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On Nocturnes, Jesse Hackett steps into the shadows, unveiling a deeply personal album of spectral piano and gothic chamber pieces. The record channels a sense of lingering unease and creeping dread and signals a new direction in Hackett’s unpredictable oeuvre. We were delighted when Jesse reached out to propose a collaboration on what he described as his most personal work to date. Written and produced during a particularly difficult period, Nocturnes plunges the listener into a beautifully eerie world of rain-soaked twilight jazz and gothic chamber music. Reminiscent of the soundtrack to an imagined Giallo thriller or Hammer Horror film, the album is deeply cinematic and evocative, conjuring unsettling mental images: shapeless presences lingering at the edges of uneasy dreams, candlelight casting wavering shadows, and unspeakable secrets hidden in the run-down bars and lounges of London’s bohemian underbelly. For Nocturnes, Jesse returns to the piano as his primary means of expression and collaborates with saxophonist and flautist Finn Peters. Together, they channel spirits summoned during late nights listening to the works of Erik Satie, Maurice Ravel, Olivier Messiaen, and the jazz lineage of Bill Evans and Charles Mingus. The album is released on 27th February 2026 in a limited edition of 250 copies - black vinyl in a reverse board sleeve. Jesse Hackett is a London-based multi-instrumentalist, producer, and songwriter renowned as a musical chameleon, shifting style and mood while working across genres. He is best known as a longtime live keyboard and synthesizer player for Gorillaz, contributing to their performances and recordings from 2010 to 2022. Alongside this, he has been involved in a wide array of globe-spanning projects, including the Afro-Futurist ensembles Owiny Sigoma Band, Ennanga Vision, and Nyege Nyege Tapes favourites Metal Preyers and Teeth Agency. In parallel, he has released warped synth-funk under the name Elmore Judd and forms one half of the experimental pop production duo Blludd Relations.
Yep, it’s a compilation. A marker for the first year of Short Span and a road map into the future maybe. Featuring a mix of artists already heavily involved in the label who’ve had releases out this year. As well as those with future material prepared and awaiting careful hands plating them to metal under the shadow of ski village in Sheffield and then wax in East Lothian some time in 2026. Plus a wider net of friends and admired artists making contemporary music that feels closely connected to the label right now.
There’s a lot of different narratives, meanings, and histories backwards and forwards contained on these two discs and its tempting as the compiler to dig deeply into those and write an accompanying essay...
About how the entire compilation was born from Conna sending over his tune that had started as a playful chop and screw of a Mammo track from General Patterns. How the a.m.p tune has Ben from Purelink loosely playing the keys over it during a party session.
That the Klaus and Mount Kimbie one has been sat travelling from hard drive to hard drive for years with the hope it could be released one day at the right moment. That intermountain is a freshly minted alias for IS and the False Aralia ecosystem. That I reached out to caitlin c harvey after being introduced to her wonderful music via the inspiring Submerge Sessions compilation, which recently collected work from a new school of Detroit music formed in community and tutored by some of the Underground Resistance crew…
But in sum total its just Short Span setting out its table and focusing in on publishing new music. Interesting music. Dialling in on dub and ambient and techno in different forms and qualities that hope to catch the ear and the heart. With some of the most interesting and exciting artists and tune-makers of the moment featuring in here. And a couple of geographic focal points of creativity and shared musical language coalescing in amongst that.
Two discs, two sequences you can listen through in entirety or split into listening sessions. I tried to sequence things so that it flows nicely and suits different moods. A bit of a mixtape.
Following the release of the well received Rave ‘Till You Cry compilation of unreleased versions from the vaults in 2019, Disciples follow it up (a mere 5 years later!) with a new album from Rephlex alumni Bogdan Raczynski, complete with another manifesto style title: You’re Only Young Once But You Can Be Stupid Forever.
A collection of warmly melodic electronic sketches, with tracks alternately drifting beatless on the breeze or underpinned by lo-fi drums, sometimes barely held together with a delicate construction of odd synth patches and ping-pong percussion. Each piece is short and to the point, a record of perfect miniatures. Whilst this description may sound utopian, the album is conceived around themes of late stage capitalist brutality, hyper consumerism, online doom and alogorhithmic apocalypse. Beauty in the face of planetary collapse and 24/7 livestreamed genocide. The theme summed up by the front cover which just features a giant (readable) QR code, that most ubiquitous of modern symbols. We’ve asked Bogdan on several occasions for more background information on the creation of these tracks, but received a different answer each time. One of the below statements might be true, though it’s equally possible that none of them are, just like the real news.
