MUSIC

All Genre artist & beatmaker in anonymity Droopy Eye debuts the full-length album Embruja. After nearly a decade of exchanging genre-fluid demos and audio email attachments with Leaving Records founderperson Matthewdavid, Embruja surfaces as the perfect anomaly with playfully aligned experimental sonic & philosophical influences that include Terence McKenna x Underground UK Dance Music Culture, and The LA Beat Scene.

- Californian pianist and composer Nico Georis presents the celestial piano music of Desert Mirror in preparation for a full-length album later in 2022. Currently inhabiting around Death Valley, Big Sur, Ojai, and LA, Nico's experiments persist with performances and recordings via the Noon at 2pm duo w/guitar pal Matt Baldwin, and his various plant music projects with PlantWave electrode hardware. - The majority of Desert Mirror was recorded in a small town outside of Death Valley on an upright piano in an abandoned airstream / work-in-progress studio. Use of hard-panned "mirror delay" - the same technique used by the influential composer Terry Riley on his album A Rainbow In Curved Air - was quintessential to the creation process of these "survival piano jams".

Keeping his carbon footprint at a minimum, Santilli sails from Sydney to Hamburg via ten textured vignettes delicately drawn with guitar, bass and organic percussion. Relaxing, reflective and endlessly beautiful, ‘Tidal’ explores elemental inspiration through a humanistic gaze. Whether you know Max Santilli through Ken Oath duo Angophora, previous releases ‘Surface’ and ‘In Circles’, or this is your first time making his acquaintance, you’ll agree he’s right at home on the Growing Bin. The multi-instrumentalist crafts exquisite acoustic music in tune with the finer moments of Windham Hill and ECM; a perfect fusion of talent, balance and the emotion shared by each release on the Hamburg label. As befits its inspiration ‘Tidal’ is an organic affair, related through bright acoustic guitar, hazy chimes and hand played percussion. Where the Australian draws you in with hypnotic repetition, the subtlety, warmth and tonal variation serve as a welcome reminder we’re living off grid. Though expert fretwork often takes centre stage, especially on the delicate B1 ‘Warm You Give’, it’s the blend of kalimba, woodblock, hand drums and shaker which truly transport the listener through open waters; a rhythmic breeze carrying us through the maritime drones and bowed squall. At times the salt air is spiced with cardamom and cloves (‘Sea’) or lemongrass and galangal (‘Valleys’), as we skirt the Indian Ocean or the Java Sea. ‘Lapse’ provides subtle hints of fourth world jazz as mallets take the lead, leaving the guitar to provide its own shimmering texture. Clear your mind, clear your schedule and make some time for ‘Tidal’, an opportunity to breathe in time with the planet.

Eagerly awaited yet patiently bubbling under the surface, UwU dust bath emerges with its primal offering, a deeply generous and authentic sonic array from low-key prolifics Purelink. Despite the Chicago trio’s humbly mysterious presence, the transcendental music speaks resoundingly. UwU 001 is rooted in the group’s most sincere and early jams; exuding an innocent magic almost impossible to recreate, tranquil effervescence of the highest nature; three otherworldly originals harmoniously colluding with an intercontinental all-star cast of remixers. xphresh (special guest DJ & Ben Bondy), Low Flung & Nice Girl each respectfully contributing to the synonymous mutual (& virtual) affiliation, kindredship and vision entrenched in the UwU ethos. An immersive sense of bliss exudes from even the initial vibrations of the A side. Soaked in textural pleasure, Butterfly Jam feels suspended; gloriously hovering with organic ebb and flow. Preparing to bloom, the harmonic design starts to flourish, thriving together with rhythmic and dynamic nuances to form a mesmerizing spherical habitat. Fantasize the interior of a bubble with Fine Pink Mist, effortlessly floating and entirely balanced; rich, assured subs anchor the glistening percussive texture and pads, providing a soft bed for experiments in melody and tone; hypnotic movement propelling throughout. The concluding original Dozen Sunbeams evokes a dance of flickering light, dynamically subtle motion maturing in each voice. Everything has a perfect place; an evolving trademark of Purelink’s delicate, yet deliberate, chillout ecstasy. Each track is thoughtfully paired with a complimenting remix on the B side, preserving and echoing the ethereal essence while adding a personally inspired touch, nurturing fresh existence and perspective. Arguably the most unforeseen plot twist comes via xphresh (Special Guest DJ & Ben Bondy), causing Rih✫nna’s notoriously iconic vocals to drip like honey, seeping into the fuzzed post-dancehall daydream; a sunkissed celebration. Low Flung carries the brightly burning torch, contributing a deep-haze rendition which exhibits elevated harmonics and pulsing drum delays, tripped out extraterrestrial heaven. Lastly, Nice Girl’s semi locked groove percussion heavy mix plants our feet firmly back on earth; infectiously spirited and euphoric like the original, the luminous stabs glow alongside a bulked out beat and vocal whispers - witness the transformation to full dancefloor status. In case you aren’t fully satisfied, the Good Girl No Infringement Dub comes as a digital treat, stripped back sublime and mesmerized. UwU dust bath is inaugurating its anticipated catalog with pure, unadulterated aural alchemy. The synergy throughout this entire release reveals an unspoken affinity and divine love language between the label and artists that can translate to how we feel and absorb music, its sound and a subconscious sense of intimacy and connection.

