MUSIC

Volume 6 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" intensifies the avant-garde auditory experience pioneered by its predecessors through Merzbow’s masterful exploration of noise. This edition features three meticulously crafted tracks—"Ripples On The Water," "In Solitude," and "Deep In The Heart"—that unveil a rich tapestry of tonal complexity and dynamic interplay. The intricate soundscapes fuse avant-garde noise techniques with contemporary artistic vision, drawing listeners into profound auditory realms where every tone and nuance captivates. This remarkable voyage unfolds with unexpected twists, pushing the limits of musical conventions and embracing noise as a transformative and expressive force in art.

This limited release is elegantly presented in a finely crafted birch box, and each hand-numbered copy bestows a unique sense of ownership and value. Every aspect has been painstakingly curated to augment and elevate the auditory experience, from the exquisite exterior finish to the thoughtfully organized interior, ensuring an impeccable presentation. The CD is housed within a mini-LP replica featuring an inner sleeve that amplifies the overall aesthetic.

Additionally, two inserts printed on 300g white Fedrigoni paper contribute to the luxurious allure of the packaging. Together, the auditory pieces and their exquisite packaging create a multisensory masterpiece destined to resonate in memo

Volume 5 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" amplifies the groundbreaking auditory journey established by its predecessors through Merzbow’s exceptional manipulation of noise. This edition showcases three meticulously crafted tracks—"The Bell Tolls," "Flow Of Time," and "Distant Mountains"—that uncover a rich landscape of tonal intricacy and dynamic resonance. The soundscapes interweave experimental noise techniques with a fresh artistic approach, transporting listeners into mesmerizing auditory realms where each sound and subtle variation captivates the imagination. This remarkable journey unfolds with unforeseen discoveries, breaking free from conventional musical frameworks and highlighting noise as a crucial and expressive element of contemporary artistry.

This limited release is elegantly presented in a finely crafted birch box, and each hand-numbered copy bestows a unique sense of ownership and value. Every aspect has been painstakingly curated to augment and elevate the auditory experience, from the exquisite exterior finish to the thoughtfully organized interior, ensuring an impeccable presentation. The CD is housed within a mini-LP replica featuring an inner sleeve that amplifies the overall aesthetic.

Additionally, two inserts printed on 300g white Fedrigoni paper contribute to the luxurious allure of the packaging. Together, the auditory pieces and their exquisite packaging create a multisensory masterpiece destined to resonate in memory and enhance the collections of dedicated enthusiasts.

Volume 4 of Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance takes the listening experience introduced by its predecessors to new heights, pushing the boundaries of sonic experimentation even further. This volume features three intricately crafted tracks that explore a diverse range of tones and dynamic interactions, seamlessly weaving together the traditions of sound with cutting-edge artistic concepts. The immersive soundscapes invite listeners into rich auditory worlds where each hue, echo, and resonance engages them on both sensory and emotional levels. The innovative dynamics and rhythmic explorations create a captivating journey filled with unexpected twists and nuanced discoveries, honoring and expanding upon Japanese traditional musical roots.This limited edition is elegantly encased in a skillfully crafted birch box, with each hand-numbered copy enhancing ownership with a unique sense of value. Every detail has been meticulously considered to complement and elevate the listening experience, from the refined exterior finish to the thoughtfully arranged interior, ensuring a flawless presentation. The CD is housed in a mini-LP replica with an inner sleeve, further enhancing the aesthetic. Additionally, there are two inserts printed on 300g white Fedrigoni paper, adding to the overall luxurious feel of the package. Together, the auditory tracks and packaging create a multisensory work that is destined to linger in memory and enrich the archives of passionate collectors.

Volume 3 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" enhances the listening experience created by its predecessors by exploring new depths in sonic experimentation. This volume features three carefully crafted tracks that showcase a wider range of tonal richness and dynamic interplay. The intricate textures blend the history of sound with modern artistic ideas. As the soundscapes unfold, they invite listeners into vibrant auditory environments where each distinct hue, echo, and resonance encourages a sensory and emotional connection. The engaging dynamics and creative rhythms set the scene for a captivating journey filled with surprises and hidden gems, providing an experience that both respects and goes beyond traditional musical roots. This limited edition is elegantly encased in a skillfully crafted birch box, with each hand-numbered copy enhancing ownership with a unique sense of value. Every detail has been meticulously considered to complement and elevate the listening experience, from the refined exterior finish to the thoughtfully arranged interior, ensuring a flawless presentation. The CD is housed in a mini-LP replica with an inner sleeve, further enhancing the aesthetic. Additionally, there are two inserts printed on 300g white Fedrigoni paper, adding to the overall luxurious feel of the package. Together, the auditory tracks and packaging create a multisensory work that is destined to linger in memory and enrich the archives of passionate collectors.

