MUSIC

olina project emerged at a time when CDJs became standard in clubs and artists from many disciplines began exploring their possibilities. In Lolina’s records and performances, they are used as a live sampling tool allowing her to move between composition and improvisation. On “Fast Fashion”, discarded vocal takes and phone recordings made while watching videos online or walking down the street are re-sampled across long-form collages. “Mark Ronson’s TED Talk Intro (Using Computer Remix)”, restyles a lecture about sampling and constructed of samples into a track that can’t be contained by any of its elements. Relaxed beats break down into stuttering, jokes turn into abstract situations, and meaning is altered through repetition. With transitions between different parts defining the listening experience, “Fast Fashion” reveals a process by which one thing can be changed into another. “Fast Fashion” is Lolina’s fifth album and first working with Deathbomb Arc. Digital to be released on Oct 27th with vinyl to follow in early 2022 ~ both on pre-sale now. Lolina previously released music as Inga Copeland and was a member of the band Hype Williams between 2009 — 2013.

Having worked with the likes of D.K., J.Tripp, Wojciech Rusin, FUMU, U, Best Available Technology, Grim Lusk, Mars89 and many more to create two sell-out cassettes as 'O. G. Jigg & Friends', the experimental, neo-medieval O. G. Jigg offer their first solo outing. Previously exploring early music and more traditional folk arrangements, Jigg has now composed a contemporary suite, albeit one that seems to have slipped back into a more recent past. Drawing clear influence from post-war classical and the effect it had on soundtrack composition during the 60's and 70's, O. G. Jigg has composed what sounds like the lost OST for a 1970's BBC earth mysteries drama that would have been aired just before children went to bed — early enough to tempt a few, who would have no doubt had to recover from nightmares of spirits rising from stone-circles across rural England. A quote from Malvern Brume encapsulates this feeling nicely; "Makes me think of what I wish the music for 'Children of the Stones' had actually been like. It's bloody wicked!" The music is written for a small orchestral ensemble, often focusing on the woodwind section, using the balance between dissonant and consonant to create an uneasy undertone — even in the sweetest melodic sections. There are definitely more thematic structures in the music than heard on previous releases — sometimes even through the tropes of the aforementioned 60's & 70's era of television and cinema — but it's never overdone. The album helps to ease the listener's mind out of the city and into the landscapes of rolling hills and overgrown and tumbled-down chapels, probing the topographical resonance of stone circles and other prehistoric monuments of the British countryside. This record marks the first release on Will Yates' new 'Earth Memory Recordings' label. A project focusing on psychogeographical recordings and artists exploring global folklore through the sonic medium. This first album is being released in partnership with Tokyo-based label Diskotopia, long-time supporters of Will's own music as 'Memotone'. The record has been beautifully mastered by Seance Centre boss, Brandon Hocura.

For the past 10 years, it has been a sacred place that has expanded the horizon of the underground scene in Copenhagen, Denmark, to the world, and defines one of the current experimental lifelines represented by and . A new catalog of the sacred place , which depicts the shoegaze sound of a new era that is a prestigious and prestigious spectacle of the beauty of nonexistent things, is in stock at once! !! 2022 by CTM, an experimental pop project that is also known as Posh's work with Croatian Amor, Varg² ™, Frederik Valentin & Loke Rahbek, and is a major authority in the Danish music world. The latest album "Babygirl" of the year is released in analog form. Produced by Holger Hartvig, Malthe Fischer and Cæcilie Trier. An ambitious work by gorgeous people such as Ydegirl, Coco O., Johan S. Wieth (Iceage), ML Buch, Jakob Littauer (Yangze), Emil Elg, Claus Haxholm, who were in charge of vocals and instruments. Containing years of recording and composition fragments, this work is positioned as a musical platform that incorporates many voice expressions, relationships and time. An ethereal and avant-garde daydreaming electronic music piece that floats melancholic between light and dark shadows! Mastering specifications by Malthe Fischer.