Once again Studio Mule dives deep into the music history of Japan, unearthing the multi-colored album “A-Key” by Eiki Nonaka, released as CD only on the short living japanese label Sun & Moon Records in 1995. An album, that uniquely unifies global ethnic music styles, the playfulness of Jazz, innovative electronic soundscapes, and the winding per-sonality of spiritual music. It’s the only solo album of a musician, that is triggering the advanced electrified japanese music culture since the early 1980ees. Eiki Nonaka was part of electronic New Age quartet interiors, releasing the two minimalistic, synth-pop leaning albums “Interior” and “design” in 1982 and 1987. likewise, he was a member of Haruomi Hosono’s band friends of earth, playing, voicing, and tuning the drum machine, guitar, synthesizers, and mi-crophone on their second landmark experimental Pop Electronic album “Sex, Energy and Star”, released Hosono’s outstanding non-standard label in 1986. His one and only solo album “A-Key” features the essence of all his musical journeys until 1995, bringing, as he puts it on his blog http://www.viewz.jp, “all my musical career up to that point designed in sounds that were ringing in my head at that time. It's extremely introspective, but the various mental landscapes of that time are still vibrating fresh and acoustically new.”

Micro soundscapes for fans of Visible Cloaks, Aylu, Uio Loi. “Puzzle Music is the desire to create images out of diverse pieces of sound. To collect timbral colours in a gradient procession and connect them until they create reason. Principally not knowing how the image will turn out, or what the picture even is. It is the act of placing sound shapes next to one another in the hope that clarity will gradually be revealed. When grouping the songs together I was thinking of them as mechanisms in a timepiece. I have something of an obsession with Swiss watchmaking, although I think this stems from a desire for creative mastery and the design of an energy source independent of electronic needs. Hopefully the songs all serve a purpose towards the end goal of the album... but also, the way the Oberheim Xpander pans sounds is in a very clear circular pattern, which makes me think of gears turning.”

NEW one from 1/2 of acclaimed duo BLACKWATER... more sooon.. (Mint / New - limited version with screen print) Debut solo album from The Dengie Hundred, one half of London’s Blackwater whose slo-motion synth-pop LP ‘Navigation’ was acclaimed by cult record shops Monorail, All Night Flight and World of Echo, which included it in its review of the best releases of 2021. Named after a clifftop cabin overlooking Whitsand Bay in Cornwall’s ‘forgotten corner’, ‘Brackenbank’ charts the first weeks of a new relationship between long-distance lovers in London and the South West. Desiring vocals move like the tide toward and away from drones and dub-soaked drum machines that recall heart beats, train tracks, the clinks of boat rigs and clunks of ferry chains. Composed of sounds recorded in an unfamiliar landscape of sea and rock and sky, ‘Brackenbank’s’ electronic sonic atmosphere was processed on the lines of the Great Western Railway as The Dengie Hundred travelled back and forth: looking forward; longing after. Kingsand, Cawsand, Eddystone, Firestone – the album’s grid references are both geographical and emotional, offering love songs and instrumentals as pulsing trances from places that can be traced with a finger across the map of The Rame, Cornwall’s ‘most unsung’ peninsula. Brackenbank was mastered by Carim Clasmann, mastered and cut for vinyl by Stefan Betke (aka Pole).

*Berlin-based ambient artist N Kramer is releasing his new album Altered Scenes and Slight Variations on May 17 via Leaving Records. *Created over 2020-2022 as a variation on themes Niklas revisited over time with playful adjustment, Altered Scenes is the result of curiosity for complex harmony and composition techniques pursued via searching Youtube for tutorials on music theory. *Inspirations were drawn from a variety of sources such as the mixing of Studio Ghibli chord progressions with Jon Hassell soundscapes. We can also hear the retain of acousmatic percussive/harmonic processes & performance established on 2021's Habitat w/Berlin percussionist J Foerster. *Compiling a series of scenes (or tracks) soundtracking an imaginary film in episodic fashion, these scenes feature various musical motives used in alternating contexts. *Presented with a scene sequence, the listener is invited to experience the album as an “Opening” scene, continuing through a “Soft Lit Room”, “Wading Through The Grass” in the next moment, and so on. *Altered Scenes reconciles opposites amidst ASMR backgrounds: serendipitous or random vs. designed or composed, static vs. the free-flowing, sparse & quiet vs. dense & pulsating.