1) All these tracks are a result of Bogdan asking AI to make an EDM album.
2) These tracks originated in a desperate bid by Bogdan to crack the lucrative mood / chill / coffee / gym algorithmic playlist market.
3) All of these tracks were commissioned for a Tesla infomercial but rejected when Elon Musk heard them.
4) The music on this album is over ten years old.
5) The music on this album was made in a furious weekend of creative inspiration in early 2024.
The QR code on the cover takes listeners to an ever-evolving page on Bogdan’s website which may delve into some of these theories in more detail, or ignore them completely.
We leave you with Bogdan’s text in the booklet that accompanied Rave ‘Till You Cry as the closest we may ever get to some kind of logical reasoning:
“Burn the damned art labels. Ambiguity is wonder. Information is an affront to expression, a death knell to spontaneity. For if an explanation is required, then a connection has failed to be made. Art should be like an overtone, resonating invisibly with your history to form an ethereal experience. Either it hits you or it’s wrong time, wrong place. To hell with the dawdling interviews and vanity shots. One turns to music precisely because it least resembles what’s in the mirror. Put away the arrogance and pride, and boast and bias. With each word uttered, your mystery wanes. Your shimmer dims. In my nostalgia, your light show is drowned out by the ricochet of soundwaves. Art is best when all else is drowned out. Black as though the moon forgot to come out. Let the night cover my flailing humanity like a veil. Gangly arms tangled, feet aflutter, yet all but silent against the din. This is not an escape. This is me screaming, happily, inside, out through my fingertips. This is my beck and call. Carefully assembled to drw forth some other form of you. May we partake in this moment together, for just a little longer.”
FELT enters 2026 with a newly established sub label for reissues, retrospectives and oddball adjacent non-FELT material under the anagram catch-all LEFT. First on the agenda is a vinyl issue of a modern classical tape by Danish guitarist Johan Surrballe Wieth, founding member of the band Iceage. Initially released on a limited cassette edition and plucked from the vast catalogue of the Copenhagen label Posh Isolation, the solo project Health & Safety can be read as composers meditation on anxiety, depression, insomnia and all the damned things they entangle. Wieth moves across the spectrum with dour, deliberate keys, mangled drone fx, barely-there violin scrapes, erratic chimes and whistles and with a knowing pace that feels akin to a guiding hand. We’re unsure if the form of each piece is meant to directly correlate to the drug so referenced but the quiet fever dream atmosphere of the 25 minutes also blurs each piece into a whole. This quote from Wieth certainly rings true for the highly introspective nature of Health & Safety - “You should be very careful listening to too much music when you're writing an album. It has a tendency to become a little too explicit”
Grady Steele (Formant Soundsystem) debuts on FELT with the tender spectre of Nausea, poignant patterns captured through the dusk-hued window pane. Co-founder of the Formant Soundsystem, a travelling rig that’s powered forward-thinking dances in London and Paris, Grady Steele has championed both experimental and club music at the cutting edge. Concurrently to this, he debuted his own productions back in 2024 for Archaic Vaults. Uniquely intimate, his music shone lowkey and warm with an assured glow. It’s no surprise then to find his inimitable sounds land neatly on Fergus Jones’ FELT imprint. Nausea extends across seven movements, narrating sentimental parallels of familiarity. Grady posits concentrated pangs of post-rave nostalgia with rich melodic sustenance, a vivid introspection tempered with field recordings and live instrumentation. Strummed guitars and aching pads move purposefully with the suspended pace, an immersive beatless vista from its opening quiet moments through to the guttural noise-laden finale. It’s a brief, beautiful collection from Grady Steele and another string to FELT’s unpredictable bow.
John Howes continues his micro-dub techno work as Paperclip Minimiser, landing on Blank Mind with Topology Transform. Drawn from the same sessions as his recent album, these three tracks extend his finely tuned, system-led approach. Based in the UK’s North West, Howes builds custom tools via Cong Burn, shaping a sound that threads broken techno, clicks-and-cuts minimalism and UK bass. The A side pairs fast, detailed percussion with a more open half-time counterpart, while the B side moves into a beatless ambient stretch. Across the record, precision meets warmth, with each track reinforcing a cohesive, carefully engineered sound world.
