MUSIC

A masterpiece that has been loved since its publication in 1968 from the long-established folk music store Okora! Recorded in 1967, Central Africa is a field recording of the Republic of Burundi. There are only wonderful recordings that you can't see in Japan, such as the dubious sound of a stringed instrument similar to Gnawa and the unique singing style like an Inuit.

Inspired by the foothills of the Sierra de Guadarrama mountains north-west of Madrid, his home since August 2022, Milo Fitzpatrick presents Sierra Tracks the new album from his expansive, cinematic, chamber-jazz project Vega Trails.

Having cut 2022’s beautifully resonant debut album ‘Tremors in the Static’ as a duo, alongside saxophonist Jordan Smart (Mammal Hands and Sunda Arc), Milo now substantially expands upon that blueprint with his follow-up, ‘Sierra Tracks’, which, as the title suggests, was conceived at his new home in central Spain and adds piano, vibraphone and strings to the mix.

From the epic five-minute opener, ‘Largo’, onwards, there’s a cinematic feel to ‘Sierra Tracks’, as each piece unfolds according to its own sweeping narrative, often wonderfully evocative of the mountains’ wide-open spaces, and also sometimes elaborately arranged with cello, orchestral strings, vibraphone and piano, to evoke their awe-inspiring natural splendour. ‘Reverie’ has a refrain that fades in and out, like a daydream”. ‘Els’ is more firmly rooted in folk melody, while ‘Dream House’ and ‘Sleepwalk Tokyo’ boost a sense of otherworldliness.

For their third album on Bongo Joe, Madalitso Band takes a new direction.

After two records capturing the raw intensity of their live performances, the Malawian duo ventures for the first time into the possibilities of the studio — without ever compromising their signature style or energy.

Armed with their handmade babatone, a guitar, and their interwoven voices, Yobu and Yosefe craft a sound at the crossroads of banjo music, kwela, gospel, and African folk. An acoustic trance that’s both minimal and vibrant, deeply rooted in tradition yet undeniably fresh and contemporary. On Ma Gitala, they add new textures: layered vocals, playful percussion, melodic surprises, and guests from their close and family circles.

Always guided by instinct, the band reveals a more intimate and narrative side of their universe — full of memories, spontaneity, and close-knit complicity. An album that captures the joy and creativity of two artists who turned the street into a stage, and the stage into a playground.

This is a lovely and surprising treat indeed. Composer and multi-instrumentalist Tim Hodgkinson (Henry Cow and much more) partners with vocalist Atsuko Kamura (Mizutama Shobodan aka Polka Dot Fire Brigade and Frank Chickens) to present 37 compositions, expanding the usual sub-10-second acoustic life of classic haiku into a varied suite of compositions which place the gem-like poems, spoken and sung in both English and Japanese by Hodgkinson and Kamura, into gorgeous musical frames composed by Hodgkinson. "Haiku In The Wide World" lovingly embraces texts spanning the 17th to 20th centuries, revered examples of a long-established Japanese literary form, bringing these brief poems into the realms of musical art, setting them in an extended network of sonic inter-relationships. The instrumental textures, paradoxically sparse yet rich, crystalline yet warm, are provided by Hodgkinson’s own clarinet and other sound sources, as well as beautifully played and crisply recorded french horn, viola, violin, cello and acoustic guitar. The voices and instrumental sounds fuse with the poetic images, each throwing light and casting shadows on each, revealing hidden significances and building resonances across the arc of the release. The Japanese and English voicings of the haiku also provide further layers of significance, resonance and communication. The English translations, by poet Harry Gilonis, sparked Hodgkinson to initiate this project, a dancing, shifting terrain of life moving through the seasons and the comings and goings of the moon and sun. This project is a unique world, distinctly different from what either Hodgkinson and Kamura have previously accomplished. "Haiku In The Wide World" is a co-release, with ReR launching a UK CD version; EM Records provides both CD and 2LP versions. The tracks and sequence are the same for both labels, but the cover art is different — perhaps you should buy each version; "Haiku In The Wide World" is certainly worthy.

“This is the time that we, who have benefited from the Last Poets should be able to say, ‘it’s the Last Poets. It’s them we should be honouring, because we did not honour them for so many years…”

KRS One wasn’t just addressing the hip hop fraternity when he uttered those words by way of introducing the video for Invocation – a poem written thirty years ago, around the time of the Last Poets’ last significant comeback. He was speaking to everyone who’s been affected by the word, sound and power issuing from the most revolutionary poetry ever witnessed, and that the Last Poets had introduced to the world outside of Harlem at the dawn of the seventies.

In 2018 the two remaining Last Poets, Abiodun Oyewole and Umar Bin Hassan, embarked on another memorable return with an album – Understand What Black Is – that earned favourable comparison with their seminal works of the past, whilst showcasing their undimmed passion and lyrical brilliance in an entirely new setting – that of reggae music. Tracks like Rain Of Terror (“America is a terrorist”) and How Many Bullets demonstrated that they’d lost none of their fire or anger, and their essential raison d’etre remained the same.

“The Last Poets’ mission was to pull the people out of the rubble o f their lives,” wrote their biographer Kim Green. “They knew, deep down that poetry could save the people – that if black people could see and hear themselves and their struggles through the spoken word, they would be moved to change.”

Several years later and the follow-up is now with us. The project started when Tony Allen, the Nigerian master drummer whose unique polyrhythms had driven much of Fela Kuti’s best work, dropped by Prince Fatty’s Brighton studio and laid down a selection of drum patterns to die for. That was back in 2019, but then the pandemic struck. Once it had passed, the label booked a studio in Brooklyn, where the two Poets voiced four tracks apiece and breathed fresh energy, fire and outrage into some of the most enduring landmarks of their career. Abiodun, who was one of the original Last Poets who’d gathered in East Harlem’s Mount Morris Park to celebrate Malcolm X’s birthday in May 1968, chose four poems that first appeared on the group’s 1970 debut album, called simply The Last Poets. He’d written When The Revolution Comes aged twenty, whilst living in Jamaica, Queens. “We were getting ready for a revolution,” he told Green. “There wasn’t any question about whether there was going to be one or not. The truth was many of us still saw ourselves as “niggers” and slaves. This was a mindset that had to change if there was ever to be Black Power.”