West Mineral return with a followup to Mister Water Wet’s 2019's subtropical ambient slow-burn debut ‘Bought the Farm’, expanding Iggy Romeu's horizons to contrast feverish Afro-Caribbean ambient jazz with jaunty illbient and atmospheric freakouts. Low-lit heat that’s highly recommended if yr into Nick León, Carlos Niño, Kelman Duran, Gonçalo F. Cardoso. Mister Water Wet continues to excavate the tropical soundscapes that simmer the producer's Kansas City home with his Puerto Rican roots, on a new album of extended vignettes and mood pieces that cross a late 90’s Mo Wax instrumentals vibe with present day feelings of displacement and ennui. LP opener ‘Bory’ tunes us into Water Wet’s weirdly fuzzed frequencies, where tremeloed strings and found sounds resemble what might have been a lost dean blunt x dean hurley sound design concept for Inland Empire, while ‘I Saw the Green Flash' opens a swirl of strings and traditional rhythms caught in a reflecting pool of canned classical orchestrals and 1950s theremin wails. 'Good Apple’, meanwhile, cranks up the mood with aged x looped piano paired with an undulating, bass-heavy shuffle that wouldn't sound out of place on a Kelman Duran x Martin Denny mixtape. 'When Kennybrook Burned to the Ground' leans into heady jazz vapours, spreading crackle over pitch-fucked horn samples, but it’s the producer's weird use of percussion that keeps us gripped: scattering his arrangements across the grid, mimicking an ensemble of players deployed in irregular formations. Romeu embraces trip-hop on 'Any Other Time', blending Afro-Caribbean percussion with a swung downtempo beat, while ‘Isthmus’ reminds us of the clatterbox plunder of Moonshake’s PJ Harvey hookup ‘Just a Working Girl’ - with all its asymmetric hooks. The extended closing track 'Losing Blood' takes a leaf out of Fennesz's glitched rulebook, stretching and folding disintegrating loops through an 11 minute descent into the elegiac aether.

Prescient jazz-techno mutator Jamie Hodge (Conjoint, Studio Pankow) ushers a long overdue solo debut album, of sorts, with Demdike Stare’s DDS label; an archival harvest spanning his earliest experiments circa his Plus 8 debut thru to ’00s anomalies - hybrid ambient techno jazz and incredibly inventive forerunners of dubbed electronica - bookended by two Demdike Stare edits. Essential listening if yr into anything on the axis from Move D to Detroit Escalator Company, Jan Jelinek or Tortoise. Jamie Hodge grew up in Chicago in a jazz-loving family, first forming a band when he was a teenager, using drum machines and keyboards to rattle thru covers of Joy Division and Ministry tracks. His sound progressed into dubbier spaces when he befriended Ted Gray, a local record store clerk, and into off-kilter jazz when he ran into Bundy K. Brown and David Grubbs, who let Hodge watch rehearsals of the first Gastr del Sol recordings. But the transformational moment came when a friend (pictured on the "Diagonals" cover no less) played Hodge the 1991-released "From Our Minds To Yours Vol. 1", the first compilation on Richie Hawtin and John Acquaviva's Plus 8 label. From here, Hodge took his growing obsession with dance music to early Chicago raves, and began to explore European techno and UK hardcore. Eventually he met Hawtin in person after convincing his mom to cut through Canada on the way back from visiting East Coast colleges, and released his Plus 8 debut by the time he'd moved into a college dorm in 1993, using the Born Under A Rhyming Planet moniker for the first time. Hodge was also immersed in Chicago’s famous experimental jazz scene of the ‘90s - later on establishing the short-lived but excellent Aestuarium label that brought the work of Philip Cohran And The Artistic Heritage Ensemble to wider attention. Hodge would release two more 12"s for Plus 8, heading to Germany to connect with David Moufang (Move D) and forming Conjoint, later Studio Pankow. The material presented on "Diagonals" takes us right back to Hodge's vintage era, when he was using a mutating spread of equipment - Korg MS-20, Atari ST, Nord Micro Modular, ARP Axxe, Yamaha TG77 and TX816, and Alesis HR-16B - to assemble tracks that reached through his wide range of musical interests. According to Hodge, more Plus 8 releases were planned but never materialised, so this long overdue set fills in the gaps between records like 2000's classic Conjoint plate "Earprints" and Studio Pankow's still-underrated 2005 slow-burner "Linienbusse”. ‘Diagonals’ sputters to life with a Demdike Stare edit of a track Hodge recorded in Brooklyn while he was on summer break from college and working at a local record distributor. Inspired by music he'd seen at that year's New Music Seminar, he used an Atari ST and Yamaha TG77, a glassy FM module, to conduct a mood that hovers between '80s new age DIY tapes and gaseous dub techno. ‘Handley' digs into the tranquil electrified jazz modalities over a swung drum machine rhythm, squeezing robotic soul from a modest arsenal of gear, lashing the hypermelodic post-Detroit sensitivity of The Black Dog/Plaid to Chicago-axis experiments from Tortoise and Gastr del Sol. The shorter interludes are just as engrossing: Hodge experiments FM spray on 'Trampoline' and dusty Jan Jelinek-esque electroid funk on 'Menthol', ducking further into jazz on 'Hot Nachos...', augmenting his electronics with fretless electric bass. Cherry-picked by DDS, the selection best portrays the mix of soulful depth and atmospheric effervescence that defined that elusive era in electronic music; spanning a late night spectrum of styles from dusty electro-acoustic ambient prisms to supple deep house pearls, with a special strain of gently frayed computer jazz touching on the outer limits of Detroit techno. It's exceptional material that reminds us of a time when electronic music was frothing over with hope, futurism and revolutionary spirit, so whether you're into the post-Artificial Intelligence era or the Jazz-looped investigations of Jan Jelinek and crew, "Diagonals" feels like stepping into a particularly good dream.

