MUSIC

Flaty & OL’s Serwed return to Huerco S’ West Mineral for their fourth album; straying from their usual bass abstractions into hi-gloss lab experiments with obvious appeal to disciples of Dopplereffekt, Vangelis or the 'Resident Evil'/'Silent Hill' OSTs.

Finally reuniting all the music Marutti spontaneously created in a short period during the very first Amon recording sessions, and bringing it to vinyl for the first time, Akh is a ticket for a trip back in time, a musical universe rich with impenetrable scenarios, a driving, grey space of ever-increasing numbness resounding all around and inside the listener. In Ancient Egypt, Akh was most often used to mean a complete person, whether living or dead. While living, the Akh was composed of all five elements -- The Body, Ba (the personality: humor, warmth, charm), Ka (the life force unique to every person) which stayed, The Name, and The Shadow. When dead, the Akh referred to the reunion of the Ba and the Ka, which they also believed happened each night. In death and every night too, Akh is the reunion of the self. Mostly lacking any flash of light, the tracks featured on this collection open a subtly esoteric universe, which rises up out of the desert, leading through a profound and introspective path with their sonic stimuli, plumbing the depths of the unconscious with a hypnotic, mystical and arcane flavor. Perfect to listen to during the late hours when distracting factors are few and the music may join forces with the night itself. Will appeal to fans of Roland Kayn, Thomas Köner, Éliane Radigue, deep listening, minimalism, and isolationism alike. Edition of 250.

Recording of Pavel Milyakov’s live performance for the closing night of Cyprien Gaillard’s Dumpty exhibition at Lafayette Anticipations in Paris on January 8th 2023. The automaton sculpture, Le Défenseur du Temps was being activated live during the performance. Its mechanical movements can be heard on the recording. guitar, strings resonator, effects, mixing and mastering by Pavel Milyakov cover photography by Max Paul inside photography by Timo Ohler, Oleksandra Trishyna recording by Camille Jamain design by Pavel Milyakov released on Firecamp, 2023 edition of 150

Good Morning Tapes with a vinyl pressing of Gi Gi’s blissed Ambient-Jungle session ‘Sunchoke’, cycling thru feathered permutations of New Age and dubwise styles thru richly-textured delicacies and sunkissed Trip Hop signatures, tipped if yr into classic Sabres of Paradise, Art of Noise, Future Sound of London, Terre Thaemlitz, William Orbit, The Orb. Easy on the ear and with overflowing levels of serotonin, Gi Gi is a snug fit for the label; sanguine but just the right side of soporific, with a vibe that dials up echoes of classic downtempo Balearic crossed with turn-of-the-century trip hop somewhere between Olive’s ‘You’re not Alone’, William Orbit’s once ubiquitous ‘Strange Cargo III’ album and early Terre Thaemlitz - with a sound sensitive soulfulness and warmth. Jazz drums, guitar and midi-flute conjure bright blue skies and cirrus streaks in ‘Dawn Song’, while ‘two ones’ doubles the tempo on a swaying jungle flex that also perfuses the hazier hues of ‘Ambergris (Blue)’ and dances around the links between deep house, ambient and D&B like Terre Thaemlitz’s classic ‘Tranquilliser’ (1994) in the lilting congas of ‘Asp’, caressing strums of ‘Lisle’, and the piano-led ambient blues of ‘Sunchoke.’ The last gasp of summer, right here.

Another blink and you'll miss it transmission from the heart and soul of Manchester artist Tom Boogizm's Rat Heart project alongside The Peanuts (?!?!). The Pamela Peanut Kitchen Sessions is a window into the psyche of this creative force, created in the spirit of purest underground DIY self-expression somewhere between Arthur Russell and The Durutti Column, stoned to the bone.

‘Beautiful Age’ is SSIEGE’s reflection on adolescence and the gauzy fidelity of memory, using an electro-acoustic array of piano, samples, tape loops, synths and field recordings to evoke feelings of longing for the eternal spring of youth.