Go Hirano - Piano, Pianica, Windchime, Percussion, Electronics, and Effects
Tracks A1, A2, A4, B1, B4 recorded live in October 2020 at Pianola Records, Tokyo
Piano Tuning and voicing by Emi Hatakeyama
Recorded by Makoto Oshiro
The remaining tracks were recorded in the late 1980's-2019 and remixed in 2019
Robert Stillman didn’t set out to make a concept album about Steve Jobs. But as a composer and improviser whose music asks questions about his relationship with reality, a curiosity about the promises and follies of technology took him there. Following an intuitive path from James Bridle’s acclaimed book on non-human intelligence Ways of Being to the seminal 1995 essay “The California Ideology”, Stillman arrived at Walter Isaacson’s biography of Apple founder Steve Jobs – and what would become the catalyst for his new album. “10,000 Rivers points to an alternative narrative about a man who is tormented by the instability of his reality, so tries to invent his way out of it,” Stillman explains. “Ultimately, his tech designs become expressions of his will to replace the messy, disordered, temporary nature of the world with something that strives to be barely physical: streamlined, symmetrical, uncomplicated, and deathless.” Highly original, wholly unclassifiable, 10,000 Rivers is part cultural critique, part sonic biography and takes the form of a series of songs, instrumentals and abstract soundscapes that respond directly to moments or paradigms from Jobs’ life. Stylistically, it leans on Stillman’s relationship with the smooth music of Billy Ocean, Gloria Estefan and 10cc from the ‘80s and early ‘90s, made at what he calls “the knife’s edge between the human and the digital.” “A lot of this music, coincidentally, was contemporary with Jobs’ heyday and the mainstream adoption of his first personal computers,” Stillman continues, revelling in the playful deconstruction of their aspirational and anodyne qualities. Twinkling, synthetic arpeggios sit alongside tumbledown acoustic improvisation – think Mort Garson meets Moondog – fragments of ambient sound collapse into queasy auto-tuned lullabies, the melancholy paradise of Brian Wilson-esque California dreaming dismantled into uncanny free jazz freakouts. Recorded to ½-inch 8 track tape and mixed down in real-time to give it a live, performative quality, the result is a speculative, genreless soundtrack to a man’s life and the wider societal values it came to define. Drawing on his recent collaborations with Thom Yorke, Jonny Greenwood and Tom Skinner as touring support and live band-member for The Smile, Stillman’s work has long resisted categorisation, and been presented in a range of media, including installations, performance lectures and 12 solo albums, the most recent of which What Does It Mean to Be American? takes a similarly conceptual scalpel to complex notions of US identity. One of Stillman’s most ambitious and idiosyncratic projects to date, 10,000 Rivers is an elegy for the hubris of a humankind trying to design its way to immortality as it falls apart at the seams.