He and writer Amiri Baraka were deep in conversation one day when Baraka became distracted by a pretty girl walking by. “You’re a gash man,” Abiodun told him. The poem inspired by that incident, Gash Man, is revisited on the new album, and exposes the heartless nature of sexual acts shorn of intimacy or affection. “Instead of the vagina being the entrance to heaven,” he says, “it too often becomes a gash, an injury, a wound…”

Two Little Boys meanwhile, was inspired after seeing two young boys aged around 11 or 12 “stuffing chicken and cornbread down their tasteless mouths, trying to revive shrinking lungs and a wasted mind.” They’d walked into Sylvia’s soul food restaurant in Harlem, ordered big meals, then bolted them down and run out the door. No one chased after them, knowing that they probably hadn’t eaten in days. Fifty years later and children are still going hungry in major cities across America and elsewhere. Abiodun’s poem hasn’t lost any relevance at all, and neither has New York, New York, The Big Apple. “Although this was written in 1968, New York hasn’t changed a bit,” he admits, except “today, people just mistake her sickness for fashion.”

Umar is originally from Akron, Ohio, but had arrived in Harlem in early 1969 after seeing Abiodun and the other Last Poets at a Black Arts Festival in Cleveland. That’s where he first witnessed what Amiri Baraka once called “the rhythmic animation of word, poem, image as word-music” – a creative force that redefined the concept of performance poetry and stripped it bare until it became a howl of rage, hurt and anger, saved from destruction by mockery and love for humanity. When Umar’s father, who was a musician, was jailed for armed robbery he took to the streets from an early age where he shined shoes and raised whatever money he could to help feed his eight brothers and sisters. By the time he saw the Last Poets he’d joined the Black United Front and was ready to join the struggle.

Once in Harlem, Abiodun asked him what he’d learnt in the few weeks since he’d got there. “Niggers are scared of revolution,” Umar replied. “Write it down” urged Abiodun. That poem still gives off searing heat more than fifty years later. In Umar’s own words, “it became a prayer, a call to arms, a spiritual pond to bathe and cleanse in because niggers are not just vile and disgusting and shiftless. Niggers are human beings lost in someone else’s system of values and morals.”

And there you have it. It's not just race or religion that hold us back, but an economic system that keeps millions in poverty and living in fear – a system born from political choice and that’s now become so entrenched, so bloated on its own success that it’s put mankind in mortal danger. It was many black people’s acceptance of the status quo that inspired Just Because, which like Niggers Are Scared Of Revolution, was included on that seminal first album. Along with their revolutionary rhetoric, it was the Last Poets’ use of the “n word” that proved so shocking, but it would be wrong to suggest that they reclaimed it, since it never belonged to black people in the first place. There’s never any hiding place when it comes to the Last Poets. They use words like weapons, and that force all who listen to decide who they are and where they stand.

Umar’s two remaining tracks find him revisiting poems first unleashed on the Poets’ second album This Is Madness! Abiodun had left for North Carolina by then where he became more deeply enmeshed in revolutionary activities and spent almost four years in jail for armed robbery after attempting to seize funds related to the Klu Klux Klan. Meanwhile, the 21 year old Umar was squatting in Brooklyn and had developed close ties with the Dar-ul Islam Movement. A longing for purity and time-honoured spiritual values underpins Related to What, whilst This Is Madness is a call for freedom “by any means necessary,” and that paints a feverish landscape peopled by prominent black leaders but that quickly descends into chaos. “All my dreams have been turned into psychedelic nightmares,” he wails, over a groove now powered by Tony Allen’s ferocious drumming.

Those sessions lasted just two days, and we can only imagine the atmosphere in that room as the hip hop godfathers exchanged the conga drums of Harlem for the explosive sounds of authentic Afrobeat. Once they’d finished, the recordings and momentum returned to Prince Fatty’s studio, since relocated from Brighton to SE London. This was stage three of the project, and who better to fill out the rhythm tracks than two key musicians from Seun Anikulapo Kuti’s band Egypt 80? Enter guitarist Akinola Adio Oyebola and bassist Kunle Justice, who upon hearing Allen’s trademark grooves exclaimed, “oh, the Father… we are home!”

Such joy and enthusiasm resulted in the perfect fusion of Nigerian Afrobeat and revolutionary poetry, but the vision for the album wasn’t yet complete. He wanted to create a new kind of soundscape – one that reunited the Poets with the progressive jazz movement they’d once shared with musicians like Sun Ra and Pharoah Sanders. It was at that point they recruited exciting jazz talents based in the UK like Joe Armon Jones from Mercury Prize winners Ezra Collective, also widely acclaimed producer/remixer and keyboard player Kaidi Tatham, who’s been likened to Herbie Hancock, and British jazz legend Courtney Pine, whose genius on the saxophone and influence on the UK’s now vibrant jazz scene is beyond question.

The instrumental tracks on Africanism are in many ways as revelatory and exciting as the Last Poets’ own. It’s important to remember that the kaleidoscope of styles and influences we’re presented with here aren’t the result of sampling but were played “live” by musicians responding to sounds made by other musicians. That’s where the magic comes from, aided by Prince Fatty’s peerless mixing which allows us to hear everything with such clarity. Music fans today have grown accustomed to listening to all kinds of different genres. Their tastes have never been so broad or all-encompassing, and so the music on this new Last Poets’ album is as groundbreaking as their lyrics, and perfectly suited to the era that we’re now living in.

Martin Rev’s fifth solo album – Strangeworld – was released on the cusp of the new millennium. The label responsible was Puu, a Finnish imprint belonging to Tommi Grönlund and Mika Vainio’s Sähkö Recordings which came to fame in the 1990s on the strength of its uncompromising minimalist sound.
Four years earlier, in 1996, Rev had unleashed See Me Ridin, an album which surprised its listeners with keyboard melody sketches and distilled doo-wop compositions. It was also the first solo album to feature Martin Rev on vocals.
Strangeworld started where its predecessor left off. Melodic passages dissolved into a thicket of fragments and set pieces, coalescing in a celestial shimmer between rhythm loops and Rev’s voice, which assumed the role of an additional instrument rather than a standard singing part.

Artist: Flower Travellin' Band, 50 motorcycles and others
Album title: Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles

=Special Edition=
Format: 10-inch LP & CD + CD-R
Catalog #: EMC-023SP/OP-0018SP

Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Band. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. And what an event it was: a night-time sound-bomb with a fabled band, electronic sound and 50 motorcycles with horns blaring, spotlights, electronic billboards and a robot ― all flashing, roaring and howling at the night sky. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos. No download code/ticket available.

Special Edition includes a CD-R of a interview program with the producers of "Beam Penetration" in 1970. At the end of the program, the Flower Travellin' Band appeared with motorcycles and performed in the studio. Also includes insert with English translation of the interview.