De Leon returns to Mana, following their 2018 LP, offering a suite of new material that adds further waypoints to the map of their cryptic soundworld, deepening and expanding the direction of travel they began within the Aught collective. The dual legacies of Javanese gamelan and minimalist composition remain clear touchstones on this second, untitled album, which employs architectures of repetition and microtonality and evokes the musical heritage of the Bay Area whilst folding in the arid landscapes of Tucson, Arizona, where its compositions were conceived in part. Featuring a broad vocabulary of source material, notably Daniel Schmidt’s gamelan at Mills College and the spherical gongs on the album’s cover, combined with a homespun collection of prepared instruments and faint vapours of synthesis, De Leon crafts a distinct signature sound that evades alignment with conventions of academic composition and contemporary electronica but nods to both as it carves out its unique direction of travel. This album inscribes itself into a tradition of works that enable listeners to perceive deeper valences of time and psychedelic aesthetics of scale. Percussion and metallophones fluctuate within the virtual space of the recording and the sounds avoid stasis, rather undulating restlessly or flickering in and out of perception in a manner consistent with the mercurial sensibilities of their early De Leon recordings.

TRACE is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of his Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on sound for these spaces.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers and using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that the time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

TRACE: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. "Reflection" is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played at entrances of spaces, at events, in cafes and bars. "Voice from Past Technology" expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, TRACE is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ishikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

Sept duos pour guitar acoustique et piano préparé is the second duo recording from Stephen O’Malley and Anthony Pateras. Their first together, Rêve Noir (2018), took an electro-acoustic scalpel to a 2011 duo concert for electric guitar and piano, using Revox and digital treatments to twist and smear gig documentation into ghostly echoes and fractured drones. Here, in contrast, the music is entirely acoustic and presented as it was performed, without overdubs. Both players’ choices of instruments are notable: this is O’Malley’s most extensive recording on steel string acoustic guitar (playing an instrument whose previous owners include Marissa Nadler and Glenn Jones) and Pateras return to the prepared piano, which he has rarely employed in recent years, after spending much of the first decade of the 21st century exploring its possibilities. Recorded during O’Malley’s residency at La Becque on Lake Geneva in the summer of 2021, from the first moments of the opening ‘déjà revé’ the music immediately establishes the distinctive landscape of chiming tones and hovering clouds of resonance explored throughout its one-hour running time. Pateras’ preparations create tolling bell-like tones alive with complex overtones, alongside which O’Malley’s open strings and natural harmonics add a sparkling clarity. While Pateras’ music often uses a densely chromatic harmonic language, these duos are remarkable for their modal simplicity. However, the interaction between the pure intervals of O’Malley’s just-intoned strings and the unstable harmonies created by the piano preparations suspends the music in an oneiric state of hazy ambiguity. Without obvious reference to tempo or meter, the music floats in what the composer Ernstalbrecht Stiebler has called a ‘bottomless sound space’, the temporal placement of events determined by bodily rhythms and the performers’ own listening to (and enjoyment of) the sounds being made. Heard one way, this music can seem striking in its consistency, almost environmental. Attending more carefully, the listener hears the pitch sets and tunings changing throughout the album’s length. Each piece has its own character, subtly distinguished from the others through mood, pacing, and timbre. On ‘déjà voulu’, for instance, O’Malley makes prominent use of slide, the woozy, bending pitches weaving through a series of lush arpeggiated chords from the piano. ‘Déjà senti’, on the other hand, is particularly spare, the gestures spaced out to the extent that they often float in isolation against the background of fading resonance. Much of ‘déjà su’ is built around a slowly pulsing single prepared piano tone, creating an almost ominous tension, whereas the sparkling guitar harmonics and arpeggios of the closing ‘déjà raconté’ have a gently triumphal air. While the music’s calm, rippling surface is immediately entrancing, these seven duos – in the tradition of the best improvised music – also reward close listening, which reveals sonic details and focuses the listener’s attention on how the music unfolds spontaneously from decision to decision, from gesture to gesture. Recorded during a period when O’Malley and Pateras were grieving the loss of recently departed friends and collaborators, these seven duos possess a reflective, at times almost mournful quality. More importantly, though, they are imbued with other qualities that can arise from personal loss: a clarity that allows one to clear away the inessential, to begin again, to renew one’s faith in friendship and music. — Out now on a limited 2xLPs with an etching on fourth side housed in printed heavyweight inner and outer sleeves. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu, Artwork by María Jesús Valenzuela Vittini, Design by Bartolomé Sanson.