Absolutely deadly showcase of Wolof drumming patterns invented by legendary Senegalese griot, Doudou Nidiaye Rose - a 100% must-check for fans of West African percussion and Mark Ernestus’ Ndagga Rhythm Force! Top shelf Honest Jon’s tackle, this; 21 swingeingly tight performances by an extended griot family, of the eponymous dynamo’s intricately expressive, meter bending tekkerz. Spanning the decades-old theme tune of Senegalese TV national news, ‘Hibar Yi’ (‘Passing on Information’), thru to the signature rhythm of Senegal’s first ever all-female percussion group, Les Rosettes, it’s a uniquely engaging dedication to the legacy of Doudou Nidiaye Rose, the dynamic griot drummer who developed a system of some 500 original drumming patterns which endure to this day. Performed in the mystical settings of Lac Rose - named for its pink waters (a result of algae blooms and high salinity) - the ‘Twenty-One Sabar Rhythms’ invite us to marvel and, more importantly, dance, to a range of Doudou’s original compositions, as well as important traditional rhythms known to every Sabar player. Beautifully recorded, sans overdubs, with the tuned drums fiercely upfront, while subtly incorporating atmospheric sounds of Lac Rose, the set ideally speaks to the inimitable richness of West African drum communications, and their application in everything from courtship rituals (‘Farwu Jar’) to harvest celebrations (‘Gumbé’), often with a breathtaking sense of joy and energy that simply has to be experienced to be understood. Fair to say that our relationship with this music stems form Mark Ernestus’ endeavours showcasing Ndagga Rhytym Force to the Western world (their show at Mcr’s Band on the Wall still gives us the shivers) and we suspect that if you, too, witnessed one, you’ve already clicked the buy button. But if not, and you’ve got an ounce of bounce in dem bones, The Doudou Ndiaye Rose Family’s thrilling throwdown will utterly light up your life, and make you dance 100% better. Ayayayayaya this is IT! In process of stocking.* Magnificent Wolof drum music, performed by an extended griot family over seven consecutive days, in the mystical setting of Lac Rose, outside Dakar. Doudou Ndiaye Rose — who died in 2015 — is a key drummer in the musical history of the world. He developed a system of five hundred original drumming patterns, ancient and new. Amongst the modern rhythms here is Bench Mi — 'under the Baobab tree,' a spot where where problems get solved. Also Hibar Yi — 'passing on information' — the theme-tune of Senegalese TV national news for decades — and Les Rosettes, the signature rhythm of Senegal's first ever all-female percussion group, convened by Doudou, and named after his grandmother. These original compositions sit alongside important traditional rhythms, familiar to every Sabar player, such as Farwu Jar (a courtship game sometimes resulting in a wedding), Ceebu Jin (also the name of the national dish of fish and rice), and Gumbé, often played after a successful harvest. Recorded in joyful single takes, with no overdubs, mastered by Rashad Becker, the music is deep and thrilling, polyrhythmic to the bone, with a complex, pointillistic intensity at times evoking Jeff Mills in full flight.

This is the first release in a series of albums on Smalltown Supersound with Norwegian freeform pianist Anja Lauvdal. On All My Clothes Lauvdal teamed up with her friend, the reclusive and now retired (?) Norwegian drummer Joakim Heibø for a session in the great tradition of piano and drums at Flerbruket Studios at Hemnes outside of Oslo. The result is 4 untitled tracks and 42 minutes of spontaneous compositions and melancholic ecstacy - and one of the strongest statements in the label's 20+ years history of releasing free-music. Fun fact: Anja Lauvdal is from the small town Flekkefjord in the south of Norway where Smalltown Supersound were founded - and from the age of 12 she was following the label's free jazz output - so it is really something of a full circle when she now debuts on Smalltown Supersound with a free jazz album. Anja Lauvdal (born 1987) has collaborated with Jenny Hval (both live and on records), Hamid Drake, William Parker as well as members of The Necks. This is the first release under her own name. Recently Lauvdal compiled a double album of Norwegian improvised music titled Frijazz mot rasisme (Free Jazz against Racism). She also runs Oslo’s festival for improvised music All Ears that takes place at the Munch Museum in Oslo. All My Clothes was recorded by Magnus Nergaard. Mixed and mastered by Lasse Marhaug. Artwork by Kim Hiorthøy.

