MUSIC

Captivating, ethereal and majestic, Mammal Hands unleash their third album, Shadow Work: drawing on spiritual jazz, north Indian, folk and classical music to create something inimitably their own. Recorded at 80 Hertz Studios in Manchester, it is the result of 18 months of intensive touring and mammoth writing sessions. The energy from their exhilarating live performances has fed into the writing process and yet there is a quiet reflective side to this album, giving it an expanded emotional range that draws the listener deep into Mammal Hand’s sound world.

Leaving Records presents Music For Living Spaces, the debut LP by non-binary Los Angeles-based artist Green-House. Olive Ardizoni helms the project, which made its debut with the charming 2019 EP Six Songs for Invisible Gardens. Music for Living Spaces represents an evolution of its predecessor’s minimalist compositions into songs that move with winsome melodies and emotional arcs. Though recorded during a pandemic, the transporting nature of Music For Livings Spaces offers a remedy for dreariness. Ardizoni states, “I’m trying to hit that part of the brain that’s affected by the emotional state that you’re in when you perceive something as cute.” 
 
Music For Living Spaces' first single “Sunflower Dance” sports a breezy, bucolic vibe. The track is intended to invoke the whimsical image of hamsters happily dancing in a field. Ardizoni brings an intentionality to these playful atmospheres. They state, “In our culture, we prioritize profound artistic expression through emotions like sadness or aggression, but cuteness, silliness or fun, are the things that we trivialize in our culture. We say that they’re childish and it gets invalidated.” The complex and radiant productions on Music for Living Spaces counter this view. Ardizoni continues, “Cuteness and joy are gateways to compassion. It’s the gateway to empathy and activating the network in your brain that boosts moral concern for other people in the world around you.” Despite its general sunniness, Music For Living Spaces does not solely rely on exuberant, colorful moods. “Royal Fern” is a sophisticated composition of voices calling and responding to each other in rippling waves, while towards the closing of the album we hear Ardizoni’s ethereal voice for the first time that carries a nuanced, contemplative aura that defies categorization. 
 
Music For Living Spaces is a step forward for Green-House. Ardizoni states, “The intention of this project is to facilitate the connection between humans and nature. Instead of perceiving nature as something that's separate from us, or outside of our homes, we can recognize nature as something that is within us and in everything we do in our daily lives. You don't need to have access to the great outdoors to feel connected to the environment.”

A must-have for fans of Japanese environmental music such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Satoshi Ashikawa and Yutaka Hirose! Organic new age music that is swallowed by the beauty of nature that sways gracefully! Leaving Records is proud to present the debut EP by Green-House, a project by local artist Olive Ardizon. "The six tracks are based on the concept of "communication between plant life and the people who grow it. Based on field recordings that capture the sounds of water and the voices and movements of plants and animals in nature, this is a superb new age/ambient work that breathes an aesthetic synth sound that encompasses the beauty and serenity of the pull that is common in Japanese environmental music. Artwork by Michael Flanagan.

Habitat (what we might now properly refer to as Habitat I) arrived, fully-formed, in 2021—the product of a conscientious, exploratory, and decidedly Covid-era collaboration between two Berlin-based experimental musicians: the composer N. (Niklas) Kramer, and percussionist, J. (Joda) Foerster. Inspired by the Italian architect, Ettore Sottsass, Habitat’s simple, albeit beguiling conceit (following in the footsteps of canonical ambient releases like Music for Airports and Plantasia) was that each track ought to represent a room in an imagined building. Taken quite literally, tracks like “Curved Hallway” guided the listener through a kind of psychogeographic labyrinth, at once welcoming and slightly uncanny. Habitat II operates on a similar premise. But if Habitat I charted the perplexing intricacies of an imagined, self-contained structure, Habitat II expands the conceptual realm. Think now, not only of rooms in a hypothetical home, but of the winding hallways and grounds of a mid-century structure—perhaps slightly past its prime, but not at all an inappropriate venue for a late-night soiree. How might these features be imagined, mapped, and rendered enticing for a listener? We begin, appropriately, with “Seating (Welcome),” which, in its fluttering, aetherial suite of static, winds, and percussive depths, gently hypnotizes in the vein of Terry Riley, beckoning our entry. The clarity here, the directional flow of air, recalls the dignity and gestural simplicity of the Bauhaus school. Of significant note is the Wasserspiel (track seven)—”water fixture” (loosely translated), like the sculpture by Lily Clark, which graces the record’s cover. In an album grounded by analogies, Wasserspiel constitutes an especially mimetic highlight: a cascading, shimmering, font of radiance that does not (to its strength) rely upon a sample or found-sound reference to running water. Instead we are left with the distinct impression of the glimmer of flowing liquid, and of the attendant, refractory evening sunlight. Indeed, fountains (the most common and domesticated form of Wasserspiele)—their simultaneous kitsch and abundance—may very well epitomize the kind of cultivated, sixties home-shopping catalog aesthetic that undergirds the Habitat series. These habitats, wherever they are, however they appear to you (and there is indeed ample room for interpretation)—we can all certainly agree that they are vaguely utopian and achingly nostalgic. Of their compositional process, Kramer and Foerster reference their mutual interest in improvisation, and, furthermore, a kind of “first thought best thought” approach to recording and indexing ideas. Relying primarily on a sampler with a 15 second limit, their process emphasizes the organic layering of asynchronous (though, crucially, harmonious — perhaps even “hospitable”) loops. Suffice it to say, many rooms have been lost to the aether, casualties of a mercurial recording process. Those rooms that remain in Habitat II have been cultivated, furnished, and decorated. And they eagerly await your entry.

