MUSIC

A surprising suite of new material from popular kankyō ongaku vanguard Yutaka Hirose, 'Voices' is a chaotic collage of field recordings, rickety beatbox loops, rough-textured samples and psychedelic synths - ambient it ain't. It's fascinating to hear 'Voices' because when you've not seen much new material emerge from an artist since their classic era, the expectation is that they've simply stopped producing. Hirose is best known for his 1986-released 'Nova' album, a record commissioned by the Misawa Home Corporation for use in their prefab houses and rediscovered online (like Midori Takada's 'Through the Looking Glass' or Hiroshi Yoshimura's 'Green') decades later. WRWTFWW Records already reissued that record, bundling it with almost an hour of extra material, and followed it up with an additional archive of Hirose's '80s recordings, but 'Voices' brings us right into the present. So it shouldn't be too surprising that the album is markedly different from its predecessors. You'll get a good idea of what to expect with the 12-minute opener 'Library', a track that sounds like Hirose is scrubbing through his archive of sounds, layering public transport ambiance with movie samples, off-hand vocal takes, radio chatter, jazz stems and squelchy back-room rhythms. Like Akira Umeda's similarly spannered 'Gueixa', it's a head-melting stream-of-consciousness experience, not really music so much as a vortex of sound. Hirose's four 'The Other Side' tracks are more straightforward balearic techno experiments offset by peculiar environmental recordings, and these are peppered through the album - no doubt to lighten the mood. Elsewhere, Hirose gets into grinding, ritualistic IDM on 'Uprising', and threads brittle beats and acidic synths through a dense fog of bird calls and chat on 'Mixture'. He's been busy.

Shomyo of Koya-san & Midori Takada YOU WHO ARE LEAVING TO NIRVANA WRWTFWW Records and MEG Museum (Geneva) are ecstatic to announce a new full length album by celebrated Japanese percussionist Midori Takada (Through The Looking Glass), in collaboration with Buddhist monks belonging to the Samgha group of the Shingon school of Koya-san, led by Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is available on half speed mastered vinyl LP, housed in a 350gsm sleeve, with OBI, and liner notes, as well as on digipack CD. Recorded at The Premises Studio (London) and in Tokyo in 2019,You Who are Leaving to Nirvana is a majestic work combining a suite of six Buddhist liturgical chants and a musical creation by Midori Takada. The Buddhist chants come from three types of repertoires: shomyo ("Teisan", "Unga-Bai", "Sange", "Taiyo"), but also goeika ("Kannon-Daiji") and mantra ("Hannya-Singyo"). After supervising the recording of the Buddhist chants, Midori Takada added her own compositions, with subtle layers of percussion and the melodies of her beloved marimba, giving full life to the sacred texts. Reverend Syuukoh Ikawa explains: "Shomyo is a form of declamation of sacred esoteric texts, inherited over many generations. The power of words goes far beyond their mere pronunciation. I think there is something that words alone cannot really convey. If I recite prayers in a musical way, the feeling transmitted will be even stronger than if I say it normally, in everyday language. I think that the musicality of a work carries a hidden power that cannot be expressed in words alone. The setting of the music has an additional power for you and for those around you who listen to it. The words of a song are not just words set to music. They carry an additional hidden power that cannot be expressed in any other way. Listening to Midori Takada's musical performance, the words truly seem to come alive." Original recordings of the Buddhist chants are held in the International Archives of Folk Music (IAFM) at the MEG Museum in Geneva. The album sleeve features an artwork by famed Japanese sculptor Katsura Funakoshi selected by Midori Takada. You Who Are Leaving To Nirvana is released in conjunction with Midori Takada's Cutting Branches For A Temporary Shelter, also available on LP and CD on WRWTFWW Records. Buddhist Chants / Environmental / Ambient / Percussion

Nine of the densest ambient and meditative music pieces since the dawn of music!! Sounds both extremely of this time, and of no time whatsoever. Monolithic and stark but extremely warm, intensely personal, and for every one in every which way. We are very happy to present to you "For Those Of You Who Have Never (And Also Those Who Have), an album by Huerco S.

Throwing Shapes

Debut album

From the minds of Méabh McKenna, Ross Chaney, and WRWTFWW mainstay Gareth Quinn Redmond comes the self-titled debut of Throwing Shapes — a hypnotic, texturally rich exploration in sound. Led by the striking timbre of the Irish wire strung harp, the album weaves intricate instrumental tapestries with ambitious electronic synthesis and arrangements.