TRACKS:
CD “Beam Penetration” (full-length) [45:49]

10-inch (excerpts)
Side A “Beam Penetration” [14:52]
Side B “Beam Penetration” [15:15]

CD-R (Special Editon only extra disc)
"Beam Penetration" Interview & Performance on TV shop on July 13, 1970 

Artist: Flower Travellin' Band, 50 motorcycles and others
Album title: Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles

=Regular Edition=
Format: 10-inch LP & CD
Catalog #: EMC-023/OP-0018

Expo 70, held in Osaka, was a pivotal event for the Japanese people and their relationship with the rest of the world, demonstrating both the nation’s ongoing economic recovery from World War Two and the creative spirit of Japanese society and its artists. The event gained international acclaim for its adventurous architectural design, visual art and electronic music. Some of Japan’s most renowned composers were involved, but also present were the now-legendary rockers, the Flower Travellin' Band. A series of performances, billed as “Night Events” were held at the Expo; the most radical of these was "Beam Penetration and Mad Computer, plus the Minimal Sound of Motorcycles”, but its anti-establishment feel and general madness took the Expo organizers by surprise and it was cancelled after only one night, despite being scheduled for a longer run. An air of myth developed around the event, but a recording of the event has been discovered and this release is the result. And what an event it was: a night-time sound-bomb with a fabled band, electronic sound and 50 motorcycles with horns blaring, spotlights, electronic billboards and a robot ― all flashing, roaring and howling at the night sky. This release comprises a CD, a 10-inch record with fold-out sleeve and large obi, plus fascinating notes in Japanese and English by Kenichi Yasuda, an expert on Japanese rock music, and Koji Kawasaki, a renowned researcher of Japanese electronic music, as well as rare photos. No download code/ticket available.

TRACKS:
CD “Beam Penetration” (full-length) [45:49]

10-inch (excerpts)
Side A “Beam Penetration” [14:52]
Side B “Beam Penetration” [15:15] 

Deeply resonant spiritual music transmitted via piano, organ, and harmonium by beloved composer and Ethiopian Orthodox nun Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru.

Church of Kidane Mehret collects all the musical work from Emahoy’s 1972 private press album of the same name, alongside two additional unreleased piano recordings, exploring Emahoy’s take on “Ethiopian Church Music.”

Recording herself in churches throughout Jerusalem, Emahoy engages directly with the Ethiopian Orthodox musical liturgy. For the first time, we hear Emahoy on harmonium and massive, droning pipe organ, alongside some of her most moving piano work.

“Ave Maria” is one of our favorite pieces Emahoy ever recorded, her chiming piano reverberating against ancient stone walls. Her familiar melodic lines take on new resonance when played through the harmonium on “Spring Ode - Meskerem.” Two towering organ performances comprise the B Side, combining Emahoy’s classical European training with her lifelong study of Ethiopian religious music.

Nowhere is Emahoy’s unique combination of influences more apparent than on “Essay on Mahlet,” a meditative slow burner in which Emahoy interprets the free verse of the Orthodox liturgy note for note on the piano. This revelatory piece, alongside the dramatic piano composition “The Storm,” comes from another self-released album, 1963’s Der Sang Des Meeres. Only 50 copies were ever produced (and no cover). One of the only known copies was saved from the trash and shared with Mississippi by a fellow nun at Emahoy’s monastery when we visited for Emahoy’s funeral in March of 2023.

We are proud to work with the Emahoy Tsege Mariam Music Foundation to bring you these rare spiritual recordings in what would have been the artist’s 102nd year.

Available in black and clear vinyl editions. Old-school tip-on jacket with metallic silver foil stamping along with a 12-page booklet featuring extensive liner notes from scholar and pianist Thomas Feng.

The long-awaited re-press of the famous recording of pygmy from the prestigious French folk music label OCORA in the domestic version! !!
Among the various pygmy tribes, Aka Pygmy has a particularly high musicality, and the social and religious life of the group is closely linked to music, and there is no day without music. This recording also includes songs for rituals before hunting, songs for finding honey in the forest, songs sung at feasts after hunting, and oral traditions of history and knowledge. It is an anthology of Aka Pygmy, as the title suggests, including songs that sing myths and stories while telling stories, songs of mourning for the dead, and so on. In addition, the recording period is 1972-1977, which is the golden age of field recording of traditional music, and extremely dense and deep performances centered on voice and rhythm are recorded with full sound quality. The complex and beautiful polyphony, in which the rhythm and voice of Aka Pygmy are united, is full of irreplaceable charm. With Japanese commentary

Disc 1
Soboko (ritual prior to the departure of hunting) [Kingo Yamo E / Wango / Cocora Efese / Bora Bosombo] Mongonbi (Call of hunting)
Zombie (song of return from hunting)
Monzori (dance after killing an elephant)
Mobandi (ritual prior to honey gathering) [Epanda / Angonga-Ekdu Moseke / Evete Kele-Mona Sumbu-Ma Nama Dizamba / Ngangele (song of mockery) / Eponga mo Beva na Mokupina / Longokodi / Ekpandaro-Monbinhi / Mo Boma / Ndoshi]
Three children's play with songs [Nze Nze Nze / Kuru Kuru / Congo Belle] Music for the dance "Mubenzele" [Divot / Anduwa]

Disc 2
Mokondi
Music for the dance "Ngbol" Music for the dance "Aeonbe" [Nduda / Bobangi]
Two song stories [Nyodi (bird) / Nanga Ningi (with a thin body)] Boywa (song of mourning for the corpse) Bond (fortune-telling music) [Dikobo / Die / Apollo] Coco Ya Ndongo
Yaya
Mubora (version 1)
Mubora (version 2)

ルーマニア出身、フランスを拠点を拠点に活動した前衛的作曲家／音楽学者であり、〈Cramps Records〉の名シリーズ〈Nova Musicha〉にも傑作を残すCostin Miereanu。現在のミニマル～ニューエイジ再評価文脈においても密かに注目されるべき存在である同氏が自身のレーベルである〈Poly-Art〉に76年から82年にかけて残した幻の作品群が6枚組CDボックスセットとして〈Metaphon〉から奇跡の再登場！ジャーマン・エレクトロニクスを想起させるような外宇宙的憧憬を、現代音楽やミニマル・ミュージックの文脈でより親密かつ天上的に独自解釈した、幽玄なコズミック・ミニマル・アンビエントが満載。本当に素晴らしい逸品です。名匠Stephan Mathieuによるオリジナル・テープからリマスタリング仕様。28ページに及ぶブックレットが付属。この機会を絶対にお見逃し無く！