We’re all on our own unique emotional road trips. Infinite Avenue happens to be Carmen’s. Here she is, holed up in the Motel Nowheresville, unpacking a suitcase full of stories of guilt, desire, rage, apathy, love and friendship, loneliness, nature, inner demons and other tales of twenty-first century womanhood. Carmen Villain is half-Norwegian and half-Mexican, born in the USA and now living in Oslo, Norway, having moved back after living in London for a few years. She has a lot of stories to tell. Writing, recording and producing alone, Carmen’s intensely personal songs are entirely self-created in her makeshift studio, made up of tapestries of guitar, piano, programmed drums and synths, making the most she could out of her limited gear. Once she had arrived at more than enough tracks for a follow-up album to 2013’s 'Sleeper,' some of them were mixed with experimental house producer Matt Karmil and ‘Quietly’ was treated by noise improviser Helge Sten (aka Deathprod). Taboo-busting Norwegian artist Jenny Hval contributes lyrics and vocals on ‘Borders’, a song especially relevant among today’s tightening frontiers in America and elsewhere. ‘Red Desert’ is titled after the legendary Antonioni movie about a woman’s survival tactics in a surreal industrial landscape full of existential crisis. ‘To me the movie feels like a perfect visual representation of what it can be like to be anxious and uncomfortable in your head sometimes,’ says Carmen. Musically, 'Infinite Avenue' has a similar effect. With 'Infinite Avenue,' Carmen Villain’s songwriting and production skills have taken a major leap forward, and on the final, ethereal ‘Planetarium’ her voice shoots into the stratosphere, riding the comet tail of a Korg bass drone. It’s about acknowledging the immensity of the universe, while remembering that we’ve each got our own private constellation of issues to deal with down here. It’s a typically Villainous contrast of rapture and irony, with a murmured coda recorded as she was falling asleep one night. ‘Everything I write has to be true,’ she says, ‘even if I sometimes find it’s too confessional. Whatever was my truth at that moment.’ The hollow-eyed woman on the cover, that’s Hollywood actress Gena Rowlands, partner of the late director John Cassavetes – a heroine of Carmen’s because of the way her face and body can so brilliantly express psychological states, nervousness, being stressed out, desperation, anxiety, joy without necessarily using words. A freakish dream sequence in 'Love Streams,' where she gambles with the love of her estranged husband and child and desperately tries to make them laugh with a bunch of practical-joke toys, is manic genius – and one of Carmen’s favourite film scenes. Ms Rowlands, by the way, personally approved the use of her image for this project. A famous movie maker once called film ‘truth at 24 frames per second’. With 'Infinite Avenue,' you get an earful of truth at 33 1/3 revs per minute.

Everything Is Simple arrives four years after its predecessor, Hold You Up, which in turn came five years after Show Us The Fire. Zelienople does not do things in a hurry. Why should it? Operationally and musically, haste has nothing to offer the Chicago-identified trio. They do not rush their time signatures, and they do not rush their albums, because however long it takes is the amount of time necessary. So, what’s necessary? Singer-guitarist Matt Christensen, multi-instrumentalist Brian Harding, and drummer Mike Weis had all been in other bands before they united to become Zelienople in 1998 (the band’s name references a town in Pennsylvania where Harding and Christensen were once stranded while waiting for parts necessary to fix a broken-down car). All of them have all played other music since then. Harding records long-form instrumental music under the guise Ill Professor. Weis has explored ambient sound, studied Korean rhythmic practices, and improvised with Kwaidan and Slow Bell Trio. Christensen is torrentially productive on his own; at the end of April 2024 he had 212 digital releases on Bandcamp, and by the time you read this, there’ll be more. If Christensen is driven by compulsive necessity, Zelienople’s rate of production must be a spoiler, not an enhancer. But the three musicians need each other to make the convergence of ceremonial cadences, echo-laden instrumentation, and mournfully resigned singing that constitutes Zelienople’s music. Still, the making of Everything Is Simple took Zelienople out of its comfort zone. In 2020, Weis left Chicago for Kalamazoo, Michigan, which meant that the band no longer had access to its usual recording refuge in his basement. They turned loss into an opportunity to change their approach. Instead of layering tracks incrementally, they recorded mostly live with two extra musicians, Eric Eleazer (synthesizer, Fender Rhodes piano) and PM Tummala (synthesizer, Fender Rhodes piano, vibraphones). Keyboards and metallophones broaden the sound field around Weis’ patiently perambulating percussion. And instead of clinging, Harding’s basses and clarinets swirl and wreath around Christensen’s apprehensive articulations of the experience of being a quiet person in a menacingly loud cultural moment. Tummala also contributed his engineering skills, which enabled Christensen to step back from recording duties to concentrate on singing and playing, and his studio, which is much more spacious than Weis’ old basement. While the basic tracks went down quickly, a lengthy period of mixing and fixing ensued, followed by the spatially conscious mastering of Slowdive’s Simon Scott, all of which further magnified the effect of being a bigger band in a bigger space. Still, Zelienople wears its expansiveness lightly; Everything Is Simple may loom sonically, but it doesn’t overwhelm the listener so much as give them the space to inhabit a singular realm.

