MUSIC

‘Four Seasons in Kyoto’ marks the final chapter of The Kyoto Connection’s Ambient Japanese trilogy, following Postcards (2018) and The Flower, The Bird and The Mountain (2022). Like its predecessors, this album pays homage to the pioneering ambient and environmental music movements of 1980s and 1990s Japan. The album unfolds as the imagined soundtrack to life in a quiet rural village, where nature and tradition shape the rhythm of everyday existence. Across 15 evocative compositions, The Kyoto Connection captures the essence of Japan’s ever-changing seasons, weaving together delicate melodies and immersive soundscapes. With contributions from friends and fans in Japan, Four Seasons in Kyoto is both a tribute and a transportive listening experience from producer Facundo Arena, the composer and producer behind The Kyoto Connection. With Four Seasons in Kyoto, Facundo Arena continues his deep exploration of Japanese ambient and environmental music, blending his long-standing admiration for Kyoto’s cultural heritage with a sound that feels both nostalgic and timeless. While Postcards was an instinctive homage and The Flower, The Bird and The Mountain drew from real Kyoto field recordings, this final chapter in the trilogy leans further into the imagined, an intimate portrait of an unseen yet deeply felt Japan. Organic soundscapes and drifting melodies mirror the slow change of seasons, evoking the impermanence central to Japanese aesthetics. The result is a record that seamlessly bridges the natural and the synthetic, memory and imagination, a fitting conclusion to a journey that began with an algorithmic discovery and blossomed into a rich sonic world of its own. 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of The Kyoto Connection and also their first tour of Japan where they will be visiting Tokyo, Okinawa and of course Kyoto collaborating with local musicians and playing live. The album is pressed on heavyweight 180 Gram Vinyl with sleeve design by Bradley Pinkerton.

Ludvig Cimbrelius returns with his third full-length album on ASIP under his illustrious ambient jungle/drum’n bass alias, Illuvia. Shifting focus from the stratospheric highs of 2021’s Iridescence Of Clouds, Ludvig now reflects on the meaning and spectrums of life on Earth. "According to my lifelong research, Earth appears to be a modulation of light. It is said that what the eyes receive are rays emitted by a star, whose flow of photons is invisible to the human eye until they are reflected and modulated by matter. Matter — the patterned dance of charged particles appearing out of nothing. Simultaneously, it is observable that light converts into matter. And matter converts into light. Logic tells me that they are one, appearing as two. And, as a consequence of their division and subsequent interaction, the spectrum of a world appears. Being a manifestation of something as ethereal and ephemeral as light modulated by the dance of charged particles, the world feels surprisingly solid. Less like a prism and more like a prison. That is what the surface tells us. Those who seek freedom look deeper." –Ludvig Cimbrelius (Illuvia) Earth Prism will be available on A Strangely Isolated Place on transparent vinyl, gatefold 2LP + digital formats from June 20th 2024. Mastered by Hollis Nolan, Lacquer cut by Andreas LUPO Lubich, featuring artwork by Noah M / Keep Adding. ***** “The rhythms are complex and riotous, but they feel like some elemental process taking place thousands of meters up (perhaps in the titular iridescent clouds), surrounded by layer upon layer of mist and radiance.” Joe Muggs (Bandcamp, Best Electronic Music, 2021) ***** “The typical Illuvia track is panoramic, majestic, and ethereal; packed with detail, the material engulfs like a blinding snowstorm.” - Textura, 2021 ***** “Forget liquid d’n’b, this is steam drum and bass” - Forestpunk, 2021 ***** “Full of pastel soundscapes and poignant melodies, Iridescence Of Clouds luxuriates in its gauzy aesthetic, weaving in kinetic percussion and rollicking Amen breaks that would likely be quite ferocious on their own; here, however, they’re largely kept in check.” - Shawn Reynaldo / First Floor, 2021 ***** “Creative mixers combined drum ‘n’ bass with ambience and a hint of dub, creating a hybrid that was simultaneously soothing and exciting; Iridescence of Clouds falls into this vein, an hour-long set that unfolds like a dream.” - A Closer Listen 2021