Jake Muir's latest set of soft-focus, sensual electro-concrète, dissolves X-rated gay sleaze flick soundtracks into a shimmering suite of subdued orchestral flourishes and surreal cosmic psychedelia. Back in 2020, Muir put together a 90-minute mix for Honey Soundsystem, blending tracks from Kelman Duran, DJ Olive, Daniel Lanois and Terre Thaemlitz with obliquely camp dialog samples from vintage gay porn. The idea was to represent queer sexuality in a looser, more experimental manner, grazing the super-sensory pleasure of the bathhouse experience and the illicit joy of cruising without getting too self-serious while doing it. The mix was so popular that Muir followed it up with a weightless sequel two years later, and began developing the concept into a proper album, using more samples of music and dialogue, eventually performing the piece at the esteemed GRM as part of their FOCUS #4 concerts alongside work by Eliane Radigue, Folke Rabe and Chris Watson. The album is split into two side-long pieces that wash and ripple with nervous tension and discreet salaciousness. Opening with a familiar, bombastic theater sting, there are echoes of kosmische music and antique experimental electronics on 'Cruisin' 87', that Muir fashions into ASMR-rich puddles of syrupy, back-room ambience. Occasionally we hear lascivious words thru the fog, men mumbling to each other and giggling before the inevitable occurs. That's beautiful," a voice mutters over a dusky cricket chirp on 'Pipe Dream'. "It is," another replies. Muir's sonic response is suitably explicit, like a 1950s Hollywood jump-cut to a train going into a tunnel; the Berlin-via-Los Angeles sound artist takes the whole-body, mutual release of queer sex and interprets it with heady gestures, peppering jazzy rhythmic frostings into basins of skewered drone and gurgling synth. Muir's sound is colored by the pleasure of physical touch, a mussy flux of high frequency scrapes and caresses juxtaposed with woozy, dubbed-out fondles and thrusts. Who said the GRM was buttoned up?

Art by Solo Viola Tracks 3 & 6 feature Andrea Stella Mastered by Rashad Becker

All songs originally written by J & reinterpreted by the 'J and the woolen stars' Emile Frankel, Rosy Angela Murphy & Nico Callaghan. Artwork by J Pictures by Bernard Caleo Mastered by Shy

Ambient and environmental Japanese scene has flourished stronger than ever in the last years. The pioneers of this sound and the creators of an innovative way of making and understanding ambient music, such as Hiroshi Yoshimura, Yoshio Ojima, Toshifumi Hinata or Takashi Kokubo have been championed and their works have been successfully unearthed by reissue labels.

Continuing in this endless path, Glossy Mistakes adds Takashi Kokubo’s brilliant “Volk Von Bauhaus” to its catalogue, with the Japanese masterpiece as the third official release of the Spanish label.

As most of 80’s Japanese ambient and environmental music, “Volk Von Bauhaus” is an audio impression designed to give a multi-sensory experience to the listener. An effort to make things audible, an exercise of understanding and soundtracking objects or situations. The main objective of this sound is to create an iconic musical landscape to accompany a specific place.

Though his name might be unfamiliar to many, Kokubo has crafted music that has impacted virtually all of Japan, from national mobile phone earthquake alerts to contactless card payment jingles. He was one of the first artists to create ambient music strictly through loops. As he mentioned when release this album, "this recording used no keyboard players, no multitrack tape recording techniques, no analog sounds”. A shift on the process of imagining sound.

“Volk Von Haus” is and ode to this ambient, new age and environmental music created in Japan throughout the 80’s. Throughout 9 cuts, Kokubo handcrafts his own sound and immerses the listener in a peaceful yet challenging adventure. The record is the first piece of his Digital Soundology series, and arguably his most interesting work due to the groundbreaking techniques he used.

"A revolutionary musical expression that shatters the old values”, explains Kokubo about this piece. And its just what we can hear when we play “Volk Von Haus”.

The album includes an unheard exclusive track by Takashi Kokubo an insert with an interview made by Takashi Kokubo. A true gem that must land in every ambient head’s musical library.

Remastered from master tapes by Frederic Stader.

Portland, OR-based multimedia artist William Selman returns to Mysteries of the Deep with his third album for the label. Drawing on influences such as David Toop, Beatriz Ferreyra, Elizabeth Waldo, and David Behrman, “The Weather Indoors” melds live and synthesized instrumentation, field recordings, and digital processing techniques in a new, more melodic and approachable direction. Immersive site recordings open into melodic woodwinds, orchestral instrumentation, bass guitar, gongs, and vibraphone. Borrowing from the anthropologist Tim Ingold’s concept of “inversion,” this widescreen staging cuts immediately to the core of the project: the way human beings use the faculty of imagination to aestheticize their built surroundings with architecture, images of distant locales, and domesticated flora and fauna to contain the anxiety for the natural world that surrounds human life. A clear peak in Selman's extensive catalog, “The Weather Indoors” captures his work at a moment expanding his musical and aesthetic project: Neither genre ambient nor musique concrète, but a unique sound world dense with conceptual play and moments of more traditional harmonic beauty. “We are contaminated by our encounters: they change who we are as we make way for others. As contamination changes world-making projects, mutual worlds—and new directions—may emerge. Everyone carries a history of contamination; purity is not an option.” —Anne Lowenhaupt-Tsing, The Mushroom at the End of the World