Let the Moon Be a Planet marks the first volume of Reflections, a new series of contemporary collaborations orchestrated by RVNG Intl., and documents an inspired exchange between guitarist and songwriter Steve Gunn and pianist and composer David Moore of Bing & Ruth. Conjured by a mutual curiosity, and appreciation, for the respective musician’s work, Let the Moon Be a Planet initially took form over a progression of remote sessions and ultimately harmonized when Gunn and Moore completed the album together in the bucolic surroundings of Hudson, New York. Let the Moon Be a Planet is an invitation to relive the intimate moments shared between two artists finding their way along a single path, and into a world where the most subtle of gestures can ripple for an eternity.

Through evocative, emotionally resonant music, Goodbye, Hotel Arkada, the new LP from American harpist and composer Mary Lattimore, speaks not just for its beloved namesake — a hotel in Croatia facing renovation — but for a universal loss that is shared. Six sprawling pieces shaped by change; nothing will ever be the same, and here, the artist, evolving in synthesis, celebrates and mourns the tragedy and beauty of the ephemeral, all that is lived and lost to time. Documented and edited in uncharacteristically measured sessions over the course of two years, the material remains rooted in improvisation while glistening as the most refined and robust in Lattimore’s decade-long catalog. It finds her communing with friends, contemporaries, and longtime influences, in full stride yet slowing down to nurture songs in new ways. The cast includes Lol Tolhurst (The Cure), Meg Baird, Rachel Goswell (Slowdive), Roy Montgomery, Samara Lubelski, and Walt McClements. “When I think of these songs, I think about fading flowers in vases, melted candles, getting older, being on tour and having things change while you're away, not realizing how ephemeral experiences are until they don't happen anymore, fear for a planet we're losing because of greed, an ode to art and music that's really shaped your life that can transport you back in time, longing to maintain sensitivity and to not sink into hollow despondency.” Memories, scenes, and split-second impressions have long filled Lattimore’s musical universe. As one of today’s preeminent instrumental storytellers, she has “the uncanny ability to pluck a string in a way that will instantly make someone remember the taste of their fifth birthday cake," writes Pitchfork's Jemima Skala. Lattimore's impulse to record life as it happens matches her drive to travel and perform, as profiled by Grayson Haver Currin for The New York Times: "Lattimore recognized that being in motion shook loose strands of inspiration, moods she wanted to express with melody. She needed, then, to remain on the go." That sense of fluidity has also made her a prolific collaborator outside of solo work. 2020's Silver Ladders, recorded with Slowdive's Neil Halstead, opened the door for Lattimore to widen the vision of her primary project as well, and its proper follow-up is the natural next scale. “All of these people I asked to contribute have deeply affected and inspired my life.” For the title and inspiration, Lattimore’s mind returns to the island of Hvar in Croatia, where she first saw those silver ladders at the water’s edge. “There's a big old hotel there called the Hotel Arkada, and you could tell it had been hosting holiday-goers for decades in a great way. I walked around the lobby and the empty ballrooms and it looked like a well-worn, well-loved place. My friend Stacey who lives there told me to ‘say goodbye to Hotel Arkada, it might not be here when you get back’ and I heard soon after that it was actually going to be renovated in a very crisp, modern way.” Lattimore became fixated on the ingredients that make a place special — for Hotel Arkada, the patinaed chandeliers, the patterned bedspreads, the echoes of its intangible charm — and how when those leave this world, as they inevitably always will, it feels important to memorialize them, “to bottle it for a brief second.” For the opening track, “And Then He Wrapped His Wings Around Me,” Lattimore looks to two of her closest friends — songwriter Meg Baird, her collaborator on 2018’s Ghost Forests, and accordionist composer Walt McClements, who she’s toured and performed alongside — to surface a core memory. As a kid, Lattimore won a drawing contest through a country radio station and got to see Sesame Street Live! in Asheville. She and her mom were invited backstage, and there the benevolent icon Big Bird “gave me an incredible hug with his scratchy yellow wings.” The trio channel the enveloping warmth of that portrait, the feeling of innocent escape, flying away towards a childhood dream that is just out of reach, surreal, and tinged with sadness. In a rare vocal passage in Lattimore’s library, Baird softly hums with the rolling washes of harp above McClements’ tranquil drone; just for a moment, we are held in a sublime canary yellow embrace. “Arrivederci” features the synth work of Lol Tolhurst, an original member of The Cure and one of her musical heroes. Lattimore started the song after getting fired from a project because she hadn’t played the harp parts well enough. “So I came home and cried my eyes out and then wrote this song to try to recapture my love of playing the harp with nothing to mess up. I received Lol’s parts on New Year's Eve when I was hosting a party. I secretly went into my room and listened to the song and it felt just so magical to have such an influential musician connecting with a song that I made, especially a song I made when I was feeling like a total failure.” On “Blender In A Blender,” Lattimore connects with guitarist Roy Montgomery, a pioneer of New Zealand’s underground. First drafted by Lattimore during an artist residency program in UCross Wyoming, the track later evolved over the duo’s pen pal correspondence. Montgomery adds chords that first feel distant, hazed behind a high-drama harp pattern, before thundering into the foreground in a thrilling outro. The title refers to the trend of teenagers blending their cell phones; Lattimore and a friend were joking about all stuff that could be blended, including another blender. Humor is an unsung key to Lattimore’s craft; titles and anecdotes provide unexpected, counterbalancing levity. The subdued and striking “Music For Applying Shimmering Eye Shadow” is a tribute to the earthly rituals of preparation. “I wanted to make a song for the green rooms,” she says, recalling a moment in the mirror when a tourmate readied herself to go out into the unknown of performance. “It originally was made after googling ‘what does space smell like’ and getting an answer of ‘walnuts and brake pads’ and thinking about the wooziness of space, somehow smelling familiar earth smells in unfamiliar territory. Once I started adding more layers, I started thinking about what I hoped the song would soundtrack and what I wished a song would do.” In the case of “Horses, Glossy on the Hill,” the narrative is nearly inextricable from the sonics. The percussive clacking resembles hooves in an anxious gate. There’s a storm cloud in the sky; from a car window, Lattimore captures the silvery sheen coming off the horses’ striated shapes as if photographing the scene through sound. Her shimmering strings accelerate and distort under twisting effects as the herd becomes one with the horizon. There’s a crumbling elegance to the closing track, “Yesterday's Parties,” indebted to the reveries of Julee Cruise and the droning down-tuned strings of The Velvet Underground. We join Lattimore on a midnight stroll through the streets of Brussels; she looks through stained glass windows into quiet apartments and thinks of late nights with her friends who were out of town. Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell sings a wordless hymn as the harp, a special one Lattimore keeps in Brussels, glides with violin from Samara Lubelski. Leaving Lattimore in this place, itself a memory of yearning for connection, is an appropriate end to an album devoted to remembering and manifesting through shared expression.