Limited edition LP is housed in a heavyweight sleeve and comes with a poster / 300 copies worldwide

Polygon Island’ is crisper and cleaner than its predecessor...It’s also generally a warmer, more relaxed affair, full of sun-bleached synth lines and gently bubbling bleeps, a result of its specific inspiration, the Ape Escape level Crabby Beach. - DJ Mag (Ben Hindle)

I knew this was going to be so much fun the moment it booted up. Pizza Hotline delivers another hot & fresh delivery with Polygon Island; 8 tracks that are unique by being energetic and action packed, yet super lightweight at the same time. With today's abundance of “2000’s/Y2K/Gaming” DnB mixes you’ll find throughout the internet, the liquidy textures of Pizza Hotline’s clean production stands out wonderfully. - Pad Chennington

Polygon Island continues in the same spirit, perhaps even sleeker and shinier than before. The arrangements are minimal and every individual sound is sculpted, trimmed and placed in a pocket of space. These are small sounds that sound massive on a club PA. - Thom Hosken//FutureSounds (My Pet Flamingo)

Originally released in 1995 as the seventh entry in New York label Instinct Records’ Ambient series, Terre Thaemlitz’s landmark work Soil returns in a deluxe 30th anniversary 3LP edition. Far from a nostalgic reissue, this masterpiece resurfaces as a warning flare, illuminating the musical and political tensions of the post-1990s era. Eschewing MIDI synths and samplers in favor of computer-based synthesis, Thaemlitz set out to dismantle the supposed neutrality of ambient music. Across just intonation, cut-ups, drill sergeant vocal fragments, and sensually charged solo piano, the album traverses forms and aesthetics that resonate with later generations such as Sarah Davachi and Kara-Lis Coverdale. One can also glimpse the seeds of themes more fully developed on 2017’s Deproduction—critiques of patriarchy and the violence embedded in social structures. A monumental document of critical sound art, Soil remains piercingly relevant today.

Praised by The Wire as “mystical, expansive and serene.” Oren Ambarchi—renowned Australian experimentalist, head of the influential imprint Black Truffle, and long-time collaborator with Jim O’Rourke, Keith Rowe, and Keiji Haino—joins forces with Norwegian guitarist Fredrik Rasten, known for releases on Edition Wandelweiser, Sofa, and Meenna, for this striking 2025 collaboration. Released on the adventurous Belgian label VIERNULVIER (home to Claire Rousay, Hieroglyphic Being, and Miaux), the album offers a newly composed score to Eduard Grečner’s 1967 Slovak cult film Dragon’s Return. Recorded live at the Videodroom Festival during Film Fest Ghent in 2024, where the score was premiered alongside the screening, the performance captures a singular moment of improvisation between sound and image. Interweaving 12-string guitar, voice, flutes, percussion, and shells, Ambarchi and Rasten conjure a soundworld at once folkloric and contemplative, suffused with the aura of ritual prayer. The result is a breathtaking evocation of a forgotten myth reborn in the present.

Domenique Dumont’s fourth album, Deux Paradis, arrives like the three that came before it – with an air of mystery and wonder. This is dance music for inner worlds – rituals, revelations and reveries.

Deux Paradis is a ten-track song cycle that leads the listener through the rhythm of a day, the bloom and fade of a relationship, or even the stages of a life. It begins with a song about waking up – the candy-striped dub of “Enchantia” – and traces the sun’s arc with the pixelated reggae of “La Vie Va” and the sensuous rush of “Amants Ennemis”. As night falls, the songs take on a twilight quality in the shimmering pop of “The Order of Invisible Things” and the seductive pulse of “Visages Visages” (a subtle nod to the Desireless classic). There’s also the baroque swoon of “Deux Paradis” and the soft exotica of “Visiteur de la Nuit”. Bolder and richer than before, it’s vintage Domenique Dumont – timeless and romantic, yet laced with an unplaceable sense of longing, like in an Éric Rohmer film.

After the instrumental film score People On Sunday (Leaf, 2020) composed solo by Arturs Liepins – singer Anete Stuce returns to Domenique Dumont, bringing her inimitable joie de vivre. Deux Paradis

completes a trilogy of releases alongside Comme Ça (2015) and Miniatures De Auto Rhythm (2018) on the Antinote label.

Deux Paradis took shape between 2022 and the end of 2024 in studios in Riga and Paris, and on the Estonian island of Hiiumaa.