This reissue of the “Collection” is limited to just 299 hand-numbered copies, making it a truly special release for fans and collectors alike. Encased in a beautifully crafted wooden box, this deluxe edition features ten LPs, each adorned with original collages by Masami Akita, printed in black silkscreen on Cordenons Astropack ivory cardboard sleeves. Accompanying the vinyl is a 12-inch booklet, also printed on the same high-quality cardboard as the cover, containing 32 pages filled with previously unpublished photographs, as well as artwork and collages by Masami Akita from 1981-83. This booklet includes exclusive notes by Lasse Marhaug, Thurston Moore and Masami Akita along with a unique interview of Jim O’Rourke with Masami Akita.

The 2015 edition of Winnipeg’s send + receive festival, focussed on rhythm, turned out to be a generative meeting of minds. There, Mark Fell encountered the music of Will Guthrie, a meeting that was eventually to result in the frenetic acoustic drumkit and digital synthesis pairing heard on Infoldings and Diffractions (2020). At the same festival, Limpe Fuchs first heard and appreciated the music of Mark Fell, planting the seed of a collaboration that came to fruition when Fell (along with his son Rian Treanor) visited Fuchs at her home in Peterskirchen, Germany in September 2022. Black Truffle is pleased to announce the release of the results of this extensive session in the audacious form of a triple LP, housing over two hours of music across its six sides. The collaboration might appear unlikely: what common ground could exist between Fuchs, classically trained pianist, legend of improvised music, instrument builder and sound sculptor active since the 1960s, whose group Anima Sound connected the dots between free jazz, krautrock and ritual, and Fell, proponent of radical computer music, known for his bracingly austere productions that twist remnants of club music into algorithmic stutters? For all their seeming disparity in technology, approach and background, the music on Dessogia/Queetch/Fauch makes it immediately evident the pair share a great deal in their essentially percussive approach and ability to, in Fuch’s phrase, ‘establish silence’. Recording at her home studio, Fuchs had the use of her entire array of instruments, found, invented, and traditional, and treats the listener to some that don’t often make their way to concerts, including extensive passages performed (with Gundis Stalleicher) on pieces of wooden parquetry. Alongside metallic, wooden and skin percussion of all kinds, sounded and struck in every conceivable way, we also hear bamboo flute, viola, and Fuchs’ distinctive free-form vocalisations. Fell also stretched himself, with his contributions ranging from characteristically fizzing pitched percussive pops to swarms of sliding tones and abstract digital noise. Showing both remarkable restraint and improvisational freedom, much of the music consists of duets between a single percussion instrument and a distinctive mode of digital sound, often lingering in one timbral-rhythmic space for minutes at a time. Improvisational forward momentum coexists with a free-floating, wandering quality. On opener ‘Dessogia I’, the shimmering almost-gilssandi tones of Fuchs’ enormous set of microtonally tuned metal tubes ripples across Fell’s rubbery pulse, which moves up the frequency spectrum as Fuchs becomes more animated and switches to horn. At some points, as on the metallic chiming tones that open ‘Fauch I’, only the unexpected dynamic behaviour of Fell’s sounds distinguish them from Fuchs’ acoustic instruments. At others, like on ‘Queetch III’, the waves of sliding tones and noise textures are bracingly synthetic, joined by piercing squeaks and scrapes from Fuchs’ metal objects. Epic in scope, immersing the listener in an entirely distinctive world of sounds, and thrillingly bold in its melding of the most ancient musical procedures with cutting edge technologies, Dessogia/Queetch/Fauch is an unexpected major statement from two of the great mavericks of contemporary music.