I first saw Hugh and Jackson play together at Good God’s ‘Soft Future Piano Bar’ at the Sydney Opera House in 2017. That year was a fruitful year for the two as artists and for the Sydney music community in general. I remember that all of us, along with Greville and Brad, hosted a DIY party in a tunnel under a highway somewhere near Sydney Airport. Is that the same tunnel that Tunnel Dancers derived their name from?

7 years after that first meeting at the Sydney Opera House, Hugh and Jackson have released an album. Listening to these songs there is an audible patience and understanding between two musicians. They probably could have released something else a long time ago, but chose to wait - instead enjoying bowls of laksa on their lunch breaks and sharing long, quiet conversations at The Babylon Sauna & Spa.

When the next warm bowl of noodle soup arrives on your table, how long will you let it sit before you dive in? Soup first or noodle first? If you learn from these songs, perhaps you will know to first observe the whole bowl. Observing in this way, the moment settles and hovers and remains for much longer than a moment.

Nik

Written by J. Fester & H. Burridge in various locations. TD would like to thank MAx Berry for his trust and inspiration in seeing this project come to light and Nik for his nostalgic words and noodle soup references. On this record Hugh plays the Jazzmaster Guitar and various delay and tremolo pedals. Jackson plays his Modular Synthesizer. Artwork by Max Berry. Design by J. Greville. Mastered by Marco Pellegrino at Analog Cut Mastering.

Sakhalin Rock” was released shortly after OKI, a player of the traditional stringed instrument of the Karafuto Ainu people, traveled to Sakhalin, Sakhalin, the birthplace of the tonkori.
The incomparable album, which includes a Brazilian recording with pandeiro wizard Marcos Suzano, has been remastered by OKI himself for this analog release, and the order of the songs has been changed.
The album also includes “King Futoshi,” a previously unreleased song recorded privately with OKI's former member, Futoshi Ikabe, who passed away last year.
OKI's never-ending love and passion for Ainu music is reflected throughout the album, making it a must-have masterpiece for fans.
The tough and heavy DUB MIX by Naoyuki Uchida and the sharp sound of OKI's tonkori are brought back to life with the warmth and depth that only an analog disc can provide.
This is a must-have for those who want to experience the intense “AINU BEAT” that will not fade away with the passage of time.