This expansive double pack from Silentes finds each side of vinyl taken up by one long, ever-evolving piece of music based around one original. Gianluca Favaron & Stefano Gentile go first with their take on 'Landslide,' which goes from whirring machines sounds to brain cleansing sine waves and found sound abstraction. Dub techno don Rod Modell explores emptiness on 'Landslide' (Reworked) and Carl Michael Von Hausswolf's take is an eerie one with scratchy textures and filtered synth meanderings. Rod Modell then closes out with another rework of his own remix that will leave you adrift in space.

 

Cluster was the pioneering German duo of Hans-Joachim Roedelius and Dieter Moebius. Formed on the cusp of the 1970s, they were a part of West Germany's nascent Kosmische Musik scene. The group would use restrained improvisational techniques similar to Gruppo Nuova Consonanza, working with both electric and acoustic instruments (organ, guitar, tone generators, cello, etc.) to create a singular sound that Julian Cope called "a huge beating heart, planet-sized and awesome." Originally released in 1972 on Brain, Cluster II features six pieces of atmospheric, proto-ambient drones – a step up from Cluster's 1971 self-titled debut, which had all untitled songs. On "Im Suden," hypnotic bass pulsations and repetitive guitar patterns flow serenely, while side two opener "Live In Der Fabrik" dives deep into Roedelius and Moebius' foreboding industrial soundscapes and synergistic textural interplay. As Roedelius told Uncut magazine in 2022, "This feels like a breakthrough? Well, we were just getting more into it, and getting more experienced at being able to elaborate it. Conny (Plank) was working with us again – as well as being a multi-talented artist, he was a very experienced sound master and great human being. He contributed as a fellow musician, adding sounds with his mixing table such as reverb, delay and other effects enriching the whole pieces so that they finally became somehow unique." It's no surprise that when Neu! guitarist Michael Rother first heard Cluster II, he suggested a collaboration with the band – resulting in the supergroup Harmonia who would make their first album together the following year.

cLOUDDEAD's debut album, compiling six 10" EPs that appeared between 2000-2001, is aurally dense and obscured. A sprawling mass of miniature beat-suites and Dadaist lyrics, this strange and beautiful 3xLP would influence a myriad of sub-genres (cloud rap, hauntology, lo-fi hip-hop, etc.) in the two decades since its initial release. Only the three members of cLOUDDEAD – Why?, Odd Nosdam and Doseone – can speak to the group's origins, but in the context of underground hip-hop towards the end of the 20th century, their arrival makes perfect sense. Cincinnati had a vital scene; home to Scribble Jam, an annual confluence of MCs, DJs, B-boys and graffiti artists. While the trio soon relocated to the Bay Area where they co-founded the Anticon collective, their Midwestern roots – in ramshackle basements of off-campus hovels, as the "cerberus of Southern Ohio" – would remain the atomic heart of their early recordings. As Chris Martins writes in the liner notes, "The only reason we know their names today is because of how loudly and curiously they aired their insularity. They rewrote the entire world as they knew it through their own fucked perspective, and when those mysterious 10-inches started popping up in record shops, it wasn't just a puzzle to investigate: there seemed to be a whole cosmology hidden in those grooves." Each side of the album represents one of those elusive 10-inches, each embodying a universe unto itself. Opening salvo "Apt. A" and "And All You Can Do Is Laugh" are perhaps most emblematic of the cLOUDDEAD experience. Why? and Dose create a new language through boundless non-sequiturs, sing-song non-choruses and call-and-response hooks, while Nosdam's dexterous production shifts from crackling ambience of Flying Saucer Attack to tight Ohio Players drum breaks and oblique film samples. Taken all together, cLOUDDEAD is an original interpretation of hip-hop in the surreal Y2K glow – a bizarre meeting point between William Basinski's Disintegration Loops and MF DOOM's Operation: Doomsday. All it took was a Dr. Sample SP-202, Tascam cassette eight-track and cheap RadioShack mic. There's truly nothing like it.

1994 second album by the trio of Andrew Weatherall, Jagz Kooner and Gary Burns, unavailable on vinyl and CD since original release. A concept album with accompanying text for each track by James Woodbourne, it also includes additional production by Portishead and Mr Scruff. Remastered from the original tapes by Matt Colton, contains “Theme” for the first time on the 2LP edition.