A further volume of Arja Kastinen's eerie amalgamations of 110 year old wax cylinders with her own meticulously transcribed takes, this time focussing in on Armas Otto Väisänen's field recordings of kantele player Iivana Mišukka (b. 1861 d.1919). "Iivana Mišukka (1861–1919) was one of the Karelian kantele players recorded by the folk music researcher Armas Otto Väisänen on wax cylinders in 1916 and 1917. In the early 20th century, the remote areas of Border Karelia were undergoing the final phase of a transformation in musical culture, with the ancient runo song tradition giving way to newer forms of music. This transition is reflected in Mišukka's repertoire and choice of instrument. The ancient small kantele, hollowed out of a single piece of wood, was already rare at the turn of the century. Mišukka’s kantele was a new type of instrument with 26 strings, constructed of several parts, but he played it using the traditional plucking technique. Like other Border Karelian kantele players, his repertoire consisted of music rooted in runosong culture, as well as newer dances and songs from the east and west. Most of the recorded material falls into the latter category. Ivan Bogdanov Mišukka was born out of wedlock in Suursara village, Suistamo, on 1 May 1861. He began playing the kantele at the age of five or six, quickly mastering the instrument. In adulthood, he was considered one of the area's best master players. Mišukka was landless for most of his life and lived in different parts of the Suistamo parish. His first wife, Tekla Markintytär, died in 1897 at the age of 40, and his second wife, Jevdokia Filipintytär Jeminen, died in 1907 at the age of 50. Seven children were born from the first marriage, two of whom died young. The third wife, Maria Ignatintytär Gurnan (Kuurnanen), was a well-known master of lamentations. Together with Maria, Iivana Mišukka worked as a tenant farmer in the village of Suursara. Mišukka suffered from rheumatism, which prevented him from participating in physical work like Maria. This was apparently partly the reason why Iivana Mišukka went to earn extra money by playing the kantele on gig trips. He often had other traditional artists from Suistamo as his travelling companions, such as the runosingers Konstantin Kuokka and Iivana Onoila. Iivana Mišukka died in Leppäsyrjä village, Suistamo, on 18 May 1919 at the age of 58, and his kantele was donated to Teppana Jänis. Mišukka only used 14 of the 26 strings on his kantele, playing the same tunes either a fourth higher or lower. He tuned his kantele to the major scale using fifths, except for a low seventh scale degree on the upper strings, but not below the fundamental. Since he did not use the seventh note of the scale on the upper strings at all, he could use the major scale both lower and a fourth higher with this tuning. According to Mišukka, the sound of higher, or 'finer', strings is 'more beautiful', while that of lower ones is 'greater'. Among runosingers, the size of the thirds varied, ranging from major to minor to neutral. A similar phenomenon can be observed in kantele tunings, where the third, sixth and seventh scale degrees vary in a comparable way. During a meeting, Väisänen suggested that Mišukka play the smaller kantele belonging to Konstantin Kuokka. The idea was to bring it closer to the horn to improve the recording quality. However, the kantele was completely out of tune, and now Mišukka tuned it to the Lydian scale (track 18). Using the old plucking technique, Mišukka placed his right middle finger on the fundamental tone, his right index finger on the second scale degree, his left middle finger on the third scale degree and his left index finger on the fourth scale degree, and his right thumb on the fifth. The thumb also played the notes above the fifth note of the scale. As Mišukka remarked to Väisänen: 'Peigaloll’ tuloo enemb ruadoa' (the thumb has to do more work). However, he did not use the seventh note of the scale on the upper strings at all. Below the fundamental note, he played the seventh and sixth notes of the scale with his right middle finger of and the fifth note of the scale with his right ring finger. This fifth scale degree below the fundamental is almost always used as a drone. Sometimes, when the melody required it, Mišukka, like other players, also varied the fingering. He would also occasionally strike the same string with the side of his fingernail after plucking it. The wax cylinder recordings of Karelian kantele players are kept in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki, Finland. Copies were made of them onto reel-to-reel tapes in both the 1960s and 1980s. The 1960s copies are mono and the 1980s copies are stereo. However, not all kantele recordings from these decades have survived. The sound of the kantele is difficult to hear in wax cylinder recordings due to its low volume, and it occasionally becomes completely obscured by noise. During the copying process, the cylinder sometimes rotates unevenly, resulting in breaks or jumps in the music. Additionally, the rotation speed of the cylinder in the copies does not correspond to the performance speed of the original music, which alters the pitch. However, since Väisänen's precise notes are available in the archive, it is possible to deduce the melodies, their speed, and the tuning level of the kantele in the recordings. Of the copies of the original recordings from the 1960s and 1980s, I have selected the one that best met the requirements of this publication and adjusted the speed of the recording to align with Väisänen's notes. To enhance the listening experience, I have replayed the songs, which now partly overlap the old recordings on this release." — Arja Kastinen