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We are proud to announce 'Distorted Clamor', the latest full-length album from legendary Spanish ambient composer Suso Saiz. Marking his eighth release with our label, the album showcases Saiz at his spellbinding best, continuing a prolific creative phase in a career that spans over 40 years. Building upon 'Resonant Bodies' and 'Nothing Is Objective', his most recent full length releases for Music From Memory, Saiz's dedication to experimentation and conceptual approach to sound lie at the centre of 'Distorted Clamor'. Discussing his process and the concept behind the album, Saiz says: “Thousands of beings cry out for their lives, for the sustainability of their habitats, for their future. Their clamouring together generates a distorted, deafening and incomprehensible noise. Trying to go deeper into that distortion and understand all the voices and discover the strength and beauty in all of them. This was the first image I had when I started composing Distorted Clamor. Can distortion and all those sounds (clicks, clips, ticks, tocs, pluks, crashes) that we normally discard, generate beauty? This question has also accompanied the entire whole project.” The transit of sound through various materials is also central to the work, with Saiz using water, wood, and metals as filters and sound-transforming pedals. The album was created without the use of synthesizers, relying entirely on acoustic sounds that were transformed in an unnatural way to achieve something completely new. Spanning eleven compositions, Saiz's mastery of timbre and ability to paint layers of sound with the subtlest of touches stand out unmistakably to the listener. As always, his radiant drones are a nest of hidden feelings; they glisten with complex emotions and textures, teasing out moods of vulnerability and hope.

‘Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003)’ is a new in-depth compilation of works by Japanese musician Dream Dolphin. Co-compiled by long-time friend of the label Eiji Taniguchi, it draws from a vast discography of music oscillating between IDM, Pop and Ambient. First appearing on Eiji’s compilation ’Heisei No Oto - Japanese Left-field Pop From The CD Age (1989-1996)’, this selection of rediscoveries, further shines a light on the singular musician known as Dream Dolphin and her place in Japan’s rich electronic music legacy. Dream Dolphin was originally an Ambient and Electronic project by the Japanese artist referred to simply as Noriko, who moved from studying classic Italian songs as a child, to increasingly being inspired by artists such as PIL, Yellow Magic Orchestra, KLF and movies such as ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ and ‘Le Grand Bleu’. The music she released under the name Dream Dolphin, from the age of sixteen, is unique and versatile in style, encompassing Ambient, IDM, Techno, Trance and even Drum & Bass, whilst fusing natural sounds with her own spoken word lyrics. Dream Dolphin released an incredible twenty albums in just eight years. In addition to her own projects, she has also put together a number of fascinating compilations herself, as well as composing ambient music to be used in hospitals and other caring contexts. ‘Gaia: Selected Ambient & Downtempo Works (1996-2003)’ contains 15 tracks thoughtfully selected from various albums that until now were only released on CD format. MFM062 will be released in 2xLP, 2xCD and digital format.

he unbelievably prolific Haruomi Hosono is one of the major architects of modern Japanese pop music. With his encyclopedic knowledge of music and boundless curiosity for new sounds, Hosono is the auteur of his own idiosyncratic musical world, putting his unmistakable stamp on hundreds of recordings as an artist, session player, songwriter, and producer. Born and raised in central Tokyo, his adolescent obsession with American pop culture informed his early forays into country music, which he would revisit later in his career. Hosono made his professional debut in 1969 as a member of Apryl Fool, whose heavy psychedelia was somewhat at odds with his influences, which leaned towards the rootsy sounds of Moby Grape and Buffalo Springfield. The latter was one of the main inspirations for his next group, Happy End, whose unique blend of West Coast sounds with Japanese lyrics proved to be highly influential over the course of three albums. After the band’s amicable break up in 1973, Hosono began his solo career with Hosono House, an intimate slice of Japanese Americana recorded inside a rented house with recording gear squeezed into its tiny bedroom. Hosono’s solo career would take many twists and turns from this point forward, with forays into exotica, electronic, ambient, and techno, culminating in the massive success of techno pop group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO). Released in September 1978, a mere two months before YMO’s debut, Cochin Moon is a clear precursor to the groundbreaking synth and sequencer-dominated sounds that would come to define the iconic trio. Credited to Hosono and Pop Art legend Tadanori Yokoo (who created the cover art), Cochin Moon is a fictional soundtrack to a journey into unknown worlds, inspired by Hosono and Yokoo’s trip to India. Initially the album was to be a kind of ethnographic musical document, using found sounds and field recordings made by Hosono himself. Instead, after Yokoo introduced Hosono to the sounds of Kraftwerk and krautrock during the trip, Cochin Moon became something much stranger. Created almost entirely on synthesizers and sequencers with the help of future YMO collaborators Ryuichi Sakamoto and Hideki Matsutake, the music on the album is the perfect encapsulation of Hosono’s concept of “sightseeing music,” transporting the listener to an exotic place that may or may not exist. This highly sought-after album sees its first-ever official release outside of Japan. Admired by artists ranging from Van Dyke Parks to Mac DeMarco, Hosono continues to forge ahead as he heads into his fifth decade as a musician. With the re-release of his key albums for the first time outside of Japan, his genius will be discovered by a whole new generation of fans around the world.