The definitive collection of Laraaji’s earliest works, Segue To Infinity compiles his 1978 debut Celestial Vibration and six additional side-long studio sessions from previously unknown acetates from the same period. A lengthy essay by Living Colour’s Vernon Reid chronicles the origins of Edward “Flash” Gordon, illustrated with dozens of previously unpublished photographs that capture this beautiful and elusive young artist. Full of discovery and wonderment, Segue To Infinity is a miraculous chronicle of new age’s most fabled artist.

Minecraft - Volume Alpha is the work of German composer and musician Daniel Rosenfeld. Using C418 as his moniker, Rosenfeld crafted the sweeping soundtrack and vibrant sound design which helped breathe life into Minecraft's voxel-based universe. Fans and critics were universally enamored with his beatless, nuanced electronic pieces upon release. Popular gaming site Kotaku named it among The Best Game Music of 2011, calling the music "remarkably soothing," and The Guardian has compared Rosenfeld's delicate piano and sparse ambient motifs to legendary artists Erik Satie and Brian Eno. In an interview feature with C418, Polygon distilled Volume Alpha to its essence: "It's not bound by the retro aesthetic of Minecraft's graphics. It transcends them. The album is an attempt to uplift the combined game/music experience into the sublime."

The self-titled album by Spool, the collaborative project of Berlin-based sound artist and ambient composer Florian T M Zeisig—known for his deeply moving Music For Parents, dedicated to his insomniac parents—and performer/artist Angel Paradise, has arrived via Somewhere Press. Glassy, delicate particles of sound drift like snowflakes through a quiet winter night, casting a gentle, ethereal glow. Layers of piano, field recordings, and microscopic synth textures unfold into a sound world suspended between memory and dream. Warm, intimate drones align with the rhythm of breath, while faint melodies linger like whispered thoughts. At times naïve, at times reverent in their embrace of emptiness, these eight tracks resonate with a profound introspection. A crystalline embodiment of contemporary ambient aesthetics—where silence and tenderness converge.

We are proud to collaborate with Oslo's Munch Museum for this compilation of music inspired by and featured in the Munch exhibition Trembling Earth! 18 of the label’s artists have created new tracks directly inspired by Edvard Munch’s atmospheric landscapes, organic processes and cosmic visions displayed in Trembling Earth. Ranging from experimental electronica to techno, ambient, jazz and improvisation, these are being released on a double LP which will be launched at the same time as the exhibition. ‘Setting Edvard Munch’s cosmic artworks to music has been a dream project for us as a label,’ says Joakim Haugland, head of Smalltown Supersound. ‘The cosmic element has always been a central part of our history, so fusing our music with the cosmic side of Munch is a huge honour.’ ‘It has been important for us to include a contemporary perspective in the exhibition with these two commissioned works,’, says exhibition curator Trine Otte Bak Nielsen. ‘Lost Girls’ Join the Sound helps to set the tone as visitors are entering the exhibition, and Deathprod brings everything to a close with his monumental Let Me Be Forever Animal in the final room. They both bind the whole exhibition together, and take it into atmospheres that provide a new way into Munch’s work.’ ‘We are incredibly proud of our collaboration with Smalltown Supersound, and the release of the Jordsvingninger LP,’ Nielsen adds. ‘This kind of collaboration shows how MUNCH can engage in projects that people might not expect to see in a museum, as well as several live events at MUNCH.’

The official soundtrack to Jean-Cosme Delaloye's documentary about the life and career of Detroit techno pioneer Carl Craig, 'Desire: The Carl Craig Story' is set for digital release on June 20th 2025, with 2x12” Vinyl and CD editions to follow on July 18th 2025.

The collection, coming via his prolific and seminal Planet E Communications, features music from across Craig’s vast catalog, including several tracks that have never previously seen full digital release. Its selections span his many aliases and projects, offering a rare glimpse into the full scope of his groundbreaking career.

Among the rare and remastered tracks featured is No More Words - originally released in 1991, newly reissued on vinyl and available digitally for the first time. A foundational track in the Detroit techno canon, No More Words captures the emotive synths and tight grooves of Craig’s sound that would soon resonate across dance floors worldwide. Its reissue marks a moment of reflection on the genre’s roots and evolution.

Another remastered track from Craig’s extensive archive is The Truth, a deep cut from Craig’s discography under his Designer Music alias, now widely available for the first time a quarter-century after its original release. The film’s end credits are scored by the contemplative Meditation 4, an ambient production previously only available on Craig's 2013 Masterpiece compilation CD for Ministry of Sound.