Muir and Caminiti are sick and tired of ambient music's bizarre entanglement with the wellness industrial complex. You know what we're on about here: healing sounds and soothing balms for well-heeled adult babies to jam on Instagram, supported by their aesthetic collection of verdant succulants (modular synth not essential, but preferred). And yeh we fully realize that the world's going to shit, but we're also pretty sure that a guided meditation isn't gonna lead us to salvation, especially when it's accompanied by music that's at best a poor approximation of private press biz that came out four decades ago. Growing up in California, Muir and Caminiti quickly developed a deep suspicion of this kinda snake oil peddling and on "Talisman" fabricate a charm to ward off fakers - a subtly fanged ambient-not-ambient dedication to desert doom, mountain jazz and lysergic experimental forms. The duo split the labor cleanly: seasoned improviser Caminiti handles electric guitar, and Muir works as a sonic alchemist, grinding Caminiti's takes into dust and subliming each note into a thick, vaporous haze. Anyone who's heard either artist's work before will have an idea of where to start, and there are traces of Caminiti's blasted earth recordings as part of Barn Owl, as well as his cinematic solo productions; Muir meanwhile picks up where last year's Ilian Tape-released "Mana" left off, orchestrating a mood that's bleak but not suffocating, and dark but not without cracks of light. The most obvious stylistic comparisons are to Seattle doom metal originators Earth - particularly 2005's country-fried "Hex" - and Norwegian maestro Terje Rydpal, who drove prog, jazz and psychedelic music into new territory in the 1970s and 1980s. Caminiti takes these touchstones and exposes them to the harsh Los Angeles sunlight, further drying out Earth's Pacific Northwestern blues and adding some neon flicker to Rydpal's icy, mountainous naturalism. He also admits he was soaking up pedal steel music at the time, and you can hear the trace of artists like Chas Smith, Daniel Lanois and BJ Cole in his recumbent riffs. A trained sound engineer who's spent the last few years refining his skills in Berlin, Muir looks to the GRM school for his direction, and employs subtle electronic processes, occasionally augmenting them with his own field recordings. This isn't just arbitrary birdsong to blithely suggest the natural world over billowing major chords, but evocative audio snapshots of the burning Californian landscape. It's these small touches that ground "Talisman" and provide it with a brawny narrative backdrop - the duo have created a record that's devotional and melodic, but one that never resorts to cheap tricks or well-worn manipulation. They've instead landed on a sound that's antagonistic but not annoyingly confrontational (we see you power ambient) or exhaustingly conceptual. Diving into one track or another is almost pointless, Muir and Caminiti assembled "Talisman" to be played in a single sitting - it's a mood piece that's unwrenchable from its essential whole. Listening is a chance to escape into another universe for a while, one that takes rough and rugged elements (Muir and Caminiti bonded over their love of contemporary death metal bands like Spectral Voice and Blood Incantation) and refines them into lavish sigils that suggest the confusing unpredictability of our era. Anti-ambient? Maybe.