‘Sun & Smoke’ is originally a 2-hour self-produced mix uploaded to Youtube and Soundcloud in 2018 by Greek artist, Theef. Consisting of unreleased productions, the set was uploaded as a safe space, with zero expectations of it ever gaining attention or release. After many late-night listening sessions, ASIP contacted Theef to discuss how a release might come to life. Originally consisting of 21 tracks in total –with two subsequently released on Morevi Records in 2022– ASIP had the honor of curating and sequencing an album from the remaining 19 unreleased productions, finally landing on those that best represented the intention of the original mix and the feelings it evoked upon those first moments of discovery. The appeal of Sun & Smoke can be found in its purity. Built with no intention or audience in mind, the album traverses core elements of deep techno, trance, and downtempo. Progressive atmosphere building, addictive underlying grooves, and expansive moments of euphoria; as a mixtape, Sun & Smoke is a zero-visibility haze of eyes-closed, body-moving, forward momentum. As an album, each track is now allowed the space to deliver on its own defining atmosphere. From the ambient beginnings of Sky Textures and the title track, Sun & Smoke, to the electro tinges of Primal Age, and the metallic swirls and glistening synths in Approaching Stars, the parts now have the chance to become greater than the sum of its original whole. Mastered by Giuseppe Tillieci (Neel / Voices From The Lake) with artwork photography by Juan Fernandez (edited by ASIP), Sun & Smoke is available on Transparent Red/Orange Smoke Gatefold 2LP + digital.

A Strangely Isolated Place presents a long-lost collaboration between Polish artists Olga Wojciechowska and Tomasz Walkiewicz as Monoparts—a partnership formed many years ago that resulted in an album once destined to remain unreleased.

Olga Wojciechowska, known for her modern-classical masterpieces such as Infinite Distances (2019) and Unseen Traces (2020), as well as her 2022 collaboration with Scanner, breaks all known expectations with Soothsayers. In a dramatic departure, Olga unveils a new and unexpected side, debuting her haunting vocals—a delicate, spellbinding performance that recalls the golden era of trip-hop, and comparisons to the sounds pioneered by Tricky, Massive Attack, and Martina Topley-Bird.

With Tomasz adding layers of depth through intricate beats and electronics, Olga’s voice becomes the emotional core of the record, conjuring an intimate and nostalgic atmosphere.

In Olga’s own words: "This album is like becoming one with the earth itself—feeling the rawness of the wood, tasting the earth in your mouth, and sensing the presence of ancient spirits. The music carries a deep, primal energy, like being part of the forest, with creatures watching you from the shadows."

To complete the journey, ASC lends his signature touch with a stunning drum’n’bass reinterpretation, amplifying the album’s nostalgic essence. Soothsayers emerges as a spellbinding ode to times gone by, in more ways than one. 

Award-winning composer and producer Sarathy Korwar to release new album celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble Sarathy Korwar, genre-breaking drummer, producer and composer, announces the release of his seventh album, There Is Beauty, There Already, out on Otherland on 7th November 2025. Celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble, the album follows his 2022 Indofuturist manifesto KALAK with a deeply immersive longform suite of percussion-led compositions. Playing as a 40-minute suite of hypnotic and transcendent drum improvisations, the album beats through a repetitive, circular structure that brings to mind Indian folk music, jazz drum ensembles like Max Roach’s M’Boom and the contemporary classical minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich. From the undulating bass tones of the tabla to the tonal varieties of South Indian clay pot ghatam, the snare drum snap of the drum kit, and shades of electronic texture through the Buchla Easel, Korwar’s ensemble bubbles and flows through a stream of steady rhythm, forever in motion like the ceaseless energy of a river.

“The album is me finding my voice as a composer again and going back to the thing I know best, which is the drums,” Korwar says. “It’s me falling back in love with percussion and expressing just how melodic and emotive it can be. Unlike my other albums that have often engaged with weighty themes like migration, identity and futurism, this is a raw act of placing myself front and centre – letting the drums speak instead.”

Written and recorded over four days at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Korwar is joined by drummers Photay, Magnus Mehta, and Joost Hendrickx. Setting up an array of drums in the live room – from drum kit to tabla, marimba, balafon, udu and ghatam – Korwar gave himself and his instrumentalists free reign to flow through and play whatever complimented their ever-developing music, while triggered attachments to synthesisers and the Buchla Easel added unexpected elements of electronic texture. "By day three, we realised that we kept coming back to this single, repeated 40-minute pattern, which was locking us in and making us hypnotised by its rhythm," Korwar says. "I decided to do multiple takes of that idea to build a structure – and that’s what you ultimately hear on the record." A riposte to our flitting attention spans, the album is designed to be played from start to finish as a singular, longform suite of music, evoking a constant sense of motion and intent. Drawing on the idea of repetition to the point of going beyond monotony and into the unknown – like a word repeated so many times it loses meaning – the record becomes a remarkable exploration of rhythm as trance and transformation. Exploding onto the international jazz scene with his 2016 Ninja Tune debut Day to Day, Korwar has released four albums exploring everything from the folk music of the Indian Sidi community to hip-hop, electronics, contemporary jazz and Indian classical music. He won the 2020 AIM Award for Best Independent Album and MOJO’s Jazz Album of the Year for 2019’s spoken word-influenced More Arriving, as well as being nominated at the Jazz FM and Worldwide Awards and in 2023 won the Songlines Award for Best Album (Asia/Pacific) with KALAK.

