MUSIC

Through the eye of the pinkish gate... Soft lights... cool evening breezes, toxic fumes, burnt champagne and supper for one... love and longing...disenchantment... and the murky meanderings of Pinkcourtesyphone. It is impossible for us to supply all the recipe ingredients needed for this, the sounds of soured romance, but we can at least dish up the musical setting on a deluxe digital porcelain platter (with a just few hairline cracks)... but only for an hour. A gourmet offering befitting a pall party without compare. Attempts have been made in this collection of recordings, obdurate and diegetic, to express anxiety, always, often, and sometimes. 'Arise in Sinking Feelings', an unmistakable pinkcourtesy mood, simply combinations of magic and memory that spin out within moments before our delighted senses... a fanciful flight of neurosis. No one who is anyone has heard it and even they were met with incomprehension. "A Stunning Blandness!" read the headlines. This album includes a printed insert of inspiration. Use it to gain maximum benefits from your study of Pinkcourtesyphone. Read and imbibe the insert while you listen to the recording. The Room40 Media Institute recommends the ‘Double Sensory’ method of absorbing sonic information. Its consistent use will greatly increase your powers of concentration and retention. Let your feelings sink as you let Pinkcourtesyphone sink in... its secret can destroy you in its unyielding grasp.

Twin heavyweights Kevin Richard Martin (The Bug) and Joseph Kamaru (KMRU) unite for Disconnect, a powerful study of dread, hope, and profound sonics that marries depth-trawling dub with Kamaru’s voice, ambient sensibilities, and negative space. Kevin Martin first became aware of Kenyan ambient musician KMRU “watching the short 2020 documentary Under The Bridge,” he tells us. “Which, aside from immediately finding Joseph's approach to sound and music so instantly impressive, I also found his spoken voice possessed a captivating, lilting, tonal quality, with his soft-spoken accent.” Following this, Martin dug into Kamaru’s records, and found not only a kindred spirit in skillful exploration of sonic space, but also a fan of The Bug. So began a mutually respectful relationship, initially held in Instagram DMs and reciprocal admiration for each other’s work and eventually blossoming into an invitation sent by Kevin to Joseph to collaborate on a new album. The results - debut collaboration album Disconnect - collect a back-and-forth creative dialogue that started life in Martin’s studio. “I think I surprised Joseph by suggesting he contributes vocals,” Martin tells us. This ability to identify, isolate and exploit the nonstandard is a trait shared by both musicians and employed to devastating effect on Disconnect. Its vocals, sitting somewhere between intonation and spoken word, capture the ear and fizz with simmering power. They are indeed a surprise, coming from a musician specialising in instrumental, field recording-laced ambient musics, but tell intensely evocative stories, weaving poetry into the pair’s grandiose greyscale musical architecture. The record is just as deep, expressive, and arresting as we can expect from Kevin Richard Martin, following his acclaimed rescore of Solaris (released in 2021 on Phantom Limb) and a handful of self-released solo albums that explore a sound just as heavy as The Bug but at a menacingly slower pace. And it is just as evocative and unique as Kamaru’s KMRU canon, each object delicately and purposefully placed so the timbral mosaic builds with shimmering and hypnotic beauty.

2023 RSD item. The mysterious electronic musician Ooyamada Daisanmyaku has arrived at music as "efficacy" in his third album. "Zolpidem", a sound-wave sleeping pill that Ooyamada Daisanmyaku himself prepared to help him fall asleep. A mysterious work that coexists with calmness and disquiet, which makes you want to describe it as "Eric Satie, an insomniac who suffers from the Caretaker-like nightmare." Completely limited production.

The cassette tape of this work released in 2022 from the label landscape plan sponsored by Taika, a two-person rock band that continues to release works with a Fourth World sensibility, sold out in a blink of an eye, and since then, ele-king vol. 30 Selected as one of the 50 must-listen albums of electronic music in the 2020s.

Like Eric Satie, who suffers from insomnia, was haunted by a care-taker-like nightmare and twisted it. contains

The binding, designed by Mr. Y Inoue, the central figure of the rock band kumagusu, which is active mainly in Tokyo, gives the work a texture like the white outer skin of a pill, and makes you want to take it out every night and take it. It will induce an addiction to such "Zolpidem".

'Persistent Repetition Of Phrases' success comes from the attention it pays to the function of 'the loop', not only as a narrative ordering system in modern music, but as a means by which the brain itself recalls and interprets information; it's as old as recorded sound itself, but in this context the repetition of small shards of auditory information becomes an elegy to fading memory and the worn-out synapses of old age. The track titles offer signposts through Kirby's labyrinth of faulty remembrances, pointing their way towards the peculiarities dictating the manner by which the mind stores and attempts to recover information.