The first release to document the solo cello work of musician and composer Lucy Railton, the 40-minute composition Blue Veil recorded at Église du Saint-Esprit in Paris invites listeners into the realm of precision-tuned states of resonance: states made manifest through Railton’s careful traversal of her cello's most subtle acoustic characteristics as they harmonically interlock with mind’s embodied modalities of attention and imagination.
Blue Veil arises out of, is sustained in and finally dissolves back into Railton’s momentary presence with her intimate connection to the cello, a way of hearing that allows for a deeper engagement with harmonic resonance, one that opens a space for immediate encounters of mind and sound.
Railton’s exploratory practice of harmonic perception emerges from a focus on the physical qualities of intervallic and chordal sounds, their textural qualities, degrees of friction, and inner pulsations. Composing in the moment guided by resonances within the cello’s body, her own, and their shared vibrational space, Railton moves through Blue Veil by giving sounds what they ask for: sounds of pure texture manifesting as a move through temporal transparency, sounds of rough texture marking regions of dimensionally dense space.
Railton’s creative and highly refined use of just intonation harmony deforms sound's inner movements in ways that suggest a mode of listening that actively supplies imagery of sounds implied or completely absent rather than merely savouring those fully present. This active mode of “listening-with”, playfully and semi-metaphorically referred to by Railton as “sing-along music”, allows listening to reflexively participate in the music’s movement as it gradually passes through richly saturated domains of harmonic imagination. And just as the precision-tuned tones of Blue Veil lose their individuality when fusing multifaceted uniformity, listening’s structures of reference and recognition dissolve into nameless waves of intensity, continuously unfolding themselves upon and merging with the listener.
Blue Veil is the result of a deep exploration of the inner worlds of tuning, an undertaking in turn informed by and emerging out of Railton’s realisations of the music of Catherine Lamb and Ellen Arkbro, her collaborative work with Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley as well as her interpretive practice in performing the work of Maryanne Amacher, Morton Feldman and others. 

One of the universal experiences of life on Earth is staring, neck craned, at the cosmos. The vastness of one’s internal life meets the vastness of space, and in that moment those perspectives fuse in a state of wonder and curiosity. Space As An Instrument, the new album by French artist and musician Félicia Atkinson, invites listeners to explore the phantasmic landscapes created in such transformative encounters, when the mind is open and receptive to its environment. Like being absorbed by the immensity of the night sky, this music dilates the imagination and helps us to sit comfortably in the mystery of the ineffable. We are guided through Space As An Instrument by the piano, its a linear story told through restrained, iterative melodies that become entwined with the sounds at the music’s margins - a wisp of electronics, a pinprick of an enunciated consonant. They were recorded on Atkinson’s phone, which was placed next to the keys, or behind her, with the sound of the room bleeding through to give a sense of the place and time of the encounter. She describes these sessions as meetings where she and the piano commune to co-create these spiraling phrases and vaporous dissonances moment by moment. Complicating this dynamic is the presence of digital pianos, which exist in the surreal space of diodes and LED displays. They act as avatars of their three-dimensional counterparts: nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. Still, the inhabited world of people, water, and wind can be heard throughout Space As An Instrument. Often these recordings are integrated into the backdrop of electronics, or reduced to the sound of movements whose physical forms are obscured: the microphone straining against a forceful gust on “Sorry,” arhythmic footsteps traversing an invisible terrain on “Pensées Magiques.” These field recordings take us to the brink of synesthetic experience, allowing us to glimpse with our ear the topography of the imagination. But Atkinson’s music resists any kind of singular perspective on the scene, or any distinct conclusion. “It doesn’t explain anything,” she says, “but it translates the way I perceive it, somehow.” Atkinson is a polymath by nature, engrossed in a variety of daily artistic practices that nourish one another. In her garden, she performs the slow work of cross-species relationship building, cultivating an ideal space for introspection and further creation; many of the album’s vocal and electronic elements were recorded there. Poetry, which she prizes for its capacity to render the everyday tools of meaning-making more enigmatic, becomes folded into the music as well. She paints as often as time allows. One personal limitation Atkinson finds in painting, the rendering of perspective, has become one of her music’s defining characteristics. The vantage point of the listener is slippery and undefined, with sounds at once appearing gigantic and minuscule, distant and immediate. This phenomena is central to “Thinking Iceberg,” a 13-minute piece that was whittled down from an hour and a half performance, who remain only a ghostly presence on the album’s recording. Atkinson wrote the piece in response to Olivier Remaud’s book Thinking Like An Iceberg, in which the philosopher assigns agency to these massive, endangered objects and imagines how they might perceive their millenia-long relationship to humans. Stoic synthesizer tones percolate while water flows just out of the immediate frame with a disarming clarity and presence. As the piece crests, Atkinson’s whispered voice emerges softly, placed right against the listener’s left ear, contrasting with the billowing mass of sound that otherwise dominates. We emerge with a glimmer of awareness of how immensity and delicacy can coexist as time and humanity extract their toll. Félicia Atkinson says her music exists “on the verge of understanding and not understanding,” which often precludes such literal interpretations. But in that nebulous space there is humility and openness, and perhaps enough empathy to understand the consciousness of a massive, frozen chunk of water. With the listener’s perspective diffused into many different vantage points, how might that, too, become a vehicle for the development of compassion? As we listen, we encounter the wisdom that there is meaning not just in the experience of the sublime, that radical juxtaposition of limitlessness and intimacy, but also in the continuum of countless individuals that have taken the same journey.

His latest work is already here! Inspired by the global anti-racist protests in the wake of George Floyd's murder, the mixtape "hybtwibt?" was released in 2020 as a fundraiser against racism in the UK. Where To Now?" was featured on Pitchfork and Bandcamp as one of the "best ambient albums of the year. Space Afrika (Joshua Inyang & Joshua Tarelle) is an experimental duo based in Manchester, UK, who have been featured on various cutting-edge labels such as Where To Now? Their new album is out now on the prestigious Dais label. Liquefying garage, jungle, grime, and even dream pop into a glittering trail of pulses and pads, they've boiled down the music of Dean Blunt, DJ Spooky, the Cocteau Twins, and Klein into a candlelit narrative.