As a musician and producer, meanwhile, he has collaborated with Shabaka Hutchings and producer Hieroglyphic Being on 2017’s A.R.E. Project, as well as releasing a collaborative album with Auntie Flo in 2022, and forming jazz supergroup FLOCK with Bex Burch, Tamar Osborn, Danalogue and Al MacSween. He is also currently a member of sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s band and produced and co-wrote her 2025 album, Chapter III: Return to Light. Almost a decade on from his debut, There Is Beauty, There Already sees Korwar producing some of his most personal and vulnerable work to date. From the album cover – a grid of self-portraits taken at his local Co-Op checkout over the past five years, “a ritual story of my life in images” – to an accompanying, self-written poem reflecting on beauty, the record marks a new direction. It also signals the launch of Korwar’s own label, Otherland. “It’s a home for my own future music and music from others that doesn’t tick many boxes – that doesn’t have a motherland or fatherland of its own," he says. "It’s about embracing this music as it is, finding the beauty in it and recognising it, just as the album title says." The album will launch with an exclusive show at The ICA on 15 November 2025 as part of the London Jazz Festival, where Korwar will expand his ensemble to a dozen drummers, guiding live improvisations through the record’s percussive textures from start to finish. There Is Beauty, There Already is released on Otherland on 7th November 2025, distributed worldwide by !K7.

Award-winning composer and producer Sarathy Korwar to release new album celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble Sarathy Korwar, genre-breaking drummer, producer and composer, announces the release of his seventh album, There Is Beauty, There Already, out on Otherland on 7th November 2025. Celebrating the melodic power of the drum ensemble, the album follows his 2022 Indofuturist manifesto KALAK with a deeply immersive longform suite of percussion-led compositions. Playing as a 40-minute suite of hypnotic and transcendent drum improvisations, the album beats through a repetitive, circular structure that brings to mind Indian folk music, jazz drum ensembles like Max Roach’s M’Boom and the contemporary classical minimalism of Terry Riley and Steve Reich. From the undulating bass tones of the tabla to the tonal varieties of South Indian clay pot ghatam, the snare drum snap of the drum kit, and shades of electronic texture through the Buchla Easel, Korwar’s ensemble bubbles and flows through a stream of steady rhythm, forever in motion like the ceaseless energy of a river.

“The album is me finding my voice as a composer again and going back to the thing I know best, which is the drums,” Korwar says. “It’s me falling back in love with percussion and expressing just how melodic and emotive it can be. Unlike my other albums that have often engaged with weighty themes like migration, identity and futurism, this is a raw act of placing myself front and centre – letting the drums speak instead.”

Written and recorded over four days at Peter Gabriel's Real World Studios, Korwar is joined by drummers Photay, Magnus Mehta, and Joost Hendrickx. Setting up an array of drums in the live room – from drum kit to tabla, marimba, balafon, udu and ghatam – Korwar gave himself and his instrumentalists free reign to flow through and play whatever complimented their ever-developing music, while triggered attachments to synthesisers and the Buchla Easel added unexpected elements of electronic texture. "By day three, we realised that we kept coming back to this single, repeated 40-minute pattern, which was locking us in and making us hypnotised by its rhythm," Korwar says. "I decided to do multiple takes of that idea to build a structure – and that’s what you ultimately hear on the record." A riposte to our flitting attention spans, the album is designed to be played from start to finish as a singular, longform suite of music, evoking a constant sense of motion and intent. Drawing on the idea of repetition to the point of going beyond monotony and into the unknown – like a word repeated so many times it loses meaning – the record becomes a remarkable exploration of rhythm as trance and transformation. Exploding onto the international jazz scene with his 2016 Ninja Tune debut Day to Day, Korwar has released four albums exploring everything from the folk music of the Indian Sidi community to hip-hop, electronics, contemporary jazz and Indian classical music. He won the 2020 AIM Award for Best Independent Album and MOJO’s Jazz Album of the Year for 2019’s spoken word-influenced More Arriving, as well as being nominated at the Jazz FM and Worldwide Awards and in 2023 won the Songlines Award for Best Album (Asia/Pacific) with KALAK.