Iconic remixes such as his Grammy-nominated rework of Junior Boys’ Like A Child is included alongside lesser-known but equally epic remixes such as his sublime 2012 mix of Slam’s Azure, which is employed for the film’s title credits and had previously only seen a limited release. Also featured across the soundtrack’s multiple formats are iconic Carl Craig productions under his 69, Psyche/BFC and Innerzone Orchestra aliases, and collaborations with Moritz von Oswald and Francesco Tristano.

The soundtrack serves as a companion to the new documentary directed by Jean-Cosme Delaloye and produced by Sovereign Films, which follows Carl’s journey from Detroit’s middle-class roots to global stardom, set against the city’s decline and recovery. The film explores his work at the intersection of music, art, and culture, from his collaborations with Bottega Veneta to his Party/After-Party installation, acquired by the Detroit Institute of Arts and exhibited at MOCA Los Angeles.

Featuring interviews with Gilles Peterson, Roni Size, Laurent Garnier, DJ Minx, Kenny Larkin, Moritz von Oswald, and James Lavelle, Desire highlights Carl’s championing of Detroit’s Black creative excellence and the often-overlooked African-American roots of electronic music.

The 2019 masterpiece by Taipei-based brother duo Mong Tong—who have previously released works on labels such as WV Sorcerer Productions and Guruguru Brain—is now available on cassette! The title “明” (“brightness”) derives from the ideogram combining the sun and the moon, embodying a concept that explores the threshold between light and darkness, everyday life and dreamscapes. Echoes of psychedelic rock, Southeast Asian folk motifs, shimmering synths, and mellow melodies overlap, unfolding within gently hypnotic rhythms that guide the listener into otherworldly landscapes. Transcending psychedelic ornamentation, the album carries a meditative, spacious atmosphere, standing at the crossroads of ambient, drone, and experimental music—a sonic journey that bridges dream and reality.

Jiyu presents a rich tapestry of phat analog synths, lush brass arrangements, psychedelic vibes, highlights of soloistic instrumental performances and a dense, organic jazz approach with drum grooves and percussion at its core. Once again, guitarist, and producer, Emil Jonathan, collaborates with Thomas Dietl, on drums. Their partnership on this new album, combined with the consistent percussive rhythms from the musical soulmate, Karl Bille, and conguero Rune Harder Olesen, adds an earthy, hand-played contrast to the more electronic rhythm tracks on their dreamy, mellow jazz, ambient, hip-hop, and attention-grabbing debut album, "Caught in the Rain at the Tea Shop," released in 2021. This record seamlessly intertwines with Emil Jonathan's deep roots in jazzy dub’n soul, latin, tango-dub, dancehall and experimental hiphop, influenced by his past projects and collaborations with artists such as von Daler & Low Pressure, EMO, Natasja, Dj Vadim, Boozoo Bajou, and Les Gammas. Ken Linh Doky, plays the wurlitzer piano on three tracks, and the collective-like band structure offers a number of musicians on horns and choir, like the brothers, Bo and Lukas Rande, on flugelhorn and sax (Mames Babegenush), and Gustav Rasmussen, on trombone (Sunbörn/KutiMangos)

After following Luke Blair's work for approaching two decades from his 2007 debut as Lukid on Actress' Werk Discs, we're humbled to present a new album on Death Is Not The End. Following relatively hot on the heels of 2023's Tilt (his first in 11 years, not counting his work with Jackson Bailey under the Rezzett guise) Underloop brings Blair's innate knack for building loops and sound structures further to the surface, while allowing his ear for emotional expression to be dialled up a notch.

Those fortunate enough to be familiar with Lukid's work as a DJ will be aware of how distinct his ability is to seamlessly disappear into loop-based abstraction and back again seemingly without blinking, and often Underloop feels much like a collection of the sludgey interludes and foggy sketches that underpin his sets. Blending apparently ramshackle melodies and textures and pulling them together into an undeniable whole, Blair's tendency for pairing the simple and the indescribable with an understated vigour is fully on show here.

Teppana Jänis was born in the village of Uuksujärvi in Suistamo on 21 June 1850. After becoming blind in the late 19th century, he went house to house, supporting himself by playing the kantele, a traditional Finnish and Karelian plucked string instrument belonging to the southeast Baltic box zither family. He performed at dances and in schools, and also participated in the Suistamo kantele and runosong competitions in 1911.