Australia’s world-renowned cinematic soul outfit Surprise Chef return with new album Superb. A record that represents a change in their creative approach and turns up the heat in their music. Trading in their meticulous writing and recording techniques for a looser and less planned approach with the intentions of bringing more levity to the process, and it comes through in spades. The high caliber musicianship is still front and center, but they push their sound into a more energetic and fun place on this album.

Album opener “Sleep Dreams” is the closest thing to a Surprise Chef tune one would come to expect, but then lead single “Bully Ball” comes on and you get the picture that they came to kick in the door on this one. The song’s gritty drums thunder through the speakers and get covered with percussion, keys, bass, and guitar chanks that stay in the pocket and bring the funk with them. The band pushes the boundaries of arrangement with tunes like “Body Slam” that starts off like a sweet soul track then pulls a 180, turning dark and haunting, centering on a sound they created by tucking a timpani into a bathroom two doors down from the mixing board. That same sense of experimentation comes up again on “Fare Evader” where they pepper another neck breaking rhythm track with synth notes that sound like robot sound effects from a 70s sci-fi film. The fellas turn up the tempo for the dance with tunes like “Consulate Case” and “Tag Dag”; the former pulling influence from afro-funk and the latter from jazz-funk. They take us deep into the beautiful world of Surprise Chef ballads on “Websites” and double down on their abilities to make beautiful and ethereal tracks with “Dreamer’s Disease”.

With their new album Superb, their new approach, and plans to tour the world, we are about to see Surprise Chef take the step from the underground’s most beloved to a household name and we are definitely here for it. 

Latency presents the first-ever arrangements of iconic Ethiopian composer Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s music for piano and strings, honoring her desire to broaden the interpretation of her work beyond the piano.

Led by pianist, composer, and Emahoy’s friend Maya Dunietz, a nine-piece string ensemble performed her compositions during two tribute concerts at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, in April 2024. This album celebrates the centenary of Emahoy’s birth and commemorates the first anniversary of her passing.

The album marks the culmination of a journey that began nearly two decades ago, in 2005. While browsing a London record store, pianist and composer Maya Dunietz and conductor Ilan Volkov discovered a CD by Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru, released as part of the acclaimed ‘Éthiopiques’ series. Intrigued, they sought out the esteemed musician, eventually locating her in a small monastery in Jerusalem. Their initial meeting blossomed into a deep, lengthy conversation. Emahoy recounted her life in the monastery and the challenges of making music in that setting. They delved into her music, discussing it in great detail. When they asked Emahoy about notation, she invited them to read her notebook, which contained compositions written that very morning. Maya and Ilan played some on the piano. At that moment, Emahoy began to trust them. Before leaving, Maya wrote her phone number in Emahoy’s notebook and invited her to call if she ever wanted or needed anything.

A few years later, the call came: Emahoy invited Maya to the monastery, handing her a couple of wrinkled old Air Ethiopia plastic bags filled with hundreds of her composition manuscripts. She asked Maya to help create a book of her piano compositions, making them accessible to people around the world. Faced with such a monumental undertaking, Maya partnered with the Jerusalem Season of Culture to embark on this ambitious project. This collaboration resulted in the publication of a book of sheet music and a collection of essays in 2013, as well as numerous concerts performed worldwide. These concerts, along with Maya’s work on Emahoy’s music, grew from a deep bond of love and mutual respect between the two women.

During one of their many meetings, Emahoy mentioned her dream of arranging her songs for orchestral instruments. She remarked that it was too late for her, but, with her trademark smile and a wink, suggested: «Maybe you could do it?» For Maya, this tremendous compliment became the catalyst for all the string arrangements she would create for Emahoy’s beautiful music—arrangements now collected in this album after years of collaboration and discussions between Maya and the record label Latency.

This album celebrates the centenary of Emahoy Tsege Mariam Gebru’s birth and commemorates the first anniversary of her passing. All compositions were recorded during two tribute performances at the Bourse de Commerce in Paris, held in April 2024 in her memory.

Yowzers is a new album by Chicago composer, improvisor, instrumentalist and musical folklorist Ben LaMar Gay. The twelve track collection is a leap forward in the lexicon of Gay’s recorded output, and a veritable masterwork of ancient inner-body rhythms and intuitive melodic storytelling.

It’s worth mentioning that a leap forward for Gay is no small feat. The musical ground he has covered in the last decade, both as a bandleader and collaborator, is immense. His de facto debut album—the 2018 compilation Downtown Castles Can Never Block The Sun—properly introduced the world to Gay by placing fifteen stylistically diverse tracks from seven then-unreleased albums next to one another, letting the populace outside of Cook County in on an unintentionally best-kept-secret that Chicagoans had already been marveling at for quite some time. That secret has become even more open in the years since, with the full unveiling of those seven previously-unreleased albums, the release of his critically-acclaimed 2021 song cycle Open Arms To Open Us, and the explosive free sonics of 2022’s Certain Reveries.

In addition to being featured on a staggering number of International Anthem releases (including albums by Makaya McCraven, jaimie branch, Damon Locks, Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly), Gay is one of the most prolific collaborators in creative music today. He makes active contributions to Mike Reed’s Separatist Party, Joshua Abrams’s Natural Information Society, Theaster Gates’s Black Monks, and many more. He is also a long-time participant in Chicago’s legendary Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians. Suffice to say, his credentials are astonishing and the scope of his interests and abilities is seemingly limitless, with Yowzers representing the latest redrawing of that ever-expanding creative borderline.

Much of the music on Yowzers features his working quartet with Tommaso Moretti (drums, percussion, voice), Matthew Davis (tuba, piano, bells, voice), and Will Faber (guitar, ngoni, bells, voice). But the unlisted feature here is Gay’s own ability to summon and unleash the unique strengths of his collaborators. The quartet material leans into a vocabulary that the group has developed over the course of several years together on the road; and the repertoire delivers an arresting cocktail of pulsing and free rhythms that somehow swing alongside a gathering of melodic phrases that sweep the outer-reaches of harmony with nostalgic echoes of family songs from the living room.

“Building a language, or taking a while to build a language—it’s like every other thing,” says Gay. “These stories are passed around through melody. You write a story and you share the story with individuals, and then you allow their individuality to embellish the story and take it on in another way. That person is a whole universe. It’s about trusting these people—trusting the people you leave something with, just like people trust their kids and their grandkids to carry a thing on. To not give it all away. To keep it in this tightly-knit body and to just keep it going.”

It’s not a new concept for Gay. One uniting factor in his deep, multi-faceted discography is a never-ending commitment to taking the stories of the past and pushing them outward, filtered through a sense of self, to keep that information moving.