As a musician and producer, meanwhile, he has collaborated with Shabaka Hutchings and producer Hieroglyphic Being on 2017’s A.R.E. Project, as well as releasing a collaborative album with Auntie Flo in 2022, and forming jazz supergroup FLOCK with Bex Burch, Tamar Osborn, Danalogue and Al MacSween. He is also currently a member of sitarist Anoushka Shankar’s band and produced and co-wrote her 2025 album, Chapter III: Return to Light. Almost a decade on from his debut, There Is Beauty, There Already sees Korwar producing some of his most personal and vulnerable work to date. From the album cover – a grid of self-portraits taken at his local Co-Op checkout over the past five years, “a ritual story of my life in images” – to an accompanying, self-written poem reflecting on beauty, the record marks a new direction. It also signals the launch of Korwar’s own label, Otherland. “It’s a home for my own future music and music from others that doesn’t tick many boxes – that doesn’t have a motherland or fatherland of its own," he says. "It’s about embracing this music as it is, finding the beauty in it and recognising it, just as the album title says." The album will launch with an exclusive show at The ICA on 15 November 2025 as part of the London Jazz Festival, where Korwar will expand his ensemble to a dozen drummers, guiding live improvisations through the record’s percussive textures from start to finish. There Is Beauty, There Already is released on Otherland on 7th November 2025, distributed worldwide by !K7.

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.

Strut presents an exclusive new collaboration between UK jazz keyboardist Greg Foat and Venetian ambient / electronic maestro Gigi Masin on ‘Dolphin’. Recorded remotely during 2021-2022 the album took shape in the form of mutual compositions, gradually developed and embellished online. Final recording sessions took place at the majestic Chale Abbey Studios on the Isle Of Wight with Moses Boyd (drums), Tom Herbert (bass) and Siobhan Cosgrove (flute, clarinet) adding elements to several pieces. Tracks include the reflective, wistful single ‘Viento Calido’ and drifting ambient piece ‘Sabena’, a beautiful tribute to Gigi’s wife who sadly passed away during 2022. Greg Foat has recorded prolifically in recent years for Athens Of The North, Jazzman and Strut including acclaimed albums Symphonie Pacifique (2020) and The Mage (2019). Best known for his 1986 ambient masterpiece Wind and as a member of Gaussian Curve, Gigi Masin has enjoyed a revival in recent years through his Calypso album on R&S’s Apollo label and renewed touring. Dolphin represents Greg and Gigi’s first landmark recording collaboration together. “I first heard Gigi’s album Wind in 2016,” remembers Greg. “I was living in Miami and I heard it playing one Summer evening. Since then, it has always been in my mind to be able to record together.” Dolphin is mastered by Mark Ashfield at Cosmic Audio with newly commissioned artwork by Niul Foat. The LP comes as transparent vinyl in a thick card outer sleeve.

Different Rooms is a collection of songs and musical motifs we composed, edited, and collaged in the weeks between late 2024 and early 2025. Most of the recorded material was performed during that editing process, except for live performances taken from improvisations we recorded with Jeff Parker and Josh Johnson some time in 2023.

In our typical process, much of our material is collaged and combines moments of live improvisation, field recordings, and in-studio experimentation. This record, however, marks an evolution in our approach to studio production.

Our studios are side-by-side. When we were writing this album, you might have found us tracking viola stacks in one studio while, in the other, we were writing through-composed themes and rearranging the material. Granular synthesis and tape manipulation are key tools we use to create variation and movement in a composition. This process often yields surprising results, capturing the emotion but expressing it in unexpected ways. It feels essential that we embrace a bit of chance.

In contrast to our first album, Recordings from the Åland Islands, we wanted this music to feel very present. Where Recordings was intended to transport you to another place, Different Rooms is meant to meet you where you are. It’s a decidedly urban album. The field recordings were captured on train platforms, in city streets, in rooms at home, and intentionally paint a quotidian sonic image, blurring the line between what you hear in your own environment and what is on the record.

The song cycle is set in palindromic sequence, figuratively, with certain pieces (reflected) by a reprised or recurring motif that is often reimagined with new instrumentation.

The sonic and temporal abstraction between what is performed in real-time versus what is recorded, manipulated, and collaged reinforces our intent to collect the works under the title Different Rooms, which literally expresses the way the material was recorded in different rooms while reminding us that our shared experience of present time is also one that is asynchronous, historied, and complex.

On the 6th of October 2023, the release date of her third solo album ‘Ghosts’, Hania Rani organised a special album release concert with a string ensemble in a very unique location - Witold Lutosławski's Concert Studio at the Polish Radio in Warsaw. “Over the years, the spaces of Polish Radio became an important part of my life - both privately and professionally. I visited it for the first time as a student of Chopin University of Music and came back to make my first recordings in late 2018, just before the release of the debut album ‘Esja’. Since then I have been a regular guest.” The building is located in the Mokotów district in Warsaw and has served generations of musicians and sound engineers for decades. For Hania it is a home from home; a beloved recording studio but something more important and resonant too. Nostalgia does more than just present a memorable concert; it celebrates a space and an idea as through the mediums of photography and recorded sound. Hania creates something profound and enlightening. “Some months after this special concert in Studio S1 I came back to the chambers of Polish Radio. This time not as a musician, but as an observer. It was one of the coldest Mondays of January and Warsaw was adorned with fresh, plush snow. The building seemed completely empty, so I was able to navigate freely with my camera from space to space without interruption. I relished each object and each room waiting patiently to be consumed by a film roll. The obscure lighting was putting things in a subtle movement, the strong white beams were making them still again” Through Nostalgia, Hania presents the studios in her own perspective, as somewhere unique and unknown. A place of work, but something more. A place of ghosts and hidden meanings, of inspiration and mystery; The deluxe LP comes with a 16-page booklet featuring Hania’s unique analogue photos, along with her thoughts on the recording process, studios, and the compositions themselves. The CD includes these photos in a beautifully glued-in 12-page booklet.