In 1997 and 1998, the late great Japanese composer, producer, and DJ Susumu Yokota released two of the most eclectic albums of his decades-long career, Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace. Recorded under his Stevia alias for Tokyo Techno pioneer DJ Miku’s Newstage Records/NS-COM, they were Yokota-san’s homage to the foundational days of club music in Japan. This year, Glossy Mistakes are proud to present the first official vinyl editions of Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace, originally released on CD during the golden days of the format. Packaged in reimagined cover artwork created by the celebrated Japanese visual artist Masaho Anotani, these two albums perfectly capture the diversity at the heart of Yokota-san’s oeuvre. Across Fruits of The Room, he takes us on an expansive odyssey through his personal visions for deep house, street soul, jungle/drum & bass, digital dub and the slipstream moments between genres. A totally inspired dancefloor exploration. When Yokota-san wrote and produced the music on Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace in 1997, he was reflecting on the broader culture that surrounded dance music in Japan in the early to mid-nineties. It was an era when the psychedelic culture of late sixties America, the afterglow of UK acid house/rave, the new age movement and cyberpunk dovetailed together. Within DJ Miku and Yokota-san’s social circles, the thinking of Timothy Leary, Ram Dass, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac and William S. Burroughs electrified the air. By 1996, the moment, brilliant and blinding as it was, was over. “We all felt that the rave scene fizzled out,” DJ Miku says. As he puts it, there was a collective feeling around him that it had all become too much. From the calm that followed, DJ Miku, Yokota-san and their open-eared peers made the decision to switch tracks and start from scratch. DJ Miku believes that with his Stevia releases, Fruits of The Room and Greenpeace, Yokota-san wanted to express the sweet and sour nature of the passing of those wild early days and his wish for true peace. “At the time, we saw eye-to-eye, with an implicit understanding of each other,” he explains. “Even now, twenty-five years later, I am confident it was like that.”

Matthew Halsall announces The Temple Within – a four track EP on 12", CD, DL and streaming When Matthew Halsall released Salute to the Sun in November 2020, his first new album in five years, he shared the first fruits from an especially fertile period of writing and recording, which also gave birth to the music released here as The Temple Within. The recording sessions featured Halsall's then brand new band of hand-picked local musicians, brought together through weekly rehearsals and a monthly residency at Yes in Manchester, they forged an immersive, communal sound, drawing on spiritual jazz, the heritage of British jazz and progressive world music and electronica influences. Inspired by these monthly sessions, together, they created a body of music that is rooted in Northern England but draws on global inspirations. For Halsall the music on The Temple Within perfectly captures the spirit of those sessions. "I felt really excited by the connection that we were building, both together as a band, but also with the local community. People of all ages and types come to our monthly sessions and the energy of being able to write and rehearse and then perform new music each month is really uplifting. And this music is a perfect case in point. To me it really feels like a perfect pocket of music, a perfect moment. We thought about expanding it to an album, but in the end if just feels right as it is, and we wanted to share that energy of that moment with our wider community, not just people at our shows, but our fans and listeners around the world." The title track, and first single 'The Temple Within' is a darker, heavier tune than anything on Salute to the Sun and has become a firm part of the band's live shows. The enigmatic title is taken from a quote by Alice Coltrane and expands on the idea that your spiritual space is within yourself and not the bricks and mortar of a church or monastery or Ashram. The hard-grooving Earth Fire features beautiful flute work from Matt Cliffe and inspired drums from Alan Taylor, and offers a emotional response to the horrendous bush fires that ravaged Australia. The Eleventh Hour is another dark-toned "banger" with a late-night vibe and with its incessant groove and fiery solos is another track to have found a regular place in the band's sets. Finally, A Japanese Garden in Ethiopia takes it unique flavour from both musical cultures and is one of Halsall's most beautiful wistful compositions. The Temple Within features Matthew Halsall trumpet and electronics, Matt Cliffe flute & saxophone, Maddie Herbert harp, Liviu Gheorghe piano, Gavin Barras, bass, Alan Taylor drums and Jack McCarthy percussion. The Temple Within is produced by Matthew Halsall and Daniel Halsall, recorded by Matthew Halsall, mixed by Greg Freeman, mastered by Peter Beckmann of Technology Works and vinyl cut by Norman Nitzsche at Calyx. The distinctive artwork is by Ian Anderson of The Designers Republic, Join us on this beautiful journey to The Temple Within, the latest chapter in Halsall's ongoing musical voyage of discovery.