Nurse With Wound List! Théâtre du Chêne Noir d'Avignon, a French avant-garde group founded in the late '60s by Gérard Gelas, a multi-instrumentalist and actor who plays everything from gongs to synths, drums and organ, released a rare 1971 album on Futura Records, an avant-garde jazz label known for its work with Sahib Shihab, Jacques Thollot and Steve Lacy. This is an official reissue from SouffleContinu, a prestigious label that digs up the life of the French avant-garde, from domestic progressive rock to the niche works of Saravah. The first album was recorded on June 22/23, 1971 at the chapel of the same name in Avignon, southern France (Steve Lacy recorded "Solo" there the following year). It's breathtaking to hear the horrible sounds. With a composition that is liturgical and imaginative, reminiscent of paganism and black magic, the saxophone, flute, electric guitar, percussion, and enigmatic French narratives and cries are intertwined, instantly transforming the sound field into another world. Remastered from the master tape. With an obi. Officially licensed by Futura Records.

"Here, the chicken sings better than anyone" Miguel Tomasin We are extremely happy to present to you the second volume of the explosive collaboration between two legendary collectives of the ecstatic music underground. In 2017 Kawabata Makoto and his Acid Mothers Temple embarked on an extensive tour of South America. During the tour they carved out time to record and play shows with Argentine 'disembodied' music provocateurs Reynols and the results of these improvised sessions are a unique and exhilarating leap into the infinite...ecstatic, shamanic, truly free psychedelic music, beyond language and beyond all rational thought.

A bit of a dream come true; Keith Fullerton Whitman effectively does dub jazz concrète on a deeply rewarding longform session placing him somewhere in the vicinity of Porter Ricks, Laurie Spiegel, early Vladislav Delay x Jim O’Rourke in vaporous mode. The second in a limited edition three-part series for Japan’s NAKID label. After unravelling our minds and tendons with a flux of polymetric footwork experiments on the recent first part, KFW returns with a properly eye-watering second volume containing perhaps the most captivating material we’ve heard from him in two decades. Extracted from a fathomless archive of recordings made over the past 12 years of practice with his Generators set-up (as first found on the seminal ‘Disingenuity / Disingenuousness’, and ‘Generator’ sides in 2010), these durational works, like his previous set, find him in dialogue with his system, but this time with notably deeper results; unfolding 50 minutes of introspective, highly evocative beat-less turbulence split over two extended sides. Again, Whitman is present but only makes the most minimal, intermittent adjustments to his system in-the-moment, allowing the algorithm to flex and morph its code in gloriously ribboning forms. For almost an hour (that could go on twice as long and not lose our interest), he generates a jaw-dropping swell of gritty brownian motion and reverberating dub chords, accreting the sounds of distant trains, planes overhead, and flickering spiritual jazz notes in its pitching and shearing elemental nature. As far as we can recall it’s the most sensuous and uncannily emotive piece we’ve ever heard from him, highly immersive - and a certified instant classic in our book. Stunning.

Masayuki Takayanagi was one of the truly iconoclastic musicians to emerge from Japan, or anywhere else, in the 20th Century. Though he won acclaim in the 1950s and '60s as a master of the electric guitar and jazz improvisation, Takayanagi was a restless spirit, deeply engaged with the era's new movements in contemporary art, music, literature, and philosophy. His work, beginning in the late 1960s placed him on the leading edge of these developments; he began expanding on the most radical elements of American and European free jazz, infusing them with the raw feedback and dissonance of electronic and avant-garde music. With his various New Direction groups, Takayanagi broke free of traditional structures and developed a new theory of music that embraced an aggressive and unrelenting style of playing that has remained almost completely unparalleled in its ferocity. Of all the albums to be released during Takayanagi's lifetime, 1975's Eclipse was perhaps the most enigmatic and sought after. Released in an edition of only 100, it almost immediately disappeared and became a holy grail for Japanese connoisseurs of adventurous music, and rightly so. It's first side contained a two-part realization of Takayanagi's "Gradually Projection" modality -- a searching interplay between instruments -- slowly emerging from a sparse open field and building with the tension of a looming thunder storm. The second side contains an epic performance of a "Mass Projection", a high energy, densely layered barrage of sound that in its 25 minutes, never once slackens its intensity. It would be another 31 years before this key album in Takayangi's oeuvre would finally have a (slightly) wider audience through a CD release by Japan's P.S.F. Records. Black Editions present a deluxe vinyl edition of this masterwork, revealingly remastered from the original tapes by Elysian Masters. The album is packaged in a heavy double tip-on gatefold jacket that pays tribute to the original handmade packaging and features a previously unseen studio photograph of Takayanagi by Tatsuo Minami. Recorded in Tokyo, March 14, 1975. Engineer: Mikio Aoki. Cover, photographs and design by Kazuharu Fujitani. Gatefold photograph by Tatsuo Minami. Insert Notes by Yasunori Saito. Produced by Satoru Obara, Yoshiaki Kamei, Nihon Gendai Jazz Ongaku Kenkyukai. Originally released in an edition of 100 by ISKRA Records, Japan in 1975. Remastered from the original master tapes by Dave Cooley, Elysian Masters, and produced by Peter Kolovos. Deluxe heavy tip-on gatefold LP with matte black paper, second tipped-on metallic gold wrap and insert.