This EP was suddenly released in 2015 and, as the title suggests, contains tracks produced between 2006 and 2008. Characteristic of the AFX moniker, aggressive acid lines and hard-hitting rhythms take center stage, drawing listeners from the dance floor into the depths of experimental music. It brims with raw sonic intensity and analog warmth, while simultaneously showcasing the meticulous construction typical of Aphex Twin. An essential work that inherits the lineage of IDM dating back to the 90s while updating it for the future. An indispensable album when discussing Richard's work under his various aliases.

"A wobbly loop of found sound. Almost inaudible speech from an unidentified documentary. Lapping waves of folk guitar created at the edges of the player’s ability. A haunted melodica. Mumbled vocals that reinvent the singer’s uncertainties as a deliciously glum pose. Layer these up in the recording software of your choice. Labour in a back bedroom overlooking the railway line to summon ghosts.

Spirits arrive from West Yorkshire, from Glasgow and Dunedin, from the suburban Midwest. Rising from squats and university accommodation past, from damp rooms filled with old paperbacks, stale hash smoke and abandoned mugs of tea.

Even as you listen to this collection of home recordings, made over the last few years by South London duo Jemima and collated for the store's own in-house label, these ghosts crowd around. Born in the Seventies to chase the tape experiments and gentle strumming of the Sixties they crane their necks and edge closer to the laptop. When something this perfect comes along, even the most tranquillised must stir their stumps.

It’s lonely music created around a wine bottle with a candle in it, made too late to appear via Xpressway or Cordelia. Don’t imagine though, that it has no home in the now. These spectres remain close because they know they are still wanted. We need them as much as they need us.

We've been totally spellbound by these recordings for the best part of a year, Jemima's debut LP is a window into a half-lit world on a deeper plane of consciousness. "

A rare best-of album featuring unreleased tracks from 1973 to 1984 by the genius guitarist Akio Niitsu is now available on LP. The album features a wide range of works, from the production process of the masterpiece “I/o” (1978), through the period of creating background music for Muji, to demo recordings from the ‘PETSTEP’ (1982) and “Winter Wonderland” (1985) eras. The innovative soundscapes created through double-speed guitar and multi-track recording continue to receive worldwide acclaim. Through the 12 tracks on Side A and Side B, listeners can experience Shinji Akiyama's experimental and ambient musical world. Influenced by J.S. Bach and Jimi Hendrix, his creative approach, which established his unique musical style, is beautifully expressed in this collection. 300 grams vinyl, this album is an important record in music history and is recommended not only for fans but also for listeners interested in experimental music.

“Things fade into obscurity when a populace has no interest” - Meitei / 冥丁

Meitei considers himself an old soul, often preoccupied with the customs and rituals of the past. Recently Meitei lost his beloved 99-year-old grandmother, a woman who he considered to be one of the last remaining people to have experience and understanding of traditional Japanese ambience. His music and art is driven by a desire to cast light on an era and aesthetic that he believes is drifting out of the collective Japanese consciousness with each passing generation, what he calls "the lost Japanese mood". He chose to dedicate Komachi to his late Grandmother.

“I want to revive the soul of Japan that still sleeps in the darkness” - Meitei / 冥丁

Haunting and delicate, distant and timeless, Komachi is awash with white noise, complex field recordings and the hypnotic sounds of flowing water. Though confidently contemporary, like a bucolic J-Dilla, Komachi’s lineage can be traced back to the floating worlds of Ukiyo-e and Gagaku via the prism of 80s Japanese ambient pioneers, and 90s pastoral sample-based artists such as Susumu Yokota and Nobukazu Takemura.

Composed as individual sonic dioramas, each of the twelve tracks have been crafted to not only evoke feelings of nostalgia but to also explore the dichotomy of ancient and new in modern Japanese society. This pervasive narrative runs throughout, calling to mind the work of authors Yasunari Kawabata and Natsume Soseki, as well as the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Hayao Miyazaki, artists similarly fascinated by the reflective tranquillity that permeated traditional Japanese domestic life.