A further volume of Arja Kastinen's eerie amalgamations of 110 year old wax cylinders with her own meticulously transcribed takes, this time focussing in on Armas Otto Väisänen's field recordings of kantele player Iivana Mišukka (b. 1861 d.1919). "Iivana Mišukka (1861–1919) was one of the Karelian kantele players recorded by the folk music researcher Armas Otto Väisänen on wax cylinders in 1916 and 1917. In the early 20th century, the remote areas of Border Karelia were undergoing the final phase of a transformation in musical culture, with the ancient runo song tradition giving way to newer forms of music. This transition is reflected in Mišukka's repertoire and choice of instrument. The ancient small kantele, hollowed out of a single piece of wood, was already rare at the turn of the century. Mišukka’s kantele was a new type of instrument with 26 strings, constructed of several parts, but he played it using the traditional plucking technique. Like other Border Karelian kantele players, his repertoire consisted of music rooted in runosong culture, as well as newer dances and songs from the east and west. Most of the recorded material falls into the latter category. Ivan Bogdanov Mišukka was born out of wedlock in Suursara village, Suistamo, on 1 May 1861. He began playing the kantele at the age of five or six, quickly mastering the instrument. In adulthood, he was considered one of the area's best master players. Mišukka was landless for most of his life and lived in different parts of the Suistamo parish. His first wife, Tekla Markintytär, died in 1897 at the age of 40, and his second wife, Jevdokia Filipintytär Jeminen, died in 1907 at the age of 50. Seven children were born from the first marriage, two of whom died young. The third wife, Maria Ignatintytär Gurnan (Kuurnanen), was a well-known master of lamentations. Together with Maria, Iivana Mišukka worked as a tenant farmer in the village of Suursara. Mišukka suffered from rheumatism, which prevented him from participating in physical work like Maria. This was apparently partly the reason why Iivana Mišukka went to earn extra money by playing the kantele on gig trips. He often had other traditional artists from Suistamo as his travelling companions, such as the runosingers Konstantin Kuokka and Iivana Onoila. Iivana Mišukka died in Leppäsyrjä village, Suistamo, on 18 May 1919 at the age of 58, and his kantele was donated to Teppana Jänis. Mišukka only used 14 of the 26 strings on his kantele, playing the same tunes either a fourth higher or lower. He tuned his kantele to the major scale using fifths, except for a low seventh scale degree on the upper strings, but not below the fundamental. Since he did not use the seventh note of the scale on the upper strings at all, he could use the major scale both lower and a fourth higher with this tuning. According to Mišukka, the sound of higher, or 'finer', strings is 'more beautiful', while that of lower ones is 'greater'. Among runosingers, the size of the thirds varied, ranging from major to minor to neutral. A similar phenomenon can be observed in kantele tunings, where the third, sixth and seventh scale degrees vary in a comparable way. During a meeting, Väisänen suggested that Mišukka play the smaller kantele belonging to Konstantin Kuokka. The idea was to bring it closer to the horn to improve the recording quality. However, the kantele was completely out of tune, and now Mišukka tuned it to the Lydian scale (track 18). Using the old plucking technique, Mišukka placed his right middle finger on the fundamental tone, his right index finger on the second scale degree, his left middle finger on the third scale degree and his left index finger on the fourth scale degree, and his right thumb on the fifth. The thumb also played the notes above the fifth note of the scale. As Mišukka remarked to Väisänen: 'Peigaloll’ tuloo enemb ruadoa' (the thumb has to do more work). However, he did not use the seventh note of the scale on the upper strings at all. Below the fundamental note, he played the seventh and sixth notes of the scale with his right middle finger of and the fifth note of the scale with his right ring finger. This fifth scale degree below the fundamental is almost always used as a drone. Sometimes, when the melody required it, Mišukka, like other players, also varied the fingering. He would also occasionally strike the same string with the side of his fingernail after plucking it. The wax cylinder recordings of Karelian kantele players are kept in the archives of the Finnish Literature Society in Helsinki, Finland. Copies were made of them onto reel-to-reel tapes in both the 1960s and 1980s. The 1960s copies are mono and the 1980s copies are stereo. However, not all kantele recordings from these decades have survived. The sound of the kantele is difficult to hear in wax cylinder recordings due to its low volume, and it occasionally becomes completely obscured by noise. During the copying process, the cylinder sometimes rotates unevenly, resulting in breaks or jumps in the music. Additionally, the rotation speed of the cylinder in the copies does not correspond to the performance speed of the original music, which alters the pitch. However, since Väisänen's precise notes are available in the archive, it is possible to deduce the melodies, their speed, and the tuning level of the kantele in the recordings. Of the copies of the original recordings from the 1960s and 1980s, I have selected the one that best met the requirements of this publication and adjusted the speed of the recording to align with Väisänen's notes. To enhance the listening experience, I have replayed the songs, which now partly overlap the old recordings on this release." — Arja Kastinen
Laputa, a title taken from the fantastical floating island of Gulliver's Travels is aptly named as 'The album that never landed' for, apart from a limited touchdown in Japan, Laputa was never released. This mystical world is a summation of Yokota's journey so far, a complex and at times challenging work but immeasurably rewarding. Beguiling and bewitching in equal measure. Over fifteen undulating sonic fugue states, he guides listeners round a liminal world, made up of familiar materials but formed in a way defying all laws of perspective and physics. Background murmurings give way to almost uncomfortably foregrounded chattering, and one perceived soundstage segues into another impossible tableau of sonic apparitions, some recognisable in form, but all boldly decontextualised and arranged in expertly cluttered amalgams. Laputa's obscurity was a prime reason Lo Recordings decided on the Skintone retrospective. Falling as it did between The Boy and the Tree on The Leaf Label and our own debut of Symbol. It was something of an audio crime that the album had never been properly explored and discovered. Lo Recordings hope Laputa can now ascend to its rightful place... hovering above us.