Claudio PRC’s upcoming ambient album is a sonic journey through ethereal landscapes and intimate atmospheres. Drawing inspiration from the waves and their movement, “Unda” (in Sardinian native tongue “wave”) evokes a sense of calmness and introspection. Throughout the whole piece, Claudio PRC creates a blend of meticulously crafted organic and synthetic elements that seamlessly integrates together, showcasing his versatility as an artist and his commitment to exploring all facets of electronic music. With its textured layers, this work offers a soothing and reflective musical experience, inviting the listener to escape into a world of contemplation and meditation.

Written, composed and produced by Claudio Porceddu, between Sardinia and Berlin, 2021-2022. Original performed at Up To Date Festival, Białystok, Poland, September 2022. Mixed and mastered at Artefacts Mastering. Artwork by Liam Costar. Design by Basstation. Video directed by Diego Vicinanza. Special thanks to Blazej Malinowski, Fabio Caria, Eliana Patanè, Ario, Pierre Nesi aka Owl and Jong-min Lee.

US-based, South Africa-born Brendon Moeller has been hugely prolific over the years under sever different aliases. Pathways is his newest album and is another signature blend of deep techno, dub, and ambient sounds that explore fresh ground. This one comes on cassette - a fitting medium for his always hazy, lo-fi sounds, and opens with a gorgeous stargazer loosely tethered to a dreamy groove. 'Movement' is just much of a cosmic floater, 'Accident' has static electricity fizzing about an underwater chamber and 'Through' is a slow-motion dubscape. 'Exodus' and 'Calm' close out this beautifully unhurried exploration of the deep.

Highly recommended! For all of ambient, balearic and new age fan. The previous work from <100% Silk>, which was also introduced by , just made a record-breaking hit in Bandcamp. Tokyo's notable DJ / producer, who had released a great cassette work from , has released the beautiful ambient / new age gems from . After the popular title from <100% Silk>, New cassette release from with enhanced new age / Balearic colors is very exquisite. Works recorded at home studio, focusing on hardware synths and samplers from the 80's and 90's. It is a work that pursues "images in photographs and movies of locations that have been lost with the passage of time" and "A nostalgia for a place we can never be" The best hidden work. It is as good as, and sometimes even surpasses, the works of modern revival / new age sanctuaries and reissues such as and . At the bottom is the light and quiet view of dance / deep house that is unique to this person. It's too great, it's incredible, and it's just a sigh of admiration.

Weaving between self-built zithers, drones, clarinets, slide guitars and drum machines, ‘Sun Arcs’ presents a unique sound space formed by an inventive approach to acoustic folk and jazz. The starting point of ‘Sun Arcs’ saw Jason travel for a week alone to Andersabo, a cabin set in the Swedish woods just outside of Unnaryd, known also as the music project, festival and residency space which has been run by Dungan since 2016, hosting artists like Sofie Birch, Johan Carøe and Ellen Arkbro. Whilst writing 1-2 pieces per day, a conscious decision was made to leave behind everyday distractions and shut out the outside world to instead focus on the natural passage of time as Dungan recalls: “My only sense of time came from these daily walks out in the woods with my dog, and an awareness of the sun’s path as it moved across the sky each day.” The album’s immersive world unfolds with the opener ‘Dallas’, a musical synthesis of these two disparate spaces (Texas and Denmark), the touchstones of Dungan’s life. A folk-esque single acoustic builds to a flowing arrangement of clarinets, organ and cello drones coupled with percussion. ‘Green-Yellow Field’ chimes in as the first of two solo oriented zither recordings twinned with the dreamlike title track ‘Sun Arcs’, both densely rich as cascading and overlapping harmonic tones resound. ‘Bloom’ emerges with a krautrock psyche before an eruption of cello drones, slide guitar and free-ranging zither playing, ushering in the anticipation of spring. “The title and the feel of the song comes simply from my summers in Sweden – when the plants and insects are opening up everywhere, and there’s this almost too-intense feeling of life outside.” With half of the recordings conceived in Andersabo, Jason returned to Copenhagen to form the album's centre piece ‘Rain Cycle’ which features a tempered Roland drum machine alongside shifting zither improvisations. ‘Writing’ explores the shimmering harp-like qualities of sweeping playing figurations with Dungan mapping out adjusted tuning “zones” on the zither for unconventional but creatively liberating effects. ‘Fur’ captures the feeling of openness and the momentum of time, seeing Dungan perform waves of solo clarinet, often in one takes and embellished with textural drones, a zither solo, and layers of guitar. ‘Wavelength’ the album's closer is fondly inspired by the film works of Michael Snow and Don Cherry’s seminal live album ‘Blue Lake’ (1974), as it builds out from a drone-generated zither chord and features an alto recorder solo. Dungan found a deep connection to Cherry’s stripped back performance ethos, focusing on the core beauty of minimal instrumentation creating a genre-less meeting between folk and jazz. A dialogue is formed between the solo and the bandlike performances, interlinked in a geographical duality with all finding a sense of commonplace as musical sketches of visited landscapes. The bountiful instrumentation ebbs and flows as further layers emerge with Dungan constructing his material by recording and reviewing, adding and subtracting. Musically it portrays a life led by an American person living in Scandinavia, responding to both the local music and landscape while looking back to American influences. Dungan concludes: “Both places feel like “me”, I think on some level the music is always some kind of self-portrait.” ‘Sun Arcs’ depicts the intricate balance of nature’s cycles and the paths outlined by the seasons, from a winter dormancy to a warm sun drenched scene. The album scales new heights and further defines Dungan’s musical narrative, inhabiting a unique space in left-field, improvised and experimental music, bearing his most accomplished compositions to date. A singular and visionary expression, drawing on an array of instruments and sound worlds with a renewed sense of joy and discovery. The album's rich tapestry was mixed by Jeff Zeigler (Laraaji, Mary Lattimore, Kurt Vile / Steve Gunn) and mastered by Stephan Mathieu (Kali Malone, KMRU, Félicia Atkinson).