The limited vinyl release, produced in collaboration with label and distributor Séance Centre, includes a super limited special edition complete with beautiful twelve-page booklet featuring a number of prints in the Ukiyo-e style, a traditional style of woodblock print that dates back to 17th century Japan. The images were chosen by Meitei to showcase the old style Japanese sentiments that form a core inspiration to his musical output. 
 

"Minami-kaze α Wave (Southerly wind alpha wave)“ is a very rare ‘vocal piece’ that Henry Kawahara has produced, and released under the name HMD (H Music Deperception) in 1993. The song is a vocal version of the cyber-occult exotic instrumental piece "Nanpu“ included in the compilation “Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm: The Essential Henry Kawahara” [EM1197TCD/DLP]. This track is a rare example that proves he had also a genius for producing ‘pops’ in the general sense of the word, and which seems to have challenged head-on the pop songs produced by Haruomi Hosono or Tetsuya Komuro in the 80s-90s. 

The Henry Kawahara project on EM Records was developed only with the enthusiasm of proving Kawahara's existence if he is to be erased as nothing in the current art context, and we have confirmed that there are a lot of supporters all over the world for our opinion when we released "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm" (several articles and interviews have been given). This single is a 'prescription' for the sequel, tentatively titled "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm 2: Other Sides of Henry Kawahara," which is currently in the process of being prepared. This 7” is a limited one-off release, not included in the compilation.

This anthology is the second compilation from EM Records of the works of the late Henry Kawahara, a media artist and electronic music producer who was particularly active in the Japanese cyber-occult underground of the 1990s, a scene linked with technologies such as 3D (binaural) recordings, brain machines, sound chairs, computer graphics and compact discs. These tracks, produced 1990-95, include a series of recordings described as “Parallel Data Sounds” and “Sound LSD”, a “new language system that speaks directly to the cerebrum” using “frequency components that are not perceived by the conscious mind”, reflecting Kawahara’s interest in concepts such as astrology, love mantras, and astral projection. Also here are two pieces featuring dolphin sounds and human brainwave feedback, as well as pieces from a recording unit called H Music De-perception (HMD) and a group called Xiaoyun. The majority of tracks here were not originally released under Kawahara’s name, but this compilation is an essential key to decoding the Henry Kawahara saga, and also an unveiling of the secret we planted in the previous release, "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm: Essential Henry Kawahara," which Kawahara himself was involved in selecting before his death. This 3-CD set, which includes a special bonus CD, is also available as an abridged digital download.

Captain Ganja + Haruomi Hosono + A. Russell !? This is the rumored Pure Land Dub New Age Base! A natural talent who fell in love with that Tapes, a new album of all 7FO songs has been completed !!!! A fluffy daydream experience with Nirvana BGM with a faint grassy scent. Offers from leading labels such as RVNG and Bokeh Versions are coming in, and the attention is rising overseas overseas, but Japan is left behind? I hear a voice saying, but wait! We kept waiting for this talent to stone and explode, and finally it was time to awaken !!!!!! The decisive difference between 7FO and conventional electronic music writers is that it treats ambient-new age synth electronics with natural ethnicity like dub-reggae, with a feeling that Westerners do not have. That's the point. That sense is the reason why it produces the sound that the times demand, and is supported by RVNG-like new age-electronic music, new roots revival to extreme bass music, and La Monte Young to Equiknoxx fans. In a metaphorical way, what would happen if Haruomi Hosono from the YEN-Monad period appeared in the 2010s base scene? That is, it still has a mysterious potential. If you tell someone who doesn't know anything about the charm of "Ryu no Nukegara", you can get the true value straight away! ?? Natural high additive-free chill-out decision board that will be a landmark of 7FO that told that Tapes "There is no reason for me to make music ..." (The binding by Hiroto Higuchi is this sound Successful visualization.)

"I don’t keep photographs, old letters, keepsakes or memorabilia.

I have sound-files, thousands of them, un-used, un-heard: folders of field recordings; sonic sketches; experiments that failed but weren’t deleted. The files are saved on hard drives or the cards of obsolete pieces of equipment replaced – bit by dusty bit – with something new, clean and shiny.

A remnant is what’s left over when the greater part it once belonged to has been used up, removed, or destroyed. I think of my sound-files like this, the remains of ideas, of a time too.

Remnants.

The sound-files that became this album were recorded through a particular period in my life when I found myself in flux, between jobs, flats, geographical areas; after the end of one thing, but before

the next thing had started. The recordings felt restless too…

They were packed up in boxes and moved across town.

Finding them again years later was disorientating. Background sounds that had been hum-drum were suddenly, even sickeningly vivid. The chatter of the crew who would turn up each day to drink beer in the square behind my building, the crows that would rattle and click in the tree hanging over

my small roof terrace, the thrum of aeroplane engines which ebbed and flowed without end.