First new album in nine years by a musical visionary and hugely influential figure in new music. Forty years since its creation, Jon Hassell's Fourth World aesthetic remains a powerful influence on modern electronic music. Continuing his lifelong exploration of the possibilities of recombination and musical gene-splicing, fragments of performance are sampled, looped, overdubbed and re-arranged into beguiling unexpected shapes. Hassell applies the painterly technique of ‘pentimento’ to the arrangements, teasing out texture by the overlaying of sound upon sound, or a carefully timed reveal of the delicate bones pinning the frame of a track together.

The release of this new album also sees the launch of Jon’s own label, Ndeya (pronounced “in-day-ya”), which will be a home for new work as well as well as selected archival releases, including re-presses of classic sides and some astonishing unreleased music.

Well it's been more than 365 days and nights since we released a record on our small and independent record label based in Vancouver, BC. For better or worse we have always operated at a pace that feels natural to us. The same could be said for Mood Hut recording artist Jack J who has not released any music in over seven years. Do you remember his last record? It was called Thirstin' and it came out in the summer of 2015, hot on the heels of Something (On My Mind) which came out the year before. So naturally after this very long silence we are proud and excited to be able to finally share Opening the Door, the first full length LP by Jack J. Self-recorded slowly but surely between 2015 and 2019 between Mood Hut and C'est Life Studios, and featuring some crucial saxophone work by Linda Fox, this LP confirms Jack J to be a masterful mood maker as well as an incisive songwriter. Over the course of the album an undeniably blue haze settles over inward-peering ambient jazz, On-U-inspired digital-dub and quiet storm soft rock leaving a distinct sense of sadness amongst all the tangerine funk. Check it out!

Late last year, Canadian producer Priori returned with his second album ‘Your Own Power’ to great acclaim. Released via his NAFF imprint, the album showcased a more contemplative style to his productions and featured one collaborative track with label partner Ex-Terrestrial. The story continues as Priori enlists a heavyweight line-up of artists to rework some of the album’s standout tracks. Slated to drop on the 18th March, ‘Your Own Power Remixes’ features new editions from Donato Dozzy, Aurora Halal, DJ Python, and Bambounou alongside a Priori VIP - each bringing their own flair and style to the record. Priori is an alias of Francis Latreille who first put out solo releases on Greek label Echovolt and Canadian imprint ASL Singles Club. Known to be an avid collaborator, Latreille is involved in a number of projects including Jump Source, M.S.L., Housemates, New World Science, ANF and more. He has also worked on mixing projects by fellow artists including Roza Terenzi, Ex-Terrestrial, RAMZi, Bambii, and Ouri.

double LP version. 180 gram vinyl; includes CD. Tak:Til/Glitterbeat present the first ever reissue and remastering of Jon Hassell and Farafina's prescient, "Fourth World" masterwork, Flash of the Spirit, originally released in 1988. Propulsive Burkinese rhythms meet revelatory, ambient soundscapes. Co-produced with the legendary studio team of Brian Eno and Dainel Lanois. Composer and trumpeter Jon Hassell has been an elusive, iconic musical figure for more than half a century. He's best known as the pioneer and propagandist of "Fourth World" music, mixing technology with the tradition and spirituality of non-western cultures. In 1987 he joined with Farafina, the acclaimed percussion, voice, and dance troupe from Burkina Faso, to record Flash of the Spirit. While the album is a natural extension of those "Fourth World" ideas, and a new strand of Possible Musics, it also a distinctive outlier in the careers of both artists; an unrepeated merging of sounds whose influence still reverberates today. The eight members of the band -- who had also collaborated with the Rolling Stones and Ryuichi Sakamoto -- brought their long apprenticed, virtuosic drumming, and melodic textures (balafon, flute, voices) to the sessions. They built up layers and patterns of rhythm, while producers Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois (fresh off the success of U2's Joshua Tree) created a sonic atmosphere in which they could creatively intertwine with Hassell's digitally processed trumpet and keyboards. Despite their initial skepticism, the musicians from Farafina ended up relishing their interaction with the studio team and the trumpeter/conceptualist Hassell. The music that emerged was rich and groundbreaking, a move to transcend the boundaries between jazz, avant-garde classical, ambient and the deep rhythmic tradition embodied by Farafina. On "Out Pours", the groove simmers softly, led by shifting patterns on the balafon, while Hassell's heavily treated trumpet creates breathy swirls of sound that play and dance around them. Percussion leads on "A Vampire Dances," pushing and probing and seeming to force electronic shrieks as a response from Hassell's trumpet, while the keyboard creates a bed of sound that refuses to hold still. "(Like) Warriors Everywhere" takes that idea even further. Over Farafina's surging rhythms, Hassell's electric piano and trumpet dig deep into abstract, melodic ideas hinted at by the Bitches Brew-era Miles Davis band. Farafina create the rhythms and counter-rhythms that spring and move. A new, natural trans-cultural harmony is apparent on the final track, "Masque", where percussion and treated trumpet draw the listener along on a journey through shifting landscapes.