Information moves through Yowzers via the intuitive physicality of Gay’s creative polyrhythmic constructions as he covertly delivers familiar folk tunes and tales. “It’s the most natural thing,” says Gay. “That’s how the world is. There are overlapping rhythms all around us, and so it reminds you of the reality of the world when you hear them. It’s a loop and the loop is always changing.”

Yowzers is ripe with the fine mash of that loop’s changes and diffusions, recalling the high-minded freedom of Liberation Music Orchestra, the abstract boom-bap balladry of Georgia Anne Muldrow, the unbridled rhythms and sandpaper bellows of Bukka White, the harmolodic cartoon glory of Arthur Blythe’s Illusions, or the oft-copped but rarely distilled patterns of Naná Vasconcelos. More amalgam than pendulum swing; a fresh thought made up of old ideas, like some imaginary Sacred Heart Ensemble led by Elvin Jones and Rashid Ali. It’s all there, filtered through an improvisational approach and a lifetime of stories and secrets embodied. For a man who has inhabited and traveled these continents so extensively, it’s safe to call this work true Americana, despite what that word might mean to the average white person in the United States.

“A big part of the language this quartet has developed is spatial,” says Gay. “It’s seeing and hearing it live.” Translating that language to a studio situation is a tough task, even for a seasoned crew. “You’re dealing with a thing that is older than the industry that sells it, and if you’ve never experienced those bodies in a room there can be a disconnect.” Striving to document the magic of those live moments, to great end, Gay chose to track the quartet pieces (“the glorification of small victories,” “there, inside the morning glory,” “I am (bells),” and “cumulus”) for Yowzers live, in real time, seated with his bandmates in a small circle at Palisade Studios in Chicago.

The spectrum of the album is widened by a batch of music created via Gay’s highly successful approach to composing in-studio, augmented with contributions from his bandmates, instrumentalist Rob Frye, and a mini-choir comprising vocalists Ayanna Woods, Tramaine Parker, and Ugochi Nwaogwugwu. This straying from the quartet material throughout the course of the record acts as an expansion of detail rather than an interruption of continuity.

All together, the pacing and flow of Yowzers is proof-positive of Gay’s practiced grasp on how the album format can traverse such a breadth of atmospheres. The titular album opener “yowzers” is a simple, soulful, three-chord piano and vocal repetition nestled in the hypnotically swelling effect of the Woods/Parker/Nwaogwugwu choir. The undecorated lyrics leave ample room for a listener to comprehend references to the binding existential crises of our times. It’s a Blues that everyone in the world should feel in their bones:

Ain’t gon snow no more x4

Rain gon pour and pour x4

Fire don’t stop no more x4

“for Breezy”, a could-be New Orleans dirge, straddles the deep sigh of a heavy sadness and the sweet lift of a fond look back, echoing the most contemplative moments of Duke Ellington’s small group arrangements. Gay’s clustered synth chording sets the scene while Frye’s breathy flute and Moretti’s delicate brushwork are positioned front-and-center along with a synthetic static—the nagging question of darkness even as beauty blooms. Gay’s flugelhorn enters at the 1:35 mark, maneuvering slowly around Frye and locking the vibe into place. It’s a gorgeous and fitting tribute to an old comrade.

“John, John Henry” begins with doomy oscillations and click-clack electronic rhythm loops hovering atop a contextually disjointed swing beat from Moretti. Enter Gay and his choir, digging into a take on the dusty-yet-timeless tale of man versus machine, an update we didn’t know we needed and an entrance we didn’t know we wanted. The way the group’s vocal rhythms hit here is a classic example of the Gay conundrum: an idea that reads as challenging on paper but sounds simple to the ear and feels intuitive to the body. With spectacles underfoot and charts out the window, the listener sings along, unencumbered by know-how. It’s all in service of Gay’s ongoing exploration and expansion of folklore in his work—arguably the one concept that bridges the gap between all of the disparate elements of his oeuvre.

This bottomless bag of tricks never induces fatigue, instead allowing for breaths and bites as needed—the quick-vibe banana peel windup of “rollerskates”; the endlessly psychedelic metallic rhythm chant of the album’s centerpiece “I am (bells)”; and the triumphant free-folk shouts of “the glorification of small victories,” which is a drastic and collaborative quartet rework of a composition originally recorded for Gay’s album Grapes that serves as further evidence of his steady crew’s interpretive powers.

How, though, does Gay end a collection that covers so much ground? The sweetest sendoff is often the one that sounds like a beginning. The album closer “leave some for you”—a balladeer’s kiss as the sun comes up—pairs a deeply disintegrated series of rhythmic loops with a diddley bow shuffle, ushered by the sturdy-yet-understated swing of Moretti’s kit. Gay’s sweetly intoned low-register lilt is front and center with an affirmation delivered as an earworm. The simple melody carries it home:

You look brand new today

Not cause you need it

Just cause you want it

New

Opening Night is a collection of instrumental music composed for the opening gala of the New Theater Hollywood by Danish composers MK Velsorf & Aase Nielsen. A cycle of minimal pieces for e-guitar, e-piano and backing tracks, the music was performed and recorded live from the stage balcony during the dress rehearsal, arrival of the guests and between speeches throughout the night.

The music is patient, minimal and groovy – consisting of sparse guitar vamps, drum and synth loops, it establishes a mood, or a tone: one of sun-soaked dreams, ecological dread and never-ending anticipation. Opening Night evokes the environmental furniture music of Erik Satie, as well as the light melancholia of Arthur Russell, the procedural TV score of Mike Post, and the sleazy atmospheres of certain Michael Mann films.

Designed to weave in and out of the listener’s consciousness, Opening Night is light in feel yet with a deep pull, breezily conjuring feelings of banality, pleasurable dissociation, and eerie repetition. The listener is invited to get in the car and stay for a while.

The New Theater Hollywood is a performance space run by artists Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, housed in the historic 49-seat 2nd Stage Theater in Hollywood’s largely defunct Theater Row, conceived as a space to develop and stage original theatrical productions in the crosswinds of performance, literature, contemporary art, film and television.

Exclusive unheard live extracts from cv313's live performance at Glass City Record Store release party in Detroit, USA. Recorded from 16 channel Mackie mixer, performed entirely on analog/digital hardware, samplers and sequencers. NO COMPUTER INVOLVED. Recorded in May, 2001 @ a warehouse somewhere in Detroit.