The Boy and the Tree was composed after a visit to Yakushima Island, an outstandingly beautiful world heritage site off the southern tip of Japan, scored by a deep, lush and ancient ravine, home of the ancient 7000-year old ‘Jōmon Sugi’. Tree. Also the inspiration for Miyazaki's epic anime Princess Mononoke, a conflict between the rampant greed and destructive force of humanity, and the stoic, mysterious fragility of nature. This fleeting immersion in nature lent the album a profound introspection and mystery, and the its twelve tracks unfold in dream sequence, each drifting seamlessly into the next while still managing to steer the listener in myriad directions, from eerie butoh atmospheres, to ebullient raga, to desolate, cavernous chanson. The Boy And The Tree is definitely one of, if not the most, visually evocative and cinematic Yokota releases.
Lo Recordings are very proud to announce the release of a beautiful collaborative project. A seamless sonic journey that guides us through the filmic landscape of a bygone era. Chiming in the past and resonating in the present. Meg Morley and Haiku Salut combine their talents for the reimagining of a score for the 1930's silent film People on Sunday. Inspired by their live performance and screening of the classic at the Flatpack festival. The release was five years in the making as they set out to capture the compositions in the studio, blending Morley’s expressive piano with Haiku Salut’s textured electronics. The result has given rise to an album that belies its historic source with a fresh and clean sound and a complex ever moving series of compositions.. 'The Lost Score' is a vibrant contemporary album for our time. Haiku Salut are an instrumental trio whose music blends electronica, neo-classical and folk into richly layered, cinematic soundscapes. Known for their enigmatic performances and live scores to silent films, they create immersive experiences that merge timeless visuals with modern experimental sound. Meg Morley is a Melbourne-born London-based pianist, composer and improviser who pursues cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations, focusing on storytelling. Her classically trained precision and jazz-inflected improvisations have brought her to prominence through her compositions for classical and jazz ensembles, accompaniment for dance companies (Pina Bausch, English National Ballet) and her internationally-acclaimed original scores for silent film.
Colours Of Absence is the follow-up to Original Soundtrack. Both albums were written during the 2020 pandemic lockdown, which was no doubt a phase of experimentation and pushing boundaries, as producers found themselves with a lot of time and no dancefloors. This saw ASC pushing himself creatively and focusing on instrumentation within his ambient music, and in the case of both Original Soundtrack and Colours Of Absence, this meant the piano. The piano focus is a little less obvious in Colours Of Absence though, as this album attempts to strike a balance between ASC's 'traditional' beloved ambient work, and the aforementioned Original Soundtrack. 9 tracks spread over two slices of clear vinyl that will take your emotions on a journey like no other. Sit back and absorb Colours Of Absence.
I Am An Instrument Vol. 1 was recorded live in Copenhagen Denmark and what you hear is 100% improvised music. When the band performs there is nothing planned, except for which one of the members will start the song. After the initial note, it is everything goes. There were no edits in post production so what you hear is what you heard at the venue back in 2019.