2 rare historical recordings (1983 and 1986) originally released as single sides and gathered here for the first time. "Conductor might be my favourite composition and Life & Death Of Pboc might be my most sincere. Conductor was my first composed piece with no obvious reference points ... Life & Death Of Pboc was the second. these two compositions gave me the title Godfather of Dark Ambient."

Silvia Tarozzi and Deborah Walker have emerged as one of the most interesting duos in contemporary improvised music. First introduced to Unseen Worlds through their performance on the Philip Corner recording "Extreemizms: early & late", Tarozzi and Walker elevated recent recordings, Eliane Radigue "Occam Ocean 3", Pascal Criton "Infra", and Tarozzi’s own "Mi specchio e rifletto" to greatness. Their finely tuned sound makes even the most adventurous tones compelling. With "Canti di guerra, di lavoro e d‘amore" the duo add folk music to their contemporary classical and improvised music roots, reinterpreting songs from their youth in rural Emilia that originated from the emancipation of working class women and the partisan Resistance in World War II, especially ones sung by choirs of female rice field workers, called Mondine or Mondariso. Their songs tell a story of hard, poorly paid work, love, the hypocrisy of society, protests, war, the challenge of working far from home, the violence of oppression and the need for political awareness. Following years of incorporating, reinventing, and transforming these songs within their practice, Tarozzi and Walker unlock emotional territory where their relationship with Emilia resonates in concert with other sounds and places.

Another Timbre releases a new CD by Barbara Monk Feldman, wife of American avant-garde music legend Morton Feldman, featuring five chamber and solo pieces composed between 1988 and 1997. Performed by the "GBSR Duo" consisting of George Barton & Siwan Rhys and Mira Benjamin from Apartment House! This is a fantastic chamber music piece that envelops you in a very ethereal tranquility.

TIZIANO POPOLI - Sull’accordo mimetico
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SV30 / 1st time on LP Limited edition. Side A: 1. Sull’accordo mimetico - Parte 1 (28:00) Side B: 1. Sull’accordo mimetico - Parte 2 (28:00) Total time: 57 minutes Tiziano Popoli: Yamaha Dx7 synth, Korg MS1O-MS50 synth, Akai S900 sampler, tapes, FX.

 Recorded at home on Teac A 3440 4 tracks tape recorder, mixed on Revox 2 tracks. Sull’Accordo Mimetico (On the Mimetic Chord) dates back to the end of the 80’s. It was commissioned by the artistic director of the ParcoScenico Festival, held in Treviso, Italy. Since the area where artists and the public gathered after the Festival was located to a very busy street, Marco asked me for a sound installation that could work as some sort of a defensive barrier for the street noise. I suggested that my work, rather than hiding the noise, should aim to harmonize the disturbances coming from the street within musical structures and forms, without burdening or saturating too much the acoustic spectrum of the place. In this way, I thought about sonic veils, consisting of repetitive – but also light and discreet – harmonic-rhythmic structures. Since the Festival took place in a beautiful centenary park, I also integrated the music with natural sounds and animal calls, always as an attempt to bridge these sound events and the other materials that made up the composition. The human voice constitutes a central element in this musique d'ameublement project, as a constant source of memory of places and times – here with many references to traditional music for children. A pearl of ambient electroacoustic minimalism with field recordings components in which the nostalgia of Maestro Tiziano Popoli shines through in painting landscapes that slowly change to be seen with the ears. Nocturnal, emblematic, Lynchian.