There were sounds from excursions too: the street preachers of Brixton; some untypically groovy Hari Krishnas in Ramsgate; an orchestra tuning up in a church. There was something vertiginous and nauseous about the nostalgia I felt on the first listen, but I soon fell into a process of “fixing” all the loops and sketches, tugging them into shape, threading them into a whole tapestry.

Once this process came to an end they were put away once again…

Things have their time. I dug the project out for a late-night listening session with an old friend who’d known that place and that period in my life. Hearing them with him changed them. They were no longer the sonic equivalent of those old photos and letters I never wanted to keep; they became something else, more communal.

An album.

We hold on to all kinds of memories – bits and pieces, fragments, remnants we so rarely think to share.

Here are some of mine." - The Dengie Hundred

At long last, Takao is back with his long-awaited second album, seven years in the making. His 2018 "Stealth" was (and still is) a much-loved set, mixing elements of ambient and environmental music; with this new release Takao breaks free of the gravitational pull of these earlier influences and strides confidently forward. "The End of the Brim" jettisons some of the more abstract elements of his previous work, embracing a “universal listenability” and a more concrete intensity, with a focus on supple rhythms and strengthened senses of melodic development and harmonic sophistication. This musical growth can be linked with Takao’s admiration of composers Ken Muramatsu and Toshifumi Hinata, who are generally associated with commercial “production music” and easy listening. Another contributing factor is his private study with veteran keyboardist Ichiko Hashimoto of Colored Music. The ten tracks here include three vocal tracks, with three different singers (Yumea Horiike, Cristel Bere, Atsuo Fujimoto of Colored Music) and seven keyboard-led pieces. The vocal pieces are integral parts of the album’s flow, rather than typical “songs” driven by the name and personality of the singer. All of these factors, plus the veteran presence of engineer Hiroshi Haraguchi, known for his work with Haruomi Hosono, who mixed half of the album's tracks, along with the use of excellent old-school synths, aligned with Takao’s forward-looking vision, have combined to give us an album with a unique sense of timelessness. A spotlight illuminating future paths for pop music, available on CD/Vinyl LP/Digital, with English/Japanese lyrics, and liner notes by Yuji Shibasaki.

Following years of memorable turns in collab with Dean Blunt and on her own solo recordings, ‘Blurrr’ is likely the moment Joanne Robertson ooozes into much wider acclaim and recognition - a stunning album of sparse heartbreakers recorded in the company of Oliver Coates and landing at an irresistibly fragile spot somewhere between classic Grouper, Cat Power and Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’. A real delicate, special album - one of the year’s finest.

In pursuit of last year’s ‘Backstage Raver’ duo with longtime spar Dean Blunt, Manchester born, Blackpool-rooted, Glasgow-based Joanne Robertson casts her strongest spell yet on ‘Blurrr’, cementing her status as a master of timeless songcraft. On nine new songs, every strum and murmured lyric exposes a patient beauty and rare intimacy that transcends the sum of its parts. It includes a trio of co-productions with Oliver Coates - noted collaborator with everyone from Malibu and Mica Levi to Laurel Halo - lending an extra frisson of flesh-tingling substance to accentuate the sensuality of Robertson’s voice.

In solo mode, she has us by a thread on the album’s longest piece ‘Friendly’ where we're treated to harmonies and hooks that pull from Nick Drake through Sarah Records and the blissed Americana of Hope Sandoval, lilting into a filigree coda somehow comparable to Vini Reilly’s sun-kissed, balearic glissandi. Her blissed coos on ‘Peaceful’ set our arm hairs on end, and the languorous opener 'Ghost' is like Robertson's answer to Grouper's timeless 'Heavy Water’, while ‘Why Me’ feels like the Nirvana Unplugged x Cat Power hookup of our dreams; there's nothing heavy handed or overdone - just bare expressions - like a blast of cool air on a humid afternoon.

Coates elevates three of the album's most striking tracks. His emotive string flourishes are remarkably subtle, there's a trace of the cinematic wonder that elevated his work with Laurel Halo on 'Raw Silk Uncut Wood' and with Malibu on the now classic 'One Life', but Coates is careful not to overpower Robertson's songs, enhancing her harmonies without ever obscuring their faultlines. On 'Gown' we’re reminded of Arthur Russell's timeless 'World of Echo', and that connection deepens further on 'Doubt', where Coates' fluttering low-end reverberates below Robertson's cool-headed voice. The killer for us, though, is 'Always Were', a glittering masterpiece that sounds like Robertson’s voice has been recorded to a half-broken mic, then dubbed to worn tape, magnifying its emotional resonance as it cracks alongside Coates' heaving strings, snowballing into a dense mass of harmony and echo.