The first-ever official vinyl edition, completely remastered by Josh Bonati. The turn of the millennium ushered in an apex visionary phase for English esoteric duo Coil. Relocating from the city to the coastal quiet of Weston-super-Mare freed them to follow even more fringe obsessions, fully untethered from peer influence. During a single six-month stretch in 2000 they released the devious underworld sequel to Music To Play In The Dark, arcane drone summit Queens Of The Circulating Library, and a malevolent hour-long synthesizer exorcism prophetically titled Constant Shallowness Leads To Evil. This latter work remains one of the group’s most miasmic and mind-expanding creations, on par with Time Machines – a sustained divination of shuddering, psychoactive noise, rippling with the motion sickness of an all-seeing eye. Thighpaulsandra characterizes the album as “an exercise in brutality,” born from a thorny patch of his Serge modular unit that Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson found entrancing. Processing this sliver of electronics into a ravaged labyrinth was a trial and error process, aided by Christopherson’s visual sense of sound, stretching and manipulating it for maximum spatial disorientating. Frequencies nauseously crawl across the stereo field, burrowing into the ear like a sinister brainwashing experiment. An outlier / centerpiece is the 13-minute alien tribalist sea shanty, “I Am The Green Child,” guided by John Balance’s sung-spoken free verse concerning vengeance, oblivion, and insanity, culminating in the memorable refrain, “We're swimming in a sea of occidental vomit.” But the rest of the record seethes in unhinged instrumental chaos, divided into 18 micro-movements of a composition called “Tunnel Of Goats.” Intended to scramble the functionality of a CD player’s shuffle mode, the piece throbs, thrashes, and flatlines in compressed frenzies of twisted synthesis, at the threshold of some bottomless purgatory, forbidding and unknown.

Presenting our second look at the music of Roger Doyle and Operating Theatre, a little known proto synth-pop act and experimental theatre group that he led, what you have here is a remastered and repackaged collection of two very different sides of this project. In reverse chronological order the second disc contains music from the United Dairies release of 1979 – ‘Rapid Eye Movements’. Experimental tape work heavily influenced by the French school of music concretists and recorded at various points during the 70s in Finland, Holland and Ireland, although it is most certainly a Roger Doyle solo record the label ran by Nurses With Wounds John Fothergill decided to release it under the group name for reasons now lost to the fog of time. After this a volte-face towards a more accessible sound, coming via his friendship with future Hollywood actress Olwen Fouéré and her connection to the theatre. It also featured the vocals of a young Spanish immigrant Elena López- bucking the 80’s trend by moving to, rather than, from Dublin. With Fouéré adding the theatrical element to the group (an almost essential part of any early 80s synth act) alongside pulsing synths, brass, a vocoder and the electro acoustic production talents of Doyle himself, it was the first time a Fairlight sampler was used in an Irish studio setting and gives a prescient but alternative take on the new wave sound that came to dominate the charts soon after. Doyle’s work on the newly released Fairlight sampler had brought him to the attention of U2’s Bono who had seen a feature about his sampling experimentations and reached out to him for piano lessons. This led to a deal on the bands embryonic Mother records for what Doyle calls his first “popular song” - Queen of No Heart - which alongside “Spring is Coming” made up the backbone of the EP which was released some years later (1986) on the Mother Records label. Established by U2 in 1984 and initially intended to launch Irish bands, many of the acts – including this one – were subsequently unhappy about the label’s haphazard approach to releases and lack of promotion. The record was released as a die cut 7 inch with the two main tracks and a 12 inch EP with additional tracks – ‘Part of My Make-Up’ / ‘Atlantean’ / ‘Satanasa’. The Mother experience was for Doyle and the rest of the group a frustrating one with no promotional plan and no tour. After that Operating Theatre as a quasi pop project ‘just kind of fizzled out’ says Doyle. Doyle, the musical maverick at the heart of the act, continues to produce to this day and has released 30 albums. A frequent collaborator we round out the record with a remix from another Irish outsider - Morgan Buckley of the Wino Boys.