After the 1974 release of The End...the magnetic and controversial Warhol muse went on a fruitful partnership with French director Philippe Garrel, for almost seven films. Back in New York in 1979 she started to perform again live, appearing firstly at the CBGB with John Cale and musical partner Lutz Ulbrich (former guitarist of Agitation Free and Ash Ra Tempel)... Back in France, she met young and talented Corsican bassist Philippe Quilichini who produced her comeback, Drama of Exile, in 1981. The album was released twice, in two different versions. Hereby we present the second, appearing in 1983, after a legal controversy was settled with Aura Records that released the first issue. While the first press was a 9-track offering, this second issue excludes "Purple Lips" but adds the tracks "Saeta" and "Vegas" released on a 7″ single in 1981. For this album, Nico recorded covers of the Velvet Underground's "I'm Waiting for the Man" and David Bowie's "Heroes".

In 1979 "punk" music was all the rage. The Residents had gone though the punk stage three years earlier were ready for anything that was not punk. When it was finally released Eskimo was a hit, both in sales and in reviews. The album tells the story, without words, of the assimilation of a ritualistic society into consumer culture. This story unfolds as Eskimo fables set to the grinding of sound effects and music. Eskimo is, quite literally, a unique experience.

Recorded live at Morden Tower, Newcastle-upon-Tyne 8th. June, 1983. Originally released together with Changez Les Blockeurs as part of a 2LP box set, has since been released as a single LP. Limited edition of 349 hand-numbered copies.

Recorded from 1984 to 1986, The Impossible Humane is the sole album from The New Blockaders side project Mixed Band Philanthropist. Originally released on the German Selektion label in 1987 and impossible to find nowadays, Staubgold makes this rare gem of industrial-goes-musique concrète available again in a strictly limited edition of 400 copies. Furthermore, the reissue contains two bonus tracks taken from the 7" single The Man Who Mistook a Real Woman for His Muse and Acted Accordingly. The album is assembled of exclusive source material by the who's-who of the industrial music scene of the time, including contributions from Nurse With Wound, Organum, Andrew Chalk, The New Blockaders, Etant Donnes, H.N.A.S., P16.D4, Asmus Tietchens, Controlled Bleeding, Smegma, Merzbow, and many more. "A classic chunk of destroyed concrète. Assembled from a variety of musical and spoken sources, this is a nonstop barrage of genius. Filled with headsnapping changes, sexual innuendo and general confusion, it's a totally great listening experience," said The Wire. Idwal Fisher wrote: "This car-crash tape collage still stands today as one of the best examples of the genre. Its perpetual barrage of split-second samples are a dizzying mess of '60s pop songs, scrapes, industrial whirr, uncategorizeable racket, ghostly voices, electronic beebles and burrs, sped-up records, tape whizz, machine rumble, snatches of reggae, bucket damage, kazoo farts, disco spots and about three-thousand or more (I'm guessing) other samples that really shouldn't work, but, by some sleight of hand or genius, actually do. On paper, snatches of steel bands shouldn't be found on the same side of tape as Geordie MCs, Michael Jackson, pneumatic drills, early Merzbow and '50s doo wop, but here they are and it works. Totally. Then comes the added bonus of being able to listen to this to the point of ad nauseam, mainly due to the fact that there are so few reference points that every listen brings something new."