First vinyl pressing of Baroque by Japanese composer and multi-instrumentalist Susumu Yokota, originally released on CD in 2004. The full-length album was originally released by United Sounds Of Blue in 2014, a subdivision of Frogman Records in CD format. Now it is being re-released by Barcelona-based record label Modern Obscure Music as a double-LP. Baroque is one of the most significant albums of Susumu signed under his original name. Yokota was an eclectic, highly prolific electronic musician and composer from Japan who died in 2015 at 54. "There is always fear, rage, and ugliness existing behind beauty. I have been trying to express ki-do-ai-raku (the four emotions: joy, anger, sorrow, and happiness) through music. I would like to express even one's hidden emotion with reality. It's my eternal goal." Baroque is a clear example of this, through the deep listening of the album you can experience all of those feelings in just one record and feel how his music influenced the next generation of producers during the two next decades till today. The Tokyo-based artist devoted his time and creative energy to achieving this goal, and the result is a vast discography that begins with banging early acid house tracks in the 1990s, moves across the next two decades to include deep house and Detroit-influenced techno, a stunning run of ambient electronic albums and, in his last decade, a glorious confluence that wove his various skills into a series of borderless electronic records. Susumu Yokota also known used pseudonyms Stevia and Ebi, among other.

SUMMVS IS THE FIFTH COLLABORATION ALBUM BETWEEN ALVA NOTO AND RYUICHI SAKAMOTO. THE RECORD WAS FIRST RELEASED IN 2011 AND IS THE FIFTH AND FINAL INSTALLMENT OF THE ‘VIRUS SERIES’. THE TITLE SUMMVS REFERS TO THE LATIN WORD “SUMMA” (ENG. SUM) AND “VERSUS” (ENG. TOWARDS), AND SERVES AS A METAPHOR FOR THE WORK BEING ORIENTED TOWARDS A COLLABORATIVE RESULT. THE ALBUM FEATURES “MICROON” COMPOSITIONS CONTAINING RECORDINGS OF A 16TH TONE INTERVAL TUNING PIANO—PIANO METAMORFOSEADOR CARRILLO EN DIECISEISAVOS DE TONO. THE ALBUM ALSO FEATURES TWO COVERS OF THE TRACK “BY THIS RIVER” ORIGINALLY COMPOSED BY BRIAN ENO, DIETER MOEBIUS, AND HANS-JOACHIM ROEDELIUS IN 1977.

Across the arc of Tristan Allen’s epiphanic, four-part journey, Tin Iso and the Dawn, the New York based composer and puppeteer brings sonic life to a fantastical realm of characters whose universal longings mirror our own. In the first release of this mythic trilogy, intricate sound design and spellbinding leitmotifs make sense of loss and what’s beyond.