Artificial Dance founder Interstellar Funk releases Live At The Rest Is Noise - Muziekgebouw aan 't IJ. Limited to 150 cassettes, the recording documents Interstellar Funk’s performance at Amsterdam’s Muziekgebouw concert hall in October 2021. The 45-minute set ebbs and pulses, leaving behind Interstellar Funk’s penchant for hard-wearing club sounds in favour of melody and texture. Some passages mirror elements from the studio album Into The Echo (Dekmantel, 2022), but the live setting allows Interstellar Funk to expand and explore richly detailed sonic spaces that highlight his skills as a composer-performer. Download card included.

I can soak. The 2020 ambient masterpiece "Moss King" for plants, which has also been made into LP & CD, is the latest collaborative album by Omni Gardens and Jogen Salzberg, which is familiar with our store, and released as a cassette from . A gem of work in which meditative and natural beauty-filled new age/ambient sounds are loosely connected on top of Salzberg's soft poetry. Definitely recommended for those who like Iasos and Laraaji! Limited to 300 copies.

Recordings of The pale faced family on the hill took place over a week in January 2020 in a small church hall on the outskirts of London. A small number of electronic music producers decided to form a collective and make heavy ambient music for raw pleasure in the agreement that their identity be withheld. They invited Oliver Coates as a live musician to contribute cello drone which they would then add to, process, subtract from and mix with weather recordings and esoteric ways of generating sounds, including old sample packs and whatever else they had to hand. The results were mixed down to tape live without further editing or arrangement. Wishing to work under a cloak of anonymity, the process freed the producers from their other lives and released output, allowing them to enter a new group alias, to induce heady states of sound and to become a group without hierarchies.

»Tides« marked a radical change in direction for Arovane. After Uwe Zahn had made a name for himself with cutting-edge IDM rhythms and slick ambient textures on a slew of releases, his sophomore album saw the prolific producer opt for a sample-based approach that resulted in a more organic sound and laid-back downbeat grooves. Having reissued Arovane’s seminal »Atol-Scrap« as a double LP in 2021, the Berlin-based Keplar label now makes »Tides« available on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2000 through the legendary City Centre Offices. The new version has been remastered by Kassian Troyer at Dubplates & Mastering and comes with a brand new cover artwork. It shines a new light on a release for which Zahn quite literally ventured into previously unknown territory — »Tides« is an album that emits a timeless, quiet calm and nonetheless stays constantly in motion. »The idea for the album came to me after a vacation in France«, says Zahn. Inspired by the landscape, especially the coastline and the sea, he made field recordings throughout his trip that were also used on the record, giving it its sensual feel. The foundation of the album however, the loose yet gripping grooves at the heart of every track, result from Zahn working extensively with samples. »I wanted to make use of drum sounds and small excerpts from old jazz vinyl records«, he explains. He maintained the unique sound signatures and rhythmic flutter of the source material while building intricate beats with them. Most of the material was culled from the record collection of Christian Kleine, whose spontaneous guitar improvisations over the first musical sketches were recorded and edited by Zahn and can be heard on four tracks. Also employing the occasional cembalo or spinet sound, he worked with a hardware sequencer and a delay to integrate the different, discrete elements into nine tracks that feel both dense and light at once. What’s astonishing still 22 years later is how spacious »Tides« sounds. This is due to the fact that Zahn not only paid close attention to the sonic idiosyncrasies of his source material, but also to what happened in between those sounds. »Mark Hollis’s solo album was a huge inspiration at that time«, says Zahn. »What I find fascinating about it until this day is how silence and the subtle hiss of the mixing boards were being used on that record.« Silence was also an important stylistic element on »Tides« and adds greatly to the overall atmosphere of an album that with the appropriately named »Theme« immediately sets the mood with intricate spinet melodies: Zahn opens a door for his listeners and invites them to follow him to see a specific part of the world through his very own lens. As a whole, the album mirrors Zahn’s trip that took him along the steep cliffs on a foggy day (»Seaside«), to an abandoned house in which he found old maps (»A Secret«), along the coastline during a long car ride (»Deauville«), to a sleepy village and the slowly moving sea (»Tides«) and finally back home to his native Germany where he started reflecting upon his experiences, ultimately deciding to translate them into music (»Epilogue«). »Whenever I listen to this album now, the images and memories it evokes are incredibly vivid and vibrant«, he says. It’s not hard to see — or rather hear — why. »Tides« may have been a deeply personal project, but it effortlessly evokes universal feelings by (re-)building an entire world in the course of only a few pieces of music.