The Music of the Lamista Kechwas: Recordings of Native Communities of Lamas The Music of the Lamista Kechwas: Recordings of Native Communities of Lamas compiles various recordings made by Los Abuelos del Wayku, a traditional group made up of the oldest musicians from the native communities of Lamas: Medardo Cachique, Reynaldo Amasifuén, Misael Amasifuén, Daniel Sangama, Remigio Sangama and Pedro Cachique. The selection and recording process has been carried out by the Tarapoto musician and researcher Percy Alexander Flores Navarro. These performances seek to recreate the most indigenous musical performance styles of the various musical genres practiced throughout the Lamista Kechwa nation since colonial times, as well as the foreign and national musical trends incorporated by these communities during the first half of the 20th century. Thus, this album aims to be a chronicle of the historical processes that took place in the region, as well as a guide to the cultural diversity of the Peruvian Amazon. Some of the musical genres present in these recordings are: the Christmas Carol brought by the Jesuit missionaries during the 16th century; the Amazonian pandilla and the various musical forms that comprise it since colonial times; the marinera, adapted to the Andean-Amazonian ensemble at the beginning of the 20th century; rock and roll, which was reinterpreted as the Lamista twist in the middle of the last century, and many other musical genres that constitute the repertoire of traditional and popular music of the native communities of Lamas. After the success of the anthology The Fabulous Sound of Andrés Vargas Pinedo, and the launch of the anthology Around the Húmisha: The music of the traditional Amazonian groups of Peru, Buh Records presents this new volume, dedicated to the music of the native communities of Lamas, and this time with the launch of a collection and platform called Central Amazónica, which will be dedicated exclusively to the rescue of various musical expressions of the Peruvian Amazon. This album is released on vinyl LP format, with extensive information and visual documentation. Compilation and notes by Percy Alexander Flores Navarro. Art by René Sánchez. This album is possible thanks to the Proyecto Especial Bicentenario fund

Edition of 180 copies in digipack. First official re-issue. The New Vortex Blockaders Compaign was released on tape in 1984 and was bootlegged on LP in 1998. Both editions are now sought after collectors items. This release went down in noise history as a big classic, and is now reissued, in nice remastered form. 'Extreme, nihilistic Musique Concrete which creates unrelenting walls of sound... Images of chaos, collapse and extreme violence dominate.' Aeon 'This will rip your face off and wear it as a mask!' CMS Foundation

The influence Steve Reich had on contemporary music can hardly be put into words. As one of the great innovators, he started playing around with tape loops and created rhythmic and tonal effects while recording the sounds of rain, it formed the basis of his ambitious project called " It's Gonna Rain". The great depth and complexity make this an outstanding song in his repertoire - an incredible tape loop piece that starts with the words of a gospel preacher, then takes a snippet ("it's gonna rain") and repeats it over and over itself, endlessly looping, and messing with the words and tones as it goes in and out of phase. Incredible stuff – and far more revolutionary than a lot of Reich's later work. The A-side of the LP contains “Violin Phase”, featuring Paul Zukofsky. This masterpiece in minimalist music is grand and epic. The two pieces were recorded live together under the title Live/Electric Music.

There’s a lived-in quality to the sound of Racine’s Amitiés. Named after the French word for friendship, the Montréal-based Quebecois artist follows an extended time spent indoors to contemplate what it means to be isolated and in one’s own body, while also staying connected. The album is a follow-up of sorts to Quelque chose tombe (“Something Falls”), released in February 2020 and a kind of accidental prophecy for the crisis that was to come. Amitiés disintegrates before your very eyes. Opening with a roughshod iPhone recording of Racine playing his parent’s harmonium, the creaky acoustics of "Mon amour je ne guéris jamais" slowly degrade into digital simulations of dreadful organic beauty. That track and the rest of the LP gives the feeling of an abandoned building; a sense of frayed, earthiness dusted with the wisdom of time. And yet, it’s almost entirely made from simulations. Clipped Native Instruments violin patches punctuate the churning atmospherics of “Arête coincée dans une amygdale”. The lonely gongs and bells of “Grosso” resonate in a gust of synthesised ambient. Vocal plugins and the very occasional YouTube samples of a recorded voice are sped-up, glitched, pitched and scrambled into indecipherability. These vocal apparitions rise and fall into the sonic ether like individual ghosts of human contact. They’re bold and expressive, deeply melancholy and yet full of the potential for joy and an awareness of life’s beauty. It’s in this dearth of social interaction—the heady psychosis of too much solitude—that Amitiés’s tone and mood lies. A score for the numb dissociation from internal chaos and alienation, the album’s sense of acute distress is assuaged only by the small network of collaborators and influences it draws from. Long-time friend and peer Justin Leduc-Frenette (aka Keru Not Ever) contributes drum programming to “Mon amour je ne guéris jamais”. A last-minute reworking of the untitled “Sans titre” by German duo Arigto matches the weight and timbre of Racine’s sooty post-classical soundscapes. Ultimately, Amitiés is a very human response to an inhuman environment. It’s an intimate homage to friends and the mysterious effects of distance, while somehow finding healing in hardship.