Organic, electric, freeform. Pete Jolly's Seasons is comprised of melodies and textures composed live and without pretense—its grooves contain a complete and divine listening experience that surpasses all others of the era in which it was originally released, coming as close to transcendent musical meditation incarnate as one could possibly imagine. Seasons is an unsung masterpiece of ensemble groove and stellar musicianship, equally unsurpassed and inspired in its quiet excellence. While Seasons never had significant commercial success upon its release, it has since amassed a cult following, leading collectors to pay top dollar for copies of the rare record. Out of print since 1971, it has only been reissued once on CD. In his liner notes accompanying this release, Dave Segal puts the album’s massive demand in perspective: “British label owner Jonny Trunk put up an original pressing of the LP for sale for an undisclosed but large sum on Instagram in January 2023, and it sold in five minutes. With Seasons back in circulation, maybe Pete Jolly will finally gain the broader audience that his phenomenal skills merit,” writes Segal. “If nothing else, it serves as a valuable lesson to artists: venturing outside of your comfort zone can bring the most interesting, enduring results.” Remastered from the original analog master tapes by Kevin Gray at Coherent Mastering, this record not only foreshadows the roots of hip-hop but manages to embody the richness of a full album listening experience that few records can offer. Its timeless appeal is rare—and its dynamic range sets it apart as an album that straddles both the jazz and pop worlds in a way that almost no others can. Sit back, relax, and enjoy the changing and complex colors of Seasons for the first time ever since its initial release.

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.” 

その圧倒的なまでにオリジナルなサウンドでゼロ年代を代表するアーティストとして君臨するBurialと〈Hyperdub〉主宰にして、エレクトロニック・ミュージックの最前線を常にひた走る重要人物Kode9 が、2024年6月にデジタルでサプライズリリースしていたスプリット・シングルを数量限定12インチで発売！

Miraculous reissue of a Japanese 80s new age - ambient masterpiece! The spiritual sound spun by the original composition of synthesizers and live sounds such as flute, oboe, guitar, and percussion!

After a classical career as a flutist, Matsuzaki became a composer/arranger in 1982, and from 1985 to 1987, she worked as a studio musician and tour support member as a flutist, synthesizer/keyboardist mainly in London, gaining a high reputation overseas without passing through the Japanese music scene. Yuko Matsuzaki, who was highly acclaimed overseas without passing through the Japanese music scene, has decided to reissue "Raden no Hako (Box of Raden)", an extremely rare album she produced in 1985 before moving to the UK in a limited edition of 100 copies/LP only! The spiritual and fantastic sound with a hint of Japanese taste in many places was inspired by Simon Jeffs of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra, who heard this work and decided to participate in "Pink, Blue and Amber" by Roderius, a German electronic musician and pianist known for his work with Cluster, Harmonia, and others. This album is a world-standard masterpiece that was born in Japan during the late 80's, when ambient music was expanding globally along with the rise of house and techno music!

Man Rei’s music traces plaintive states, haunted by hazy memories and heavy musings held in suspension. With its resonant loops, dazed iterations and eternal returns, ‘Thread’ weaves a gorgeously blurred portrait of restlessness, desire and longing. The album grew around loungey ballad 'Call', first heard on last year’s ‘The Blue Hour’ compilation and serving as this collection’s tender heart. The gauzy vocals and low-lit instrumentation of ‘Call’ diffuse across ‘Thread’, which roams under a fog of low-hanging guitars, misty piano, muted synth lines and half-heard field recordings. Man Rei sings from the shadows, sharing a poignant, raw-edged poetry that drifts in and out of ambiguity. As their lyrics stitch the literal to the ephemeral, we’re moved into a trance; considering all that’s been left unsaid; leaden with weightless feelings that slip beyond recognition. - 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘢 𝘗𝘢𝘯𝘻𝘦𝘳

Madelyn Byrd’s practice is built on the intersections of hydrofeminism and neuroaesthetics, an exploration into uncanny interactions between ecology and technology. Under their Slowfoam moniker, they have produced a string of intoxicating EPs, synergizing acoustic and synthetic sounds. In a mutated evolution from 2000’s glitch and micro-tonal experimentalism, Slowfoam’s queered ambience oozes with sensual tactility, an effervescent gurgling of digitally processed organic material. On their debut LP, Transcorporeal Portal, aqueous field recordings are stretched, compressed and elongated into a symphony of celestial purls, smudging all sense of time. Digital ripples are traced by murmurs of the body; the steady pulse of a heartbeat and the intimate breath of whispered words. Slowfoam embraces the glossy tonality of the hyper-digital, metamorphosing samples through deep manipulation. Sounds are sequenced in intricate arrangements like branching fractals of living organisms, with complex patterns forming at every scale. This process, layered and enigmatic, evokes the unfathomable processing of AI algorithms, offering prophetic glimpses inside the shimmering portal. Through all the digital rendering, there’s a profound vitality to their sound, evident of the immensely rich source material. Collaborator Pablo Diserens, founder of the forms of minutiae imprint, contributes exquisite, esoteric field sounds, too strange to be fictional; bubbling sulphur pools, gushing, glacial streams and the intense, shrill calls of krías (birds of death), interlacing the record with mythical wonder. Elsewhere recordings are sourced from the delicate thrum of a hand-made lyre harp, the spiritual flute playing of Diane Barbé and the digital instrumentation of composer Ran Park. From the rumbling inception of Enlightened Smudge on the Machine, Slowfoam’s sound world erupts into life in rapture, like sparkling light through opalescent glass. As quickly as they appear, these heightened reverberations decay, revealing the deep depths below the surface, radiant drones drifting and rolling eternally. The allure of these unadorned drones evokes altered states of consciousness, a full-body tingling of erotic synesthesia. There is a meticulous balance in the way sounds materialise and disintegrate, hypnotizing in their free-flowing sway. Byrd describes their creative process as resonant with the alchemic manifesto ‘solve et coagula’ and Transcoporeal Portal is teeming with the remnants of former encrypted layers that were ripped away. They find catharsis in the transformative cycles of regeneration, reconstructing their narratives with a tender embrace of the present through interconnection with the fluttering of life in the here and now. “Degenerate to regenerate, rend to reconstruct, in art, and in life. All circles back to Earth, and our exuberant fidelity to the Now, the Here, and the Tomorrow. Slowfoam teaches us that speculative melting yields radical presencing.” - Lou Croff Blake