Mesh-Key is thrilled to announce a deluxe, expanded reissue of Moon Beams by Tokyo visionaries, Tsuki No Wa. Originally released on CD by Japan's Soundscape label in 2003, Moon Beams is a bonafide opus -- a masterful mix of jazz, latin, folk and electroacoustic, topped with bandleader Fuminosuke's soaring, spectral vocals. Bassist Takuyuki Moriya was also a member of Ghost, and drummer Yuta Suganuma is a long-time member of the Shintaro Sakamoto band. The quartet's third album in as many years, Moon Beams found Tsuki No Wa taking a gigantic leap forward in both compositional sophistication and sonic experimentation. Beautifully recorded in a (since demolished) Meiji-era ballet studio, and featuring guest performances from such underground luminaries as Yoshihide Otomo and Ami Yoshida, this timeless, ambitious work sounds just as spellbinding today as it did a couple decades ago. Our reissue features an updated mix from the band and brand new album art with unseen photos of the group in their heyday. The vinyl (2LP, mastered by Josh Bonati and pressed at RTI) comes in a full-color, double panel gatefold jacket with eye-popping gold foil lettering.

In his “Pulse Music” compositions of the mid-1970s, composer John McGuire forged a unique interpretation of European serialism. A student of Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki and Gottfried Michael Koenig, McGuire moved to Cologne, Germany in 1970, where he become associated with the world-leading Studio for Electronic Music at Westdeutscher Rundfunk (WDR) in Cologne. Like Stockhausen, McGuire found his musical imagination both constrained and inspired by the technology that was available to him.A conversation with sculptor Hans Karl Burgeff led McGuire to think beyond the horizon and into limitless space. For “Vanishing Points” (1985–1988), McGuire used an entirely digital set-up for the first time: a digital sequencer, eight Yamaha DX-7 synthesizers and a Studer 24-track digital tape recorder. The piece was conceived as a “sequel” to the Pulse Music series, but also a step forward from it. Whereas the Pulse Music pieces had employed steady streams of pulses, with Vanishing Points McGuire employed pulse layers that accelerate or decelerate against one another, vastly increasing the resulting rhythmic complexity.McGuire's exploration of music technology continued in “A Cappella” (1990–1997), written for his wife, the soprano Beth Griffith, known for her recording of Morton Feldman’s “Three Voices” made in 1983. Using samples, he created a four-voice choir of voice samples and arranged them into interacting parts. The composition faced challenges due to the organic nature of the human voice compared to the precision of synthesized sounds. This process involved extensive editing and a negotiation between the "material" and the "original conception". This sort of negotiation applies as much to the composition of a single piece as it does to the work of two decades.

A thrilling collaboration between major experimental maestros from slightly different sound worlds. Don Cherry, in the middle of a very free-ranging phase, plays his majestic trumpet over the shimmering organ tones of Terry Riley, while Karl Berger adds vibraphone. Heady stuff. Reissue of a rare concert recording from 1975, in an edition of just 500. On Modern Silence.

‘The surrealist, psychedelic brain-burps of notorious all-caps-tweeting wind-up-merchant Louis Johnstone aka Wanda Group. Twenty-six congealed morsels of spur-of-the-moment sound-art executed with genuine economy of means, namely… a phone. An impulsive, scatter-brained trip into the inner circles of regional weirdness, secreting a creeping unease which really gets under your skin. Fragments of aural rubble haphazardly cohere into galvanising spacial tones and textures, punctured by Johnstone’s garbled Essex rantings. The long-distance stare of warbled tape loops is abruptly fractured by a drunken sing-along in a care home for the elderly. As hallucinogenic takes on the utterly mundane, there’s an obvious kinship with Lambkin’s nocturnal, straight-to-dictaphone sound-pieces. Dan Johannsen’s splintered classical collages on that PIG tape and the suburban soliloquies of Regional Bears alumnus Russell Walker also feel closely aligned.’ (All Night Flight) With an A4 riso insert.

 

"When it travels, the voice is a double agent, a trickster, or a dubious guru, but when it pauses for a recording, it's historical, capturing a mood or an emotion for all time. I didn't expect that I would hardly recognize the people who made Salt — myself and Hessel Veldman — a year and a half after recording it, but this is where I find myself now, so I'll say a few words about this temporary prosopagnosia.