The latest in Field Records' run of essential vinyl pressings revisits Stephen Hitchell's 2009 masterpiece under his Variant alias, The Setting Sun. As part of Echospace and also celebrated for his productions as Intrusion and Soultek, Hitchell is considered a leading light in dub techno, with the versatility in his sound to range from rhythmic, physical pulses to purely tonal, abyssal drone. His work as Variant, which debuted with The Setting Sun, capitalises on this scope to deliver a compelling ambient-with-teeth set richly deserving of a proper vinyl pressing. The Setting Sun first emerged on Echospace as a CD-only release. Hitchell was at pains to map out the tools that went into the sound on the album — field recordings of storms in Berlin, Germany and train rides in Narita, Japan, outboard synths and samplers. Crucially, he declared no computers were used, and it shows. When The Setting Sun was recorded, in-the-box production was largely dominating electronic music and the technology had yet to replicate the warmth and character of analogue equipment. Hitchell's looming chords come baked with harmonic overtones, surface noise becomes another essential layer and fragments of distortion add to the narrative of these glacial, monumental pieces. Hitchell threads his dub techno tendencies in subtle ways, from the kick pattering underneath 'As Time Stood Still' to the quintessential metallic delay ripples that define 'A Silent Storm'. 'Someplace Else' has a defined, albeit delicate, rhythm section guiding its lighter shades of pads and chords. However, drums are never a dominant aspect of the music, simply another layer in an intentionally coagulated whole. At times, flickering tones hint at space where percussion once stood, since muted to leave the wet signal setting a new course for the sound, somewhere far beyond drum duties. The hushed ceremony of tracks like 'Adrift' are the perfect scenario in which to absorb these microfibres of detail, where the genius of Hitchell can truly be savoured. In line with the limitations of record pressing and Hitchell's proclivity for long-form tracks, 'The Setting Sun' is reserved for the digital edition of this reissue. It's a logical move, as the sound palette widens to encompass tangible, organic instrumentation evolving over the best part of half an hour. The presence of piano keys feels stark in the Variant sound world, but Hitchell ably folds these coded elements into his process bathed in the same curious luminosity that lingers around all his work. Evolving at a painstaking pace, the plaintive humanity in the cascading keys and plucked guitar strings renders one of the most personal expressions in Hitchell's considerable canon — a unique piece that holds its own space comfortably, while also adding to the overall weight of The Setting Sun as a profound benchmark in a stellar discography.
Mesmerising album of Yokota’s earliest sonic explorations that demonstrates his unique vision and sublime transcendence of boundaries.
‘Image 1983-1998’ is a collection of short miniatures, composed in two different time periods. Tracks 1-5 were recorded with guitar and organ between 1983-4 and tracks 6-12 were composed through 97-98, being inspired by the earlier material.
A musical scrapbook, or sonic design board. The sleeve notes give an insight into Yokota’s belief in a close connection between music, memory and his active imagination: ‘Encountering Acid House made me visualise music – I could clearly see the sounds sparkling… this experience led me to create electronic music.’
One of Yokota's most loved releases that explores the intersection of jazz, new age ambience and a world of found sound and samples.
Grinning Cat confounded devotees of Sakura with a far more complex set of tracks. A landscape of ambiguous emotional resonance within an album of measured extremes. Sentimental without being schmaltzy, joyful without being saccharine, Grinning Cat sees Yokota at his most playful and experimental, channelling moments of transitory wonder and jubilation, and opening up a sonic environment in which we can romp and play.
Venezuelan composer Oksana Linde presents Travesías, her second album released by Buh Records, featuring pieces created between 1986 and 1994 in her private studio in San Antonio de Los Altos, Venezuela. These compositions belong to the same creative period as the works included in her acclaimed debut album, Aquatic and Other Worlds (Buh, 2022). The pieces “Mundos Flotantes,” “Horizontes Lejanos,” and “Arrecifes en el espacio” were expressly composed for the concert Travesía Acuastral, presented by Linde in February 1991 at the Casa Rómulo Gallegos during the 3er Encuentro de la Nueva Música Electrónica. This event, produced by Maite Galán in collaboration with the group Musikautomatika, was a milestone in the development of an experimental electronic music scene in Venezuela, which at the time was one of the most vibrant in Latin America. The name Travesía Acuastral reflects the surreal imagination that inspired much of the artist’s work. These ideas, centered on extraordinary ways of perceiving reality, also connected with alternative meditation practices such as Reiki, which attracted Linde’s attention from the mid-1980s to the early 1990s. This period followed her departure from her career as a chemical researcher due to severe health issues. During this time, she composed a series of pieces for meditation sessions, four of which are included in this compilation: “Luciérnagas en los manglares,” “Estrellas I” and “II,” and “Kerepakupai vena.” The latter references two words from the Pemón Indigenous community in southeastern Venezuela, meaning Salto Ángel [Angel Falls]—the name of the world’s tallest waterfall, located in the state of Bolívar. Born in 1948 in Caracas to Ukrainian immigrant parents, Oksana Linde’s career is an example of resilience and innovation. After leaving her work as a chemist due to health problems, Linde turned to music, experimenting with synthesizers to create an evocative sound universe. She produced a substantial amount of recordings during the 1980s, many of which remained unpublished until the release of Aquatic and Other Worlds. Since then, Linde’s work has been compared to artists such as Isao Tomita and Suzanne Ciani. Travesías further establishes her as an essential figure in electronic music and continues to unveil one of the most fascinating musical archives of Latin American electronic music.