In the summers of 1916 and 1917, the young folk music researcher Armas Otto Väisänen (1890-1969) made collecting trips to Border Karelia. His aim was to collect kantele tunes, laments and shepherd melodies, which were confusingly few in the archives. The 1916 trip was financed by the Finnish Literature Society, who provided a phonograph for recording purposes. In 1917, the trip was financed by the Kalevala Society and the recording was carried out using a parlograph. During these two summers, Väisänen recorded kantele players in the parishes of Suojärvi, Korpiselkä, Suistamo, Tuupovaara, Kitee and Impilahti. Väisänen met Teppana Jänis in both summers and transcribed 22 kantele melodies from him. He recorded 14 of these on wax cylinders.

This LP, titled simply ‘Teppana Jänis’ fuses and intertwines the original raw cylinder recordings with replayed pieces by Kantele player and researcher Arja Kastinen together with the now late Finnish folk musician Taito Hoffrén, taking into account the additional information and notes found in Väisänen's sheet music manuscripts. Warm thanks to the Finnish Literature Society for permission to use the archive recordings, to Risto Blomster for his invaluable assistance, and to the Karelian Cultural Foundation.

Conna Haraway follows Spatial Fix with Shifted, a three-track 12” that turns toward propulsion and restraint. Where the earlier record sprawled in dense textures, this one explores sleek momentum and subtle form. Side A holds ‘Redirect’, an eleven-minute collaboration with XENIA REAPER. Built from a late-night Glasgow jam, her luminous synth line drifts against Haraway’s bass and loops, gliding into weight and pulse. On the flip, ‘Detach’ and ‘Duration’ channel a rediscovered love of 4x4 techno. Stripped and detailed, they balance home-listening depth with club-ready swing—poised, fluid, and adaptable. Fans of the Basic Channel axis, Deepchord, echospace [detroit] etc. should check this for sure. Matthew Kent's Short Span label never misses!!

CS + Kreme’s utterly sublime 2nd EP is mercifully made available again, doubling down on their brand of melancholic tristesse with achingly beautiful songwriting gilded by Conrad’s serpentine basslines and elevated by Sam’s slinky atmospheric suspense, with cameo by HTRK’s Nigel Yang. Partner to their 2016 debut, ‘EP2’ can be heard as the other half of what is effectively an album when paired with their eponymous first move. It is a masterclass in slow, dreamy world-building that skilfully distills myriad modes of downbeat suss into songs that warrant play on repeat - just ask any owner of the record or those who’ve drooled over it for nearly a decade; the verdict will surely be unanimous, harmonious. One of a clutch of modern classics on Total Stasis along with likes of Elysia Crampton’s ‘The Light You Gave Me To See You’ and early Ramzi joints, ‘EP2’ would stealthily reveal new aspects to strains of modal downbeat sound that can be heard in context of DIY folk, new age ambient or adult contemporary, and with faintest echoes of off-peak club music in the rearview. But the real magick lies in the way they pare everything back to its most salient substance and allow it to breathe, sway, get lost-and-found in itself. Fair to pick fan fave ‘Roast Ghost (Swimming Thru The Pillars Mix)’ as a highlight, practically undressing the senses with 9 mins of candle-flicker 808 and purling bass with Conrad’s vox luring deep into its glowing lustre. Yet the rest is equally midas-touched, from Nigel Lee-Yang’s plaintive guitar motif on ‘Whip’ firming up the HTRK link, to Sam’s dub wise tekkerz coming into play like prime Massive Attack on ‘Sisters’, and again with Conrad’s bass rolling down the off ramp ‘Portal’ into billowing keys, congas and Jack Doepel’s sax like some detail of a panorama described by The Necks and Bohren Und Der Club of Gore. Don’t sleep, you may be waiting another 8 years…

12th Isle ready the first of many new releases after a break over the first half of 2025. Radx is a new collaborative endeavour between label artists X.Y.R. and Vlad Dobrovolski (½ of S A D) exploring a shared appreciation of vintage 80s & 90s synthesisers, ambient-adjacent furniture music and, er, dragons. Referencing the electronica of artists such as Kim Cascone/Hydrosphere as well as the sci-fi literature of Michael Swanwick where dragons act as living machines, the pair combine various synthesis models, pedals and samplers for an album that sits somewhere firmly between each of their solo works. From the cathedralic ascension of ‘Heavenly Shepherd of Silence’ to the back-room bean bag swirls of ‘Ovgo’s Etheric Mind’ and dense, jungle-like humidity of ‘Liminal Space’, the more ambient-leaning end of the catalogue is built upon further.