Twelve years ago, when I moved to the Netherlands from Japan, I made a piece called How to Lose Your Voice. It was a YouTube hit because people wanted to learn how to actually lose their voices, though I doubt they found what they were looking for in the video. But I mention it because it's like a diary for me: my voice simply isn't the same now as it was then.

I wonder where my voice has gone.

I just listened to a radio interview with a woman who had her larynx removed.

About fifteen minutes after listening to her new voice, altered by the use of a voice prosthesis to make her audible, the interviewer played a recording of her pre-surgery voice. Of course, I was curious to hear it, and although it was immediately obvious that the gentle ease of her first voice was gone, this new voice, with its raw, gravelly sound, was even more intriguing because of its determined power to express that which needed to be expressed.

When Hessel and I first listened to the Salt in its entirety, I said in astonishment, "who wrote this?"
Marianna Maruyama, sure, but this artist goes by more than one name. Many voices spoke through me in this album. You might even recognize one of them as yours."  

Ten years on, Joana Gama and Luís Fernandes show no signs of slowing down. Over the past decade, the duo has released five albums, composed soundtracks for film and television, and created pieces for performing arts. With “Strata”, they embark on a bold exploration of their musical identity, breaking new ground by seeking the primordial, the raw, and forging a deeper creative synergy. This evolution makes their music feel less like a conversation and more like a unified, introspective monologue.
Until now, their work has largely been defined by dialogue—a dynamic exchange of ideas evident in their earlier records. However, in their relentless drive to push boundaries, they now turn inward, embracing a monologue as a pathway for growth, innovation, and celebration of their journey so far. Two key elements shape this transition: Joana’s growing affinity for synthesizers over piano, a direction initiated in “There’s no knowing”, and her integration of field recordings gathered from diverse locations around the world. Rather than stepping into each other’s domain, the duo finds common ground, creating music that thrives on harmony and introspection.
“Strata” stands as Joana and Luís's quieter and most cohesive record to date. It reflects their desire to craft music that resonates with the natural world, unfolding as a seamless stream of sound that enhances their connection and invites the listener into their creative process. While their previous works were compelling, they often felt distant, as if the listener was observing from the sidelines. “Strata”, by contrast, draws the listener in, encouraging them to fill the spaces and find their own place within the duo’s monologue.
This process climaxes in the closing track, "Geode," where the subtle sounds of debris underscore the tightly woven structure of “Strata”. It’s a testament to the duo's commitment to evolution and their ability to surprise both themselves and their audience. A decade into their collaboration, “Strata” reaffirms Joana and Luís's creative vitality, offering a record that feels both fresh and deeply rooted in their artistic vision. 

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration. Blueprints For A Blackout, The Ex's fifth album and first double LP, combines caustic studio experimentations and loose songs from their gripping live-set at the time. The band consisted of singer G.W. Sok, guitarist Terrie Ex, two new recruits on bass, Luc and Yoke, and drummer Sabien Witteman, along with a plethora of guests including Mekons' Jon Langford and long-serving sound engineer Dolf Planteijdt, among others. Originally released in 1984 on the band's own Pig Brother Productions, Blueprints veers from jagged punk explosions to sharply focused improvisations featuring field recordings that would become a hallmark of their subsequent forays into free jazz and experimental music. The overall effect is not unlike the menace of a slowly building winter storm. Tracks like "Rabble With A Cause," "U.S. Hole" and "Scrub That Scum" stand out as exemplars of this phase of The Ex. Comparisons can be made to contemporaries Einstürzende Neubauten, NoMeansNo and Svätsox as well as later Crass label bands. This first-time vinyl reissue comes with 24-page booklet.

In the swirl of kaleidoscopic recordings that is Spacemen 3's discography, Taking Drugs To Make Music To Take Drugs To occupies a pivotal position – one at the nexus between their garage beginnings and expansionist future. Spacemen 3 capture the inspired spark of mid-'80s psychedelia, offering a distinct variation on high pop through layered feedback, a formidable rhythm section and shining vocals. Taking Drugs features the legendary Northampton demos, which secured the band's first record deal with Glass. While much of this material would be expanded upon on their first two albums, Sound Of Confusion and The Perfect Prescription, many devotees consider these early 1986 demos to be the vital document of Spacemen 3 at this primal stage. With urgent, minimally treated versions of "Sound Of Confusion" (aka "Walkin' With Jesus"), "Losing Touch With My Mind" and "Come Down Easy," this double LP collection serves to exalt the strength of Spacemen 3's songwriting over the deep-dive, sonic ruminations that would permeate their later studio efforts. Includes download card and new insert with liner notes by Byron Coley.