Like a rediscovered Viking burial ship, Electro Nova compiles near-mythical drone recordings produced in 1998 and described by Helge Sten aka Deathprod as some of the most important music to ever come out of Norway. It's the work of Kåre Dehlie Thorstad and compiles two of the earliest releases on Smalltown Supersound, back when it was basically no more than a bedroom operation. It’s taken over two decades, but finally the label have given the material a first ever proper release on vinyl, complete with mixing and mastering by Deathprod. If you’re into the ice cold swells of anyone from Thomas Köner to Harley Gaber, Biosphere, Kali Malone or, of course, Deathprod - this one's as essential as they come. Kaare Dehlie Thorstad's Elektro Nova produced just two releases during the late ‘90s that have since slipped into drone lore - Trans-Inter-Ference and Elektro Nova/Electro Nova. Admired not only by Deathprod and Joakim Haugland of Smalltown, but also by his contemporaries Lasse Marhaug and Biosphere, his work has evaded pretty much any attention outside of Norway these last two decades. Following a chance meeting with Thorstad at Oslo airport a few years back, Smalltown were prompted to give the recordings a second wind, presenting what is essentially a captivating new release, and crucial addition to the Norsk drone canon. As the story goes, Thorstad was studying photography in the late 90’s in Scotland, but instead of delivering a photo for his final exam he made a record - a double album (2CDs) and a 10” to be precise. That should provide some idea of the textural synaesthetic and landscaping qualities evoked by his music, which he ended up sending to a then-young Smalltown label, who were mostly issuing tapes at the time. With no proper distribution the records largely bypassed wider attention, and become a personal favourite of Smalltown’s Joakim Haugland, as well as avowed fan Helge Sten (Deathprod), who helped render its diaphanous scale in mix down, and Lasse Marhaug who describes them as "two perfect records that deserved much bigger attention”. Between its jaw-dropping opener; the post-apocalyptic vision of its untitled part; and the cinematic white-out of the 10” tracks; Thorstad comes as close as we’ve ever heard to evoking the inhospitable nature and stark beauty of the wild far north. We can hear those landscapes palpably internalised and alchemically transmuted into its coarse grained textural swells and a reverberating multi-dimensionality, variously sustained to extents that evoke an abandonment of the senses, or likewise squashed and isolated to imply the relative anxiety relief of atmospheric flux, where a few degrees temperature rise or a drop in the wind speed can make the difference between life and death. Impressively, Thorstad realised after the release of Elektro Nova and just two live shows that he couldn’t really follow up the work and instead pursued a career as professional cyclist, eventually combining his visual skills to become a pro cycling photographer. In that sense, he’s a bit like composer-turned-tennis coach Harley Gaber, whose almighty ‘The Winds Rise In The North’ (1976) is in some ways richly prescient of this work. Like Gaber, Thorstad can remain safe in the knowledge that his contribution to the drone sphere will endure for the ages, especially with this important, impressive new edition.