990x has been blurring the line between rap and ambient for almost a decade, breaking up his subby, saturated 808 kicks and itchy percussive trills with effervescent pads, levitational loops and the kind of ghostly contrails you'd expect to hear on a Grouper record. He's never sounded quite as liminal as he does on 'Ruins', though, an album produced in recovery as he contemplated the healing process, shifting between one state and the next. As part of the recently formed label clique The Citadel, along with Sauron and IJI, he hones in on decentralised, defocussed sounds linked across continents by the internet’s rhizomatic networks, repping a certain slant on the sound that originated with Lil B and diffused via soundcloud to become a key node in the contemporary definition of what Brian Eno termed a “scenius”; a collective intelligence that transcends the sum of its parts. Throughout ‘Ruins’, 990x deploys all the hallmarks of the aesthetic - glyding 808 bass and sibilant trills, vaporous pads, and noctilucent melodies - with a melancholic grip all his own. According to classic cloud rap convention, the 8-part, 40 minute suite evinces a liminal, weightless state of mind with immersive structures that appear to float, buoyed by subs that plunge all the way down, whilst his ambient soul wraps the head in high tog puff stuffed with hopes and dreams. Shimmering echoes of Lil B and Clams Casino’s early works perfuse ‘Forest of Silence’ in his use of guzheng-like string motifs diffused to the rafters on diaphanous subs, and Yungwebster’s screwed diagonals come to mind in the vertiginous bliss-out ‘Fallen’. A tempered ecstasy thieves thru the saturated cinematic panorama ‘June Lovers’ and gives way to the ruder ballast of ‘Crates’ while the fractal hi-hats on ‘Sonar’ ultimately get subsumed by saturated waves of bass and screwed ambient dub on the album’s longest cut, the subtly optimistic 8 minute parting shot ‘Wisdom’, deploying a horizontal dembow rhythm that can't help but remind us of Kelman Duran's epochal '1804 Kids'.

Finally…Terre Thaemlitz saves the most sought-after cuts of her debut LP ‘Tranquilizer’ for the third and final of its 30th anniversary, first-time vinyl editions, including that stunning Memphis rap x proto-dubstep dedication to MLK - 100% essential ’90s ambient bass, oneiric concrète and breaks driven deep house for the heads. Frankly unmissable if even just for the album’s opening killer ’040468’ - named for the day MLK departed - which sounds better than ever on its sumptuous vinyl cut, ‘Tranquilizer EP3’ is the one the stans have been eagerly awaiting. It brings to a close a necessary reissue series for a prized totem of‘90s ambient music, conceived in the wake of the KLF’s inspirational ‘Chill Out’ album, after Terre had laid deep roots in NYC’s queer deep house club scene, and began to seed one of the most distinctive catalogues in contemporary electronic music. Semi-autobiographical and coloured with an inherently political take on ambient music, the album can be heard to reference their background in the US Midwest via the track titles and aesthetic inference of wide open spaces at night, as in ‘2am on a Silo’, and on thru their formative journey of self-discovery in downtown NYC, where they took up residency at a queer bar playing earliest deep house to sex workers during the years of devastation from the AIDS pandemic. While that would be expounded more explicitly in their later albums as DJ Sprinkles, on ‘Tranquilizer’ it’s implied by a deep sense of melancholy and longing. ‘Tranquilliser EP3’ pretty much distills and triangulates the album’s most salient points in a discrete story unto itself. Her politics are writ in a titular nod to the day Martin Luther King died on ’040468’, which we’ve long marvelled at as a remarkable prototype for both booming Memphis rap instrumentals, and the mid ’00s halfstep dubstep sound, due to its sweeping subs that go all the way down, and then some, under a blanket of starlight twinkles and bluest pads. An absolute all timer - trust. The nocturnal is also evoked in the wheezing electro-acoustic rawness and plangent beauty of ‘2am on a Silo’, like the soundtrack to a memory of a dream, and perfectly characteristic of a sound sensitivity that became Terre’s calling card, whilst ‘Raw Through a Straw’ offers the most tangible bridge between her deep house background and the emergent ambient house sound in its mingling of gorgeous organ ruminations rolling out into Dennis Coffey’s ‘Scorpio’ break, a cornerstone of hip hop deployed in deadliest deep house style. Finally we can rest easy knowing this one’s on wax.