So excited and honored to finally release the vinyl document of my realization of JOHN CAGE’s ROZART MIX. Back in the extremely strange year of 2020, I was approached by Wave Farm and John Cage Trust to stage a performance of this seldomly performed piece that Cage wrote for Alvin Lucier. The piece is comprised of 88 tape loops (one for each key of a piano), spliced together with multiple non-musical sounds played back on 12 reel to reel machines.

In January of 2021 I spent a wonderful and intense week researching ROZART MIX at John Cage Trust at Bard College. It was the first place I had visited during the pandemic. On October 23, 2021, with the assistance of Rose Actor-Engel, Twig Harper, C. Lavender, Quintron, Robert Turman, and John Wiese, I presented a 6 hour performance of ROZART MIX at John Cage Trust. Six hours of 12 individually amplified reel to reel tape machines, placed around multiple floors of a house, playing 88 tape loops spliced together by 5 to 175 splices, created an overwhelming and joyous environment of cacophonous sound. The performance culminated with John Wiese touching a frog for the first time as the final sound croaked through the speakers. The frog contact was just one of many magical moments that occurred during the preparation and presentation of the piece. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as we enjoyed performing it. Special thanks to Galen Joseph-Hunter of Wave Farm and Laura Kuhn & Emy Martin of John Cage Trust for trusting me with this material.

"Best New Reissue" - Pitchfork (May 6, 2023) Legendary debut album by Junko Tange, originally issued by Osaka’s Vanity Records in 1979. Dadaesque recitations and sparse guitar, piano and electronic meanderings combine for a beguiling, hypnotic dreamworld. Officially licensed from the custodians of Yuzuru Agi's Vanity Records archives, this edition has been fully remastered from new transfers of the original analog tapes by Stephan Mathieu.

The Handover

There is, and has been, a prevailing orthodoxy permeating the Egyptian musical hierarchy that would render this spectacular piece as scandalous. But let us remember that over the past 100 years, Said Darwish, Mohamed Abdel Wahab, Halim El Dabh, Ahmad Adaweya, and the modern Mahraganat movement have all experienced their fair share of scandal and opposition. Music must always be pushed forward – it may not always succeed as revelatory, but in this particular case, it does. Much like the venerable magic carpet, the Handover slowly builds to escort you into its swirling, ascending expression of the psychedelic, eventually descending, step by step, back to earth, landing as a wondrous spaceship with wide open doors inviting us inside for repeat listening. Perhaps this should have been happening in Egyptian music 50 years ago but it's here right now, and that's what matters. We are often asked an impossible question to answer: "What constitutes a Sublime Frequencies release?" For the moment, we can point to this record as the answer to that question.
- Alan Bishop/Sublime Frequencies (March 2024)
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In The Handover, Aly Eissa, Ayman Asfour and Jonas Cambien explore the common and uncommon senses of Egypt's ritual music. It is clear that Aly Eissa's original composition is deeply rooted in Egyptian and Arabic traditions. At the same time, this band is one of the most progressive coming out of Egypt today. This is in big part thanks to Eissa, who has proven time and again to be not only an extremely skillful composer, but also a real visionary, combining tradition with modern experimentation.

A performance by The Handover is typically one stretch without break: a long build-up that lasts for the duration of the concert. Towards the end of the performance, all the tension is released in an exuberant, joyful climax, when wild improvisations are driven forward on top of exciting dance-rhythms from rural Egypt. The Handover elegantly combines the delicacy of classical Arabic music, the raw expressiveness of Egypt's countryside music, and the spontaneity of free improvisation, carefully obliterating the artificial separation between acoustic and electronic instruments. Despite the remarkable absence of any percussion or drums, The Handover is an extremely groovy band, with an ability to slow down and accelerate the tempo in almost telepathic synchronization at exactly the right moments.