Evan Parker, Derek Bailey, Hugh Davies & Jamie Muir's pointillistic classic as The Music Improvisation Company is the latest in Honest Jon's righteous Incus reissue programme, out now in a handsome gatefold 2LP edition. "Though music journalists made a big deal recently about the release of a 1965 rehearsal tape by Derek Bailey’s Joseph Holbrooke trio with Gavin Bryars and Tony Oxley, those early efforts were mere tentative steps along a cliff edge wearing a line safely attached to Coltrane. There’s still a whiff of jazz to Bailey and Parker’s work with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble up to and including 1968’s Karyobin. But with the addition of Jamie Muir — the first great free improvising percussionist who didn’t start out as a jazz drummer — and the way-leftfield electronics of Hugh Davies, the MIC leapt right off that cliff. These six tracks — tight, electric, pointillistic, brilliant, uncompromising and exhilarating — sound like nothing else that came before. In a word, seminal. "The original concepts of vocal and instrumental music are utterly different. The instrumental impulse is not melody in a 'melodious' sense but an agile movement of the hands which seem to be under the control of a brain centre totally different from that which inspires vocal melody. Altogether, instrumental music, with the exception of rudimentary rhythmic percussion, is as a rule a florid, fast and brilliant display of virtuosity... Quick motion is not merely a means to a musical end but almost an end in itself which always connects with the fingers, the wrists and the whole of the body. "The inclusion of the above passage from Curt Sachs' The Wellsprings of Music with this album, the recording of which predates the Music Improvisation Company's only other release, the eponymous ECM outing, indicates a clear intention to stake out territory for European Free Improvisation markedly different from that of the (American) Free Jazz it sprang from. The African-American heritage that led to jazz was melodious, vocal, field holler / church-inflected, and the Germans and the Dutch never made any secret of their affection for it, but British free improvisers in the late 1960s were looking elsewhere. Even so, and though the music press made a big deal a while back about the release of a 1965 rehearsal tape by Derek Bailey's earlier Joseph Holbrooke trio (with Gavin Bryars and Tony Oxley), their early efforts were mere tentative steps along a cliff edge wearing a line safely attached to Coltrane, and there's still a faint but distinct aftertaste of jazz in Bailey and Parker's work with the Spontaneous Music Ensemble up to and including 1968's Karyobin. But with the addition of Jamie Muir - the first great free improvising percussionist who didn't start out as a jazz drummer - and Hugh Davies and his electronics from way out leftfield in the avant garde / experimental world, the MIC leapt right off that cliff. As Nina Hagen screamed later, "1968 is over! Future is Now!" These six tracks – tight, electric, pointillistic, brilliant, uncompromising and exhilarating – sound like nothing else that came before. In a word, seminal."

Nowadays Arica exists only as the ¡ÆArica Institute¡Ç, a school of spiritual development formed and led by Chilean mystic Oscar Ichazo¡Ähowever, the collective also produced several musical albums in the US (presumably to increase awareness of the school), this resulted in the release of four totally eclectic masterpieces: Arica & Audition (1972), Heaven (1973) and Music In The Nine Rings (2002). ​ Both the Arica school and its musical output had a big influence on some of the most creative minds amongst us, for example: prior to making his film The Holy Mountain, Alejandro Jodorowsky met Ichazo and became intrigued enough by his techniques – essentially a potent blending of esoteric knowledge and methods from around the world – to not only go through the initial intensive course of Arica mind expansion and training but to require the same of the entire cast and crew for the film. This undoubtedly affected the whole movie, and it seems strange that Arica¡Çs music was not used for the soundtrack, an Arica soundtrack could have been pure magic all the way through. ​ The Arica album we are proudly presenting you today (Heaven from 1973) is a total must-have in any collection (originally released on the Just Sunshine Records label in 1973 that was responsible for putting out milestone albums from the likes of Betty Davis, Karen Dalton and Norman Feels). Here on these recordings, you¡Çll find ten tracks that will blow your mind and open your spiritual doors! ​ Heaven has it all¡Äomming drones interchanged with upbeat percussion, acoustic and funky basslines intertwining the melodious threads. The album is full of deep meditational grooves meeting all kinds of polyrhythmic free jazz vibes, atonal keyboards and avant-garde soul-jazz sounds. The unhurried improvisations and subtle manipulation of musical tension makes Heaven an immersive, psychedelic and spiritual masterpiece with a jazz sensibility in its overall structure. The superb use of the sitar and the hypnotic percussion gives it that great cosmic touch that reminds of Alice Coltrane¡Çs work. ​ The whole album was recorded on a midsummer night in NYC¡Äone hundred Arica members, musicians and dancers all gathered at the legendary Electric Lady Studio (home to Jimy Hendrix) and played until dawn. The names of the musicians involved were not given on the record sleeves, credited simply to ¡ÆThe Arica Musicians¡Ç. In a way, though, this mystery suits the remarkable music contained within these resultant grooves – timeless sounds that could have been conjured from and played by the very spirits of the Earth¡Äall this accompanied by notes in the gatefold jacket to guide the listener though his sonic voyage. ​ Tidal Waves Music now proudly presents the first ever vinyl reissue of this fantastic album (originally released in 1973 on Just Sunshine Records). This rare record (original copies tend to go for large amounts on the secondary market) is now finally back available as a limited 180g vinyl edition (500 copies) and comes packaged in a gatefold jacket complete with the original 1973 artwork, photographs and liner notes ​