Yetsuby lands on Third Place with her 'Water Flash' EP this July with four bubbly tracks :) Seoul-based artist Yetsuby is best known as one half of electronic super-duo Salamanda, who have won hearts and minds with their light and floaty new-age electronica via releases on Good Morning Tapes, Human Pitch, and Métron Records. As a solo act, she has released her own music on the Taipei-based 禁 JIN, Extra Noir, as well as through the Seoul store The Internatiiional amongst self-released delights on her Bandcamp. On the A-side, the title cut 'Water Flash' leads with airy synths and textured percussion, while 'Electro Union' ups the energy with choppy vocal samples, punchy drums, and twinkling arps. On the flip, subtle synths wriggle alongside low-key percussion on 'Commercial Noisy Day', making for a heads-down affair, before the gorgeous finalé '물먹는하마' rounds out the B-side with delicate keys and detailed yet muted drums.

Moog Grooves is the first ever album from Emmy winning composer Edd Kalehoff, best known for his work on game shows such as The Price is Right, Card Sharks, Tattletales, Double Dare, and more. This release contains never before heard music composed by Edd from the 1970s, as well as extensive liner notes detailing his Moog setup of the time, custom made for him by Bob Moog. From the funky sounds of “Filthy McNasty” to the soft buildup in “Sea of Glass”, this album captures the wide range of Edd’s catalog.

Recorded and released in 1987, the original cassette bore a minimalist plum tree design on the cover and music soothing to match. There are only 2 confirmed copies of the original cassette, one of them was used in the restoration and revival of this classic new age album. 

Five years after the New Age cult-classic album Music For Massage hit the shelves, it’s sequel was silently released. Never intended for consumer sale, Music For Massage II was only known to a select few masseuses and tape collectors. The very definition of esoteric. Musically, it’s both an homage to how far the genre had come in those five years and served as a predictor of what was to come. Comprising elements of Folk, Drone, Ambient, Ethereal, Minimal, Modern Classical, the recording is quintessential of all things New Age. These are sounds meant to induce healing, therapy, and relaxation. Hand crafted by Ric Kaestner and inspired in part by an encounter with one of the fathers of modern music, John Cage, for actual massage or for casual listening, it holds its own almost four decades later. 
 

Ritmiche Italiane transports the listeners through an anomaly in the fabric of musical space-time, connecting the distant past with the modern era and the plains of a lost continent with the cities of the Italian peninsula. The artists featured in the compilation strongly believed in the absence of barriers and conventions between genres, fully able to effortlessly put together West-African influences, World music, Jazz and crime movie soundtracks to achieve a boundless, meditative and hypnotic kind of music that still feels relevant today.

Pacific Rhythm is elated to present a grounding offering from Oakland's Space Ghost entitled Private Paradise as our first release of 2022. The LP is an ode to Space Ghost's time spent at Sea Ranch on the Northern California coast, a place he and his partner visit to refresh their spirit and regain optimism and enthusiasm for the outside world. Private Paradise possesses a rare ability to restore, rejuvenate, and inspire through each listen and is something we've only grown more and more fond of during the unforeseen complications we encountered during its release over the past two years. It's a piece of music that feels like a perfect nod to where we've been musically for the past 8 years and where we see ourselves heading in the future. Deep, contemplative, and uplifting audio that compels its listeners to focus on the positive forces in the world and the power of being present in a moment.

There isn’t much to go on other than the soundscapes when it comes to Civilistjävel! What is rumoured to be a figment of the pre-internet era tapping into a similar consciousness as Biosphere, Chain Reaction or early Fax +49-69/450464 is ultimately left up to second guessing. For the average listener crossing paths with the project, a steady run of small-run, minimally packaged LPs has cemented Civilistjävel! as a leading force in the dub techno/glacial drone scene of present. However niche that may sound, this collection of tracks for Perko’s new FELT imprint navigates the same territories as the previous outings but with the folkloric tag “Iron Night” to help guide our ears. A Swedish expression for long nights of frost that damage plants and crops, the spectral and foreboding atmosphere of the opening cut already hints at the direction of the album. Combining dense ambient synth layers with hard to place industrial motifs (sometimes in rhythm, sometimes chaotically arranged) are what Civilistjävel! does best, indeed Järnnätter unfolds as a piece of work you can really spend time with. At points it feels as if the machines in some old factory complex have spluttered back to life through some unknown force and have begun to sing to one another. Other times the atmosphere is akin to a hydrophone placed deep into an ice-covered lake and the synthetic pulses of ‘A2’ are the only vaguely human touch. However, the sparse melodic flourishes across the record stem from an interest in psalms and early Swedish folk music, the juxtaposition of machine-led intuition and personable studiousness adding a hidden depth to the album.