Like the ever changing shapeshifting nature of Kami in Japanese Shinto faith, the music on this new collaborative lp is a mirror reflecting, obscuring or modifying the ever changing rivers of sounds. Louise Landes Levi has a long history in music from studying sarangi with Annapurna Devi and La Monte Young to performing with like minded poets as Ira Cohen and Simon Vinkenoog. As on the previous Ikiru lp she collaborates with Timo van Luijk (Af Ursin, Elodie, Asra, In camera etc) and Bart De Paepe (Ilta Hämärä, Bombay Lunatic Ensemble etc). The trio weaves several delicate threads together into a surrealist, organic but overall poetic language. Includes a postcard. Limited to 500 copies.

12H is a two hours long summa of the very best material produced for the eponymous sound installation, specifically designed by Donato for the Music Bridge - Armando Trovajoli in Rome under the curation of MAXXI Director Bartolomeo Pietromarchi. The original piece translated in music the architecture of the bridge and its surrounding life, layering samples and field recordings in the language Donato knows best: the repetition, rhythm and harmony of different building blocks. The work was originally reproduced by 24 speakers spread along the bridge colonnade, escorting the visitor through different musical places in their crossing. It now takes its final stereo form in this continuous mix version: a dense, enthralling flow akin to Tiber’s murky waters. The original installation was set up by sound engineer Giuseppe Tillieci / Neel, a frequent collaborator of Dozzy in the “Voices from the Lake” project, with Funktion One support.

« Similar to a whale skeleton beached on Tiber’s banks, the Music Bridge connects two parts of the city that had been ignoring one another for centuries. On one side the slopes of Mount Mario dominate the CONI (Italian National Olympic Committee) sports fields where many masterpieces of Italian modernist architecture were built: Moretti’s Fencing Academy, the Youth Hostel, the Olympic Pool and later on the Tennis Stadium and the Stadio Olimpico. On the other side there is Quartiere Flaminio, with its theatre, contemporary art museum MAXXI and Renzo Piano auditorium. Donato Dozzy has converged sport and music in his sound installation for the Music Bridge, recounting the story of the two universes connected there. The work, originally presented in a 12 hours format, was a day-long journey through environmental sounds and Donato’s own melodies. In the new-found synthesis we present today we experience once again time and Tiber flowing together, from the crack of dawn until nightfall artificial lights. »
(Pietromarchi Bartolomeo, Director of MAXXI)

Few DJs and producers are as widely and universally acclaimed in techno circles as Italian Donato Dozzy. He has a rare ability to work his way into peoples’ minds in both contemporary and classical settings, conjuring real mood and atmosphere. Never one to pay heed to the zeitgeist, he prefers to deal in hypnotic soundscapes that really take you on a trip.

Enigmatic as he is, and laidback as he seems, as an artist he is constantly unveiling new work. Displaying a large variation in terms of sound and method across many new releases each year — some of which come on his co-owned label Spazio Disponibile — he also puts out installations for public spaces and museums, uses obscure musical instruments, collaborates with likeminded producers, classical singers or visual artists. Donato seems to continuously challenge himself on a creative level: whatever method he uses, though, he is always likely to permeate your cerebral cortex and rewire it in fascinating and compelling new ways. 

Dang-Khoa Chau aka Đ.K. gives up a self-released treat, sidewinding into psychedelic realms of radiant gamelan and slow, humid bangers, highly recommended if yr into ’Forest of Evil' period Demdike, early Shackleton, DJ Python. A pivotal presence in the Parisian scene thanks to his rounds for Antinote, L.I.E.S., Second Circle, and most recently 12th isle & Good Morning Tapes; Đ.K now takes matters into his own hands to issue some golden material, drawing on his South East Asian heritage and sultry, stylized nEuropean club music for a properly hypnotic seven track trip. In deep pursuit of atavistic urges, and modelled with electronic futurism, his ‘Gate Of Enlightenment’ calls up a spectra of spirits that invoke altered states; vocal swirls meet purposeful gamelan in ‘Enlightenment Process’, aligning for the deftly weight trample of ‘Middle Path’ with its mystic horns, and a slippery sort of dancehall swivel in ‘Sacred Creatures.’ ‘His ‘Day of Mourning’ makes room for contemplation with sound sensitive instincts heightened to unnerving degrees, while ‘Metal Frames’ yokes back to the ‘floor with something like an industrialised echo of the Ghost In The Shell OST, while the closing couplet see his percussive proprioceptions at their most devilish and immersive.