Thoughts:

Live Excursions is the third in the cv313 Live series, this time a recording of a gig performed by Hitchell at the 2001 DEMF Festival for the Glass City Records release party. As the earliest recording in the series to date it is in many ways Live @ Primary‘s opposite number, a fact reflected in the vastly different material featured, as well as the negative-print artwork that adorns the gatefold Eco friendly wallet.

It is perhaps the most easily recognizable as a cv313 gig in particular, featuring many staples of early cv313 material with very few of the diversions into Soultek, Intrusion or other housier archive material that characterizes other live cv313 sets. Live Excursions focuses heavily on on tightly looped, mesmerizing, repeated grooves soaked in delay and reverb, with warm, fuzzy textures and soft, through-the-walls beat-work that one can imagine anesthetizing many a wearied festival-goer seeking a final, hazy chill out session.

The tracks on Live Excursions are all simply named “Glass City Session” with a numeric suffix, but a bit of digging into the cv313 back catalog does at least reveal the origins of some of these tracks. It opens, for example, on a live version of the twenty-two minute long “Subtraktive [Intrusion’s Enchantment] Extended Version,” and yes, that makes it a live variant of an extended version of a remix of “Subtraktive,” proof of how deeply meta the whole echospace [detroit] catalog can be.

The original mix can actually be found on the second “Subtraktive” disc of the 2xCD edition of Dimensional Space, and this live version doesn’t deviate drastically from it. It’s a stunning opening to the set, the hovering drones, rolling congas, and earth-shaking sub-bass making for a truly hypnotic, head in the clouds twenty-two minute opus.

“Glasscity Session III” is a particular surprise, as it turns out to be none other than a live version of “Durveda,” a hitherto unreleased track fully of atyipically dark and disturbing drones and textures that makes it proper debut on Dimensional Space. This alone makes Live Excursions enough of a historical curio for fans to warrant investing.

Pre-orders of the Live Excursions disc on the echospace [detroit] Bandcamp site also came with an immediate download of four tracks that were stated to be on the CD itself. In actual fact it appears that the second and fourth tracks appear on the main disc, but the first and third do not, making them digital exclusives. Sadly, these tracks are not mastered to anywhere near the same quality as the main disc, the sound quality muddy and muted.

Live Excursions is hopefully not the last in the Live series of cv313 sets we’ll see, as they frequently offer unique takes on the material, and each has it own distinctive character. This is definitely one for armchair listening, an intoxicating opiate best experienced on headphones with a spacious sound stage. -Igloo Magazine

If you missed out on the pair of cv313/ Echospace [detroit] Record Store Day CD’s then why not attempt to heal your pain by picking up this disc of ‘Live ‘Excursions’ from Detroit’s Stephen Hitchell and Rod Modell (DeepChord). Arguably the finest dub techno practitioners outside of early productions from Moritz Von Oswald and Mark Ernestus, you know; Basic Channel etc.

These tracks are extracted from a live session at a warehouse somewhere in Detroit and serve as evidence these guys can cut it live - all hardware/ no computers. Outside of that there’s nothing revelatory here just straight up chilled cv313 shimmering dubbed out magic. Metallic clouds that seemingly float into infinity, steady beats and a vibe that’s hypnotic throughout. Repetitious? On the surface for sure, but once inside - the nuances reveal themselves and all is not as it seems. These guys go deeeeeeep and I want some of what they’re smokin’. Originally this was issued in an edition of 100 copies but we have a limited amount of the reissue available in different packaging/ artwork.

Oh and while you’re at it there’s also limited copies of their deeply immersive ‘Seconds To Forever’ disc available and totally worth grabbing. -Norman (UK)

Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchell's glacial dub techno project cv313 release never before heard live extracts from a session they performed at a Glass City Record Store release party in Detroit. Performed in a warehouse entirely on hardware, its a characteristically deep and otherworldly release from the pair, pillowy kicks swimming in infinite layers of spidery static and hallucinatory pads. It's music that is involving and immersive to the point of disorienting, and shows cv313 as a powerful live act - even when experienced on headphones long after the event has taken place. -Bleep

Having recently released the impressively in-your-face Live at Primary CD, it's something of a surprise to see CV313 dropping another live recording so soon. To be fair, Live Excursions first surfaced digitally last year via their own Bandcamp site, and now makes its way onto CD for the first time. The recordings themselves are vintage too, having been captured at a warehouse party in Detroit back in 2001. According to the Echospace website, the tracks were performed live using only outboard kit and a 16-channel mixer, with no computer trickery. Whatever the method, the resultant tracks are long, trippy, and immersive forays into dub techno and ambient in CV313's trademark style. -Juno

"[Live Excursions]" shows American masters of dub-techno at the beginning of their joint experiments.

A separate chapter in the work of Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchella are performances. Their music becomes then a slightly different dimension - it is less clarified, it has a more raw sound and marked by a strong element of improvisation. We can convince listening to the album, "[Live Excurcusions]", containing songs recorded during spontaneous sessions organized in a record store Glass City in the Motor City as part held there in 2001, the Detroit Electronic Music Festival.

The show starts slowly pending roll, combining tarry sound straight from Jamaican dub with reduced rhythm of techno style. All of this is immersed in a corroded shafts of grainy sound, behind which regularly emerges rudimentary melodic motif ("Glassity Session 1"). After twenty minutes of psychedelic music, Rodell and Hitchell hit more dance party - combining, for minimalowym backing billowing sheets and deep bass ("Glasscity Session 2").

When the club energy falls, US producers are turning to ambient. "Glasscity Session 3" is quite unusual composition in their repertoire. Its center are the mechanical rhythms borrowed from Kraftwerk, which overlap with towering waves of synthesizers monochrome pierced corrosive loop. In contrast - the next composition is actually techno pure form. This time the silent any noise and echoes, and remains the only motor pulse, braided rozwibrowanymi chords ("Glassicty Session 4").

The next two parts of the show in detroitowym shop again wprzęgają dub sound processing techniques to create a psychedelic dance music. In the "Glassity Session 5" measuring impacts bit bulky accompanied by distant explosions zbasowanych effects, and "Glassity Session 6" withdrawn rhythm resonates thicket of sewage reverb. Record ends with another nod to the ambient aesthetics - rozwibrowanymi cascades of chords intertwined with the majestic tone ("Glassicty Session 7").