Alongside the tight ensemble playing there is plenty of room for individual expression as the oud, synthesizer and violin take turns playing solos on top of repetitive riffs. Throughout the album, native Alexandrian Ayman Asfour plays the violin with breathtaking beauty, while not being afraid to make the violin buzz, squeak and rattle at times. Belgian/Norwegian keyboardist Jonas Cambien makes the synthesizer a melodic instrument in its own right, at times evoking almost classical Maqam, while in other moments it seems like he comes straight out of an Egyptian wedding. The oud forms the backbone in the composition's structure, as Aly Eissa's solos guide the listener from minimalist, meditative drones, to a compelling climax, and back to earth.

There is much more to The Handover's sound then the obvious references to Arabic and Egyptian music. The opening drone section of the album is pushed towards abstraction and even noise, and the vintage Farfisa organ gives the music a touch of 70s psychedelic rock. The repetitive riffs can be reminiscent of Embryo's experiments combining krautrock with influences from the middle-east, but the use of repetition to induce trance dates way back in Egyptian music, and is present in many rituals like Sufi and moulid celebrations. The composed melodies on this album couldn't be possible without Eissa's deep love for this music. And what The Handover does with this composed material couldn't be possible without three strong individual voices, their love to play music together and their dedication to push the traditions forward.

(Recorded in Alexandria Egypt in January of 2023, this Limited-Edition vinyl LP includes a two-sided insert with additional photos, liner notes and bios of the musicians)

Tracklist:

Side A

1. The Handover (Part 1)

Side B

1. The Handover (Part 2)

Highlights:

1. The Handover is a trio consisting of: Aly Eissa, Ayman Asfour and Jonas Cambien
2. Influences of Arabic Classical, rural Egyptian music, psychedelic, Krautrock and free improvisation
3. Perhaps this should have been happening in Egyptian music 50 years ago.
4. Limited-Edition vinyl LP includes a two-sided insert with additional photos, liner notes and bios of the musicians. 

John Duncan's "SAXMIX" is one massive piece of contemporary experimental music, which lets noise collide with free jazz and extreme minimalism. Duncan is a master when it comes to these things, and he is an artists constantly evolving, mutating and challenging. The sax thing then? JD has invited some of his fav sax players to collaborate with him; Mats Gustafsson, Antoine Chessex, Martin Escalante, Dror Feiler and Ulrich Krieger. Did I say MASSIVE? Well, it is.

Scheintot is a new debuting trio consisting of Mats Gustafsson (sax/flute), Henrik Rylander (mixing desk) and myself on Korg MS20 which might be my fav synth ever, or right now at least. This is weird stuff. Not sure where this is going but I guess you will enjoy it if you are into stuff we have done before, but this sits comfortably in its own corner, and we are not smart enough to be ashamed over sounding so infected.

Nice cover by Tochnit Aleph boss Daniel Löwenbrück.

Hot stuff, basically!

‘Quintela’, the debut album by Carme López, a performer, teacher and researcher of traditional oral music from Galicia, is a new experimental work for Galician bagpipe. Influenced by the approach of composers like Éliane Radigue or Pauline Oliveros, the Spanish composer creates slowly modulating sound environments, and stretches the sonic the possibilities of the bagpipe to its absolute limit. ‘Quintela’ is structured in four movements, plus a prologue and an epilogue, which serve as a link to the contemporary language of the instrument.

The bagpipe is strongly tied to traditional musics; its use in different genres and musical contexts is extremely limited and unimaginative. ‘Quintela’ brings it to a wholly unknown field, decontextualising the bagpipe in order to elevate a personal approach, and leaving behind its male-dominated past (in which it relates to ideas of prestige, dominance or carries even sexual connotations). López expertly demonstrates its grandeur and breadth; the music on ‘Quintela’ ranges from barely audible sounds of air passing through the hide bag through rhythmical use of its reeds to all-encompassing drones with complex harmonic structures and vibrant overtones.

The narrative arc focuses on the composer’s past, its people and places, and could be conceived as a journey in and of itself. A homage to those in our memories, but also a step into the unknown, ‘Quintela’ is an ambitious, graceful and captivating debut.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 340px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1107883793/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://carmelopez.bandcamp.com/album/quintela">Quintela by Carme López</a></iframe>