Part of a series of three new archival releases from Ndeya that showcase Jon Hassell and group in the late 1980s exploring a radical tangent on his Fourth World sensibility.

The Living City captures the Jon Hassell Group in September 1989 performing as part of an audio-visual installation inside the World
Financial Center Winter Garden in New York City, with Brian Eno mixing the band live. Eno had designed an audio-visual installation in the 10-story glass-vaulted pavilion, inspired by the hunting, ceremony, animals, and weather sounds of the Ba-Ya-Ka pygmy tribe from Cameroon gathered by Louis Sarno.

Jon Hassell and his then band, the musicians who had recently recorded the City: Works Of Fiction album, played in the Winter Garden Atrium over the course of three nights, with Eno mixing the band live with the installation sounds.

The audio presented here is an edited selection from the performance on the second night, available on vinyl for the first time, cut across four sides by Stefan Betke aka Pole. Gatefold vinyl edition includes download card and extensive sleevenotes.

The Kiyosato Museum of Contemporary Art was located in Kiyosato, Yamanashi prefecture from 1990 to 2014. It was a private art museum with a permanent exhibit based on a collection of unrivalled scale. The museum also collected and mounted exhibitions on the work of radical contemporary composers, including John Cage. The museum’s primary informant on music was sound designer Yutaka Hirose, one of the pioneers of Japan’s environmental music (kankyō ongaku) movement in the 1980s.

In 1992, the museum mounted a John Cage Memorial exhibition, and this release showcases Hirose’s work on the overall exhibition design and the creation of the sounds that were played in the museum during the exhibition, through a re-edit and reissue of the sound materials.

The sound materials that Hirose created for the exhibition environment were only ever distributed on CDr to members of the curatorial team so this is their first formal release. Hirose’s work for the exhibition was radical in its use of musique concrète and collages of noise and everyday sounds, and in his homage to Cage’s methods, these pieces represent a distinct departure from his normal approach at the time.

The A4 booklet includes texts about the exhibition by members of the team, Hirose’s own description of the pieces, and photographs of the exhibition. (Text in Japanese and English).

SDK is the collaboration between Stano and David Kitt. Stano, a post-punk pioneer from Dublin, is known for his strikingly individual work. A recurring collaborator with All City, Going Back to the Unknown marks his first new material for the label and his return to vocal work after many years.

The project began after a chance meeting at All City led to a connection with David Kitt. In Kitt’s studio, guitars, pedals, tape delay, and synths combined to form dense, dreamlike textures. The music moves between ambient atmospheres, layered guitars, and fractured song forms. Stano’s words appear only where the music calls for them:

“I just turned the pages until the right lyric appeared — I like when the music dictates what the words should be.”

On the collaborative process, Stano adds:

“There wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just a reaction to what David was playing. It seemed to happen organically, we were really on the same wavelength. At the end of that day I knew we had something really interesting.”

The result is Going Back to the Unknown, a collection shaped as much by intuition and chance as by design. The album is completed by Kitt’s contribution “Fireworks,” which seals the record’s arc.

Originally released in 1987 on a private cassette - this is the first vinyl release of the absolute gem. Comes with obi strip.

Masahiro Sugaya is a Japanese composer with a prolific career in music for film, television, and the performing arts. Renowned for crafting soundscapes that invite deep contemplation, his music blends synthesizers, field recordings, and traditional Japanese instruments, achieving a delicate balance between minimalism, ambient, and folk influences.

In addition to his experimental compositions, Sugaya has been a pivotal figure in Japanese television and cinema. He collaborated with NHK, Japan’s national broadcaster, creating soundtracks for documentaries and educational programs that explored both the everyday and the extraordinary. His ability to translate emotions and landscapes into sound has made him stand out in projects that connect the visual and the musical.

In cinema, Sugaya worked as an arranger for GONTITI, the iconic Japanese guitar duo, and contributed to soundtracks for renowned directors such as Hirokazu Koreeda. His work captures the stillness and subtleties of everyday life, resonating deeply with audiences.

The Pocket of Fever, originally conceived in 1987 as a soundtrack for Pappa Tarahumara’s avant-garde dance company, merges traditional Japanese elements with modern compositional techniques, reflecting the fluid and dreamlike choreography. The album shifts between nostalgia, as in Green of the Future, and the poetic hypnosis of Conversation with the Wind. These pieces invite the listener to explore deeply evocative and intimate sonic landscapes.

Now available for the first time on vinyl, this album was originally released solely on cassette and has been carefully remastered to preserve its delicate textures and vibrant sound. Presented in a limited edition, The Pocket of Fever remains essential for fans of ambient and experimental music. Inspired by figures such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Midori Takada, and Brian Eno, this timeless masterpiece invites introspection and the appreciation of its serene beauty.