"[Live Excursions]" shows Rod Modell and Stephen Hitchella at the beginning of their joint experiments. But I can be heard on the album germs of ideas that will be later developed into brilliant Echospace plate. Rough and raw sound recordings show an obvious kinship with the canonical achievements of Basic Channel - but slowing rhythm, sound radical corrosion, extending the length of recordings, music saturating the psychedelic mood, it indicates that this is just born into our ears completely new vision of dub-techno. Thus, this album is a very interesting document for all lovers of this timeless music. -Nowamuzyka Magazine 

There's been a world of hurt in regard to this album, the original masters recorded from 1996-2010 were submerged underwater due to the flood in our home studio where boxes of old reel's were never to be recovered again. Finally, years of restructure on live recordings and pain staking undulation in the restoration process have lead us to finally accomplish what so many expected wouldn't happen: an awakening of sagacious spirit: With that being said It's our distinct honor to present the sonic world of "dimensional space" the highly anticipated debut album from cv313. This album has taken a cosmic eclipse where two events collide for Unison. The culmination of this project lead to synergy, creative experience re-invented and re-imagined, flow of an astral vortex.

Our first album we made together, "The Days After", was initially released on Three Poplars in 2003. Then, afterwards in 2007 it was re-issued with a new version of the second track, "Flaxen", on Faraway Press.

After having found the earliest version of 'The Days After' in my archives last autumn, there was an excitement that grows with the beginning of something in the creative process and the sparkle of an idea that can never be recreated. Furthermore, there was a moment when trial and error emit a spark like the striking of a flint.

I thought it was worth releasing, and Andrew agreed.

Then, we asked that our most trusted mastering engineer, Denis Blackham, bring the album to a new life. Denis' amazing mastering skills made the album what it should be: a powerful piece of work that feels fresh and full of energy.

It's been 23 years since then. We have come a long way together. It's been a long road, but we've been there for each other every step of the way. That's why the album is called 'The Years After'. Actually it's 'Twenty-three Years After', but that's my personal story.

I couldn't be happier.

Daisuke Suzuki

Tokyo March 2025

Robert Haigh continues on in his post-Omni Trio musical world, releasing a type of contemporary classical/ambient music that is piano-based and bridges the worlds of Aphex Twin (in the Richard James’ quieter moments), Max Richter, Eno and Chilly Gonzales. These, as with the instrumental pieces on recent-enough Haigh album, the gorgeous Darkling Streams, feel all at once like demo-versions and finished pieces; the writer sitting down at the keys and shaking loose a few ideas. Stopping to find them as close to fully formed as they’ll ever be – art that’s never finished, simply discarded. 

These pieces hint as nostalgia and quiet moments of contemplation, they, once again, feel like they’ve come from the school of film composition – more so than from any techno/drum’n’bass world (where Haigh, of course, has operated so successfully). 

These are soft sketches. We listen in, almost eavesdropping, catching just the bit in the middle – longer intros or outros could change any one of these pieces into an album-length work, but these snapshots still seem correctly bound together. 

It’s quietly powerful stuff. 

Shadowy musical figures, breathing spaces within the notes, the slightest feeling of unease trickling in and around these moments that – mostly – frame up a type of tranquillity, create a calm, a balm, a day-spa soundtrack with depth, warmth and intrigue. 

Once again Haigh has offered up the very best from his soul for the wee small hours, for those moments after first waking or to guide you as you slip off into a strange and wonderful dreamland. 

Robert Haigh made his trilogy of piano solo albums (‘Notes and Crossings’, ‘Anonymous Lights’, and ‘Strange and Secret Things’) during 2009-2011 and ‘The Silence of Ghosts’ in 2015 for Siren Records. The tracks for each of these releases were carefully selected with consideration for the flow and development of the project. Inevitably, for various reasons, some tracks did not fit a particular album and they have remained unreleased regardless of their quality. 

The original plan of the “Tempus Fugit” release was, as the subtitle suggests, to collect and assemble rare and unreleased tracks into an album. However, in the process of his compiling the tracks, Robert noticed that the project was developing into an album that had a flow and narrative of its own. Considering the structure and progression of the album, Robert carefully curated ten pieces from his recording archives (including three tracks left over from the Unseen Worlds period) and arranged them to make the best sequence selection.

As a result, “Tempus Fugit” has grown into a unique album with its own sense of flow, though none of the tracks were recorded with the aim of making this particular album. “Tempus Fugit” will be a parting gift to those who have followed his works while at the same time, a useful selection as “young person's guide to Robert Haigh” to those who have yet to open the door of his music. 

The album opens with ’Slow Water.’ A distant and plaintive piano melody evolves with ghostly harmonies through a reverb soaked landscape. ’The Wind Blows Black’ is an improvisation on a theme where discordant piano figures tumble over fragile descending chords. ‘Sub Rosa’ and ‘Broken Bones’ are Haigh at his most melodic, conjuring up the feel of tracks such as ‘Clear Water’ and ‘Portrait with Shadow’.’ In A Space’ slightly predates the first Siren release and wouldn’t be out of place on an early Budd and Eno album. The album closes with the ghostly ‘Tesselate Air’, a slow-moving ambient trip across a misty and shadowy terrain, slowly fading to silence. And the silence is significant as Robert is insistent that there will be no more releases after this.

Written and produced by Robert Haigh. Mastered by Denis Blackham at Skye Mastering. Sleeve artwork by Robert Haigh. Additional design by Saul Haigh.
 

Robert Haigh, long known as Omni Trio, is a veteran electronic and “ambient drum and bass” innovator. Strange and Secret Things, however, is solo piano. Now, when someone sits down at the piano and plays slowly and pensively, it is easy (and usually lazy) to immediately draw comparisons with Erik Satie, and “Revenant (Prelude)” and “Secret Codes (Prelude)” are in fact reminiscent. A nod, perhaps. Otherwise, Haigh’s seventeen miniatures are hardly strange and if they possess some secret, he seems more than willing to share it with us. He plays a crisp and clear piano, deliberate and intimate. 

On this final entry to a trilogy, voltage is mainly used to run the recording equipment, with the rare wisp of a whit of a scent of electronics—a dragonfly following him “Across the River,” a shimmer quietly underlining “Dark House,” synthesizer arabesques decorating “Piano with Generative Tones” and what sounds like a violin (but could be a female soprano) sampled and played backward on the closing “Requiem.” Whether circular or linear, these tuneful, minimal melodies are truly precious pieces, black-and-white snapshots only just beginning to yellow and curl at the edges. 

Housed in the sturdy, handmade mini-LP packaging which has become the distinguished and distinguishing hallmark of Siren, Andrew Chalk’s Faraway Press’ Japanese sister label.