On his sixth LP In Another, Toronto-based, Japanese-born, musician and composer Masahiro Takahashi (髙橋 政宏) continues the collaborative expansion of his sonic universe that listeners witness on his 2023 release, Humid Sun. Here he enlists a rotating ensemble of ten guest artists from Toronto’s vibrant music community, including his labelmate Joseph Shabason, who also serves as the album’s co-producer and engineer. Spurred by his longtime admiration for chamber pop spanning the High Llamas and Free Design to the Beach Boys, Takahashi deviates from the underlying processes of his past two outings, trading Ableton sequences for lead sheets, focusing on creating robust melodic and harmonic foundations first. This difference is audible straight away; the album opens with a dialog between upright piano and plucked double bass that’s so gentle and transparent you can hear the breath of the players. Yet the record is not all as sparse as this intimate opening. The ensuing collection of 10 tracks—variously inspired by the vignette structure of Akira Kurosawa’s 1990 film Dreams and the parables of Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi—unfurls Takahashi’s most colourful, poignant and sophisticated set to date. With instrumental contributions from the likes of Thom Gill (collaborator to everyone from Chaka Khan to Sam Wilkes), Bram Gielen (Jeremy Dutcher, Owen Pallett), Philippe Melanson (Sam Gendel, Eric Chenaux),Orange Milk Records alum Nick Storring, Takahashi and company embrace everything from viscous jazz-funk to wistful ambience, languid balladry to groove-laden tropical repose. Then there’s the vocals, which play a key role in connecting this body of work to its pop inspirations. Fellow Telephone Explosion artist Dorothea Paas sings on nine cuts, while Chris A. Cummings (Marker Starling, Cici Arthur) crafted elegant vocal arrangements featuring both of them for six tracks. And just like the intricate songcraft that Takahashi so admires, In Another teems with personality and wit, offering surprise twists of colour tucked into its warm and evocative compositions.
Originally released in 1978, Music By William Eaton is a private-press album from the accomplished experimental stringed instrument builder. The atmospheric recording techniques, mixed with a hint of Fahey/Takoma-lineage make for a listening experience akin to the mountainscape drawing represented on the album cover. The experience may seem simple at first, but like any great trip in nature, new details consistently reveal themselves upon each listen.
“When I started building instruments, playing guitar took on a whole new dimension. From the conception to the birth of each instrument, new layers of meaning unfolded. Cycles, connections and interdependencies became apparent as I contemplated the growth of trees from seed to old age, and the transformation from raw wood to the building of a musical instrument. I sought out quiet natural environments to play and listen to the “voice” of my 6 string, 12 string, 26 string (Elesion Harmonium) and double neck quadraphonic electric guitar. Deep canyons contained a beautiful resonant quality and echo. A starlit night with a full moon provided all the reflection and endless space by which to project music into the cosmos. The sound of a bubbling stream and singing birds added a natural symphonic tapestry to a melody or chord pattern. As I perceived it, everything was participating in a serendipitous dance. Everything was part of the music.
During this time, I decided to record an instrumental album of music. The idea was simple; it would be a series of tone poems with no titles or any information attached, only the words ‘Music by William Eaton.’ While some of the songs evolved out of composed chord progressions, most of the songs were played spontaneously, only on the occasion of the recording. These improvised songs haven’t been played since.” -- William Eaton