The second in a series of EP's from Terre Thaemlitz, 1994, with almost half an hour of gorgeous, bleary-eyed dreamweaving that slots in the all-time sublime alongside The Art Of Noise’s ‘Moments In Love’, here pressed up on vinyl for the very first time, in two extended versions. EP2 in the ‘Tranquilizer’ reissue series gives new afterlife to the curtain closer of Terre’s debut album with a previously unheard extended mix, and that gorgeous Art of Noise style version that also recalls SAW II-era AFX x Bryn Jones on a deep one. Both sides scroll right back to a nascent Terre, sensitively feeling out a sound between the tumultuous summer of ’93 and spring of ’94, in the years after she’d carved a name for herself as an influential deep house DJ in Manhattan’s queer bars and clubs. Terre’s debut album ‘Tranquilizer’ would emerge as a reflective antidote to club pressures with a lushly melancholic, deeply atmospheric suite intended to cushion bodies and minds in a vein spawned by the dreamy collages of The KLF’s ‘Chill Out’ album in 1990, and further developed by a rhizome of international artists including Terre’s Instinct labelmate Dave Moufang (Move D), and the likes of The Orb, AFX, and many others whose work endures to this day. ‘Fina-Departure (Original Long Version)’ extends the balmy, beat-less scene of woozy keyboards, cicadas and swooping crop-duster planes to twice as long, with what we detect as a personal frisson of melancholy/nostalgia for the Midwest planes of Missouri, Kansas, where Terre grew up. The flipside’s ‘Fina’ feels like a hidden level addendum to the album, where night settles on the plains as distant drumming mingles in the hot air to form an utterly timeless scenario reminding us of the stark drum passages of Aphex Twin’s ‘Selected Ambient Works’ or the kind of ritualistic ambient pursued in Stroom reissues of ‘90s Pablo’s Eye. Aye, it’s a special one. Some words from Terre: Up until 1984 or so, there used to be a Fina gas station on North Glenstone Avenue in Springfield, Missouri. Sitting on the floor inside was a cardboard box filled with records for $1.00. It was a way station for unwelcome electronic music in a town of bluegrass, gospel and rock'n'roll. Neuromantic by Yukihiro Takahashi, Vapor Drawings by Mark Isham, Vistamix by Bill Nelson.... Albums that had strayed outside their intended distribution systems, only to get lost on old Route 66. I was a faggy, gender-bending teen similarly stranded in that town ironically nicknamed the "Queen City of the Ozarks." Daily life consisted of being ritually bashed in public, and defeated by psychotic family dynamics in private. With nowhere to go, I drove aimlessly in a 1960 Ford Falcon woven of rust, dents and torn upholstery. Baby blue, four door, three-on-the-tree manual transmission. A little-old-church-lady car with a color coordinated baby blue rosary hanging from the rear view mirror. On the back seat sat a boombox for playing home recorded cassettes. I checked in on the box at Fina whenever possible, offering records a chance to depart. Between the gas and music, the kindly staff at that fueling station variously offered me the same. At the end of the day, that was our unspoken agreement.

Terre Thaemlitz’s precious 1994 debut album finally makes a vinyl appearance of sorts 30 years later, hailing its sublime downbeat highlight in three different versions that come with highest recommendations if you’re into classic Mo’ Wax, The KLF’s Chill Out, Urban Tribe, Blue Lines-era Massive Attack, DJ Sprinkles! Tranquilizer’s mesmerising centrepiece ‘Hovering Glows’ is here deployed in 3 different versions totalling almost half an hour of amniotic bliss. The original 9 minute depiction of crepuscular Midwest ambience and dusted dub is beloved of anyone acquainted with the album over the years, finding Terre’s feel for electro-acoustic sound sensitivity flooded with a rarified sense of deep blue soul distilled to near-perfection. It mines a similar path to Future Sound of London productions of the same era, and in its moody abstraction foreshadows 4hero’s ‘The Paranormal In 4 Forms’ that would follow a couple of years later. The OG is joined on by two alternative versions: a ‘Little Guy Mix’ that swerves the few minutes of sensuous atmospheric foreplay to slip right into the pendulous swing; and a longer ‘Vinyl Mix’ that duly opens out the intro with Terre’s unique grasp of subbass and tongue-tip atmospheric suss. Collected, they supply an extended session of beatdown ecstasy to discerning, romantic listeners who’ve awaited this release for decades, ‘cos as Comatonse fiends know, their releases always sound especially exquisite on vinyl.

And so we come to round 4 of the Long Trax series, the pivotal moment of truth. Four new deep cuts spread across 4 sides of vinyl in dual sleeves, and spun onto disc. An all-analog, hardware machine affair, full of glazed pads and spicy stabs, rhythm composure (composer) sequences, round booming basslines, and narrators from beyond. It’s the real thing, still chugging along.