings. Which brings us to Baghali, their first for World of Echo. It’s a deeply personal album, much like slowly browsing old family albums filled with vaguely remembered tales, some still very much present, some faded, leaving but a ghost-like reflection of what once was. Baghali was compiled over the course of a year on the road, trapped in snow storms, waiting for cancelled flights and stuck rides. It’s made up of snippets of diary, quick recordings on road sides, abandoned buildings, garden ruins, vast desert and focussed studio sessions, following a collage-like aesthetic and steeped in an exploration of non-lineair storytelling. There’s broken memories, a sense of displacement and an occasional yearning for what can’t be again, clouded in fever and unrest, but there is also hope, wonderment and bright colours seeping through the cracks in the wall. Jaan weaves home-made instruments, old tape loops, broken synths, beat-up reeds, dusty beat boxes and the occasional doom guitar squall into a tapestry of fractured sound, with tracks following their own inherent logic rather than following formats. Sounds crash in and out, field recordings placing the listener firmly in an environment then throwing several perspectives at once onto them, with individual elements - a wandering clarinet, a lone mandolin, a beat out of place yet perfectly in place - slowly walking in and out & doing their thing.

The whole album is alive, breathes, takes a wrong turn, gets lost, somehow finds its way again - effortless and with a unique sense of space and flow.