Mark Van Hoen's long-running Locust project arrives on the New York label Mysteries of The Deep with The First Cause. Across the album, Van Hoen deftly balances tough, fuzzy, crunching and distorted sounds with spectral vocal loops and ethereal atmospheres - channelling the ghosts of jungle, techno and trip-hop. The crushing bass weight and gloom never become oppressive as slivers of light illuminate the darkness.

Acclaimed guitar duo Loren Connors and Alan Licht celebrate their 30-year collaboration with release of their eighth album — At The Top Of The Stairs.Across the decades, their improvisations turned increasingly abstract and atonal, while still maintaining complex, ethereal arrangements. The harmonious blend of Licht's meticulously crafted feedback and harmonic patterns with Connors' ghostly blue tones remains the core sound of this partnership. At The Top Of The Stairs was recorded live in 2018. Across two side-long pieces, the duo ascends slowly, through layers of atmospheric tension punctuated by thunderous waves of Connors' effects.For fifty years, Connors's adaptation of acoustic Delta blues has transmuted into miniature gray scale compositions and howling riffs. His collaborators include Oren Ambarchi, Keiji Haino, and Kim Gordon. Rock/experimental musician Alan Licht was a member of the bands Love Child, Run On, and Lee Ranaldo & the Dust, and has released a range of acclaimed rock and experimental albums. He is an author with books published by Rizzoli, W.W. Norton, Faber & Faber and Blank Forms.

Originally released in 2016 as a tour-only cassette, 'Origo' is the first recorded evidence of Timo Van Luijk (Elodie) and Bart De Paepe's Ilta Hämärä project, a heady, hallucinogenic psych-drone jammer that's been bumped up with an extra cut from the same era. Ilta Hämärä is the outlet for Van Luijk and De Paepe's smokiest, dankest material - sessions that thrum at their own pace, tickling the pineal in the process. If you can remember Brooklyn's Religious Knives, or Kiwi skronkers Pumice, you'll have a good idea of where Ilta Hämärä are headed. The opening side's 'Ilma' pits organs against blunted drums and swirling pads, before we lurch into the atmospheric 'Vesi', a soupy zoner that's carried by lysergic axe tweaks and gurgling synths. On the second side, the mood continues with the grim, green-hued 'Vesi', but it's the previously unheard 'Eetreni' that has us most captivated. While it was recorded around the same time, it's markedly different gear, a long-form, mostly beatless Alice in Wonderland thriller that sounds as if it was pruned from a long-lost Czech or Hungarian new wave movie. Flutes and dulled oscillations wind around each other in the first stretch, but when the drums begin to surface they attack like a death rattle from another reality, spplintering out into serrated, saw wave noise and ritualistic crashes...

In 9 sequences ‘Fortune de Mer’ describes the power and beauty of dramatic fate, the irreversible. Like a clause of force majeure, an unforeseen one way trip to the desperate bottom. After losing the long battle nothing is left, only acceptance and resignation.

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.

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?

Next up in Veyl's ever-evolving and diverse catalog comes of an experimental sonic experience from Llimbs. The project of Hagen Ebejer, he began making music in the early 2000's and started Llimbs in 2016, which allowed him to officially release music and perform live, making his debut at Berlin's legendary Tresor. Now he arrives on Veyl with Midnight Amber, an 8-track album which fully realizes the Llimbs sound and vision. Inspired by dark and experimental sounds, Midnight Amber is a tour de force of genre-bending compositions, conjured using downtempo and dreamlike sounds which explore both the organic and digital. The result is an undefinable affair which is both haunting and infectious at once. 'Unfold' commences the album with a soft yet powerful piece of melodic melancholy, inviting the listener through the gates and into the world of Llimbs. 'Divergent' picks things up with a ritual work of stirring chants which leads us to the evocative chords on 'Origin'. Finishing off side A is 'Absent', a slow burning rhythmic piece which encapsulates the listener, creating an almost nostalgic atmosphere for a time unknown. 'Phase' begins the B side with cinematic flair, creating a palpable tension which then evaporates into the ether. 'Eclipse' returns to a familiar dreamworld, traversing the skies which feel both familiar yet mysterious before 'Fragment' dives deeper into a hidden universe of emotion, fusing ancient works with modern technology. Concluding the album is 'Midnight', a perfect end to a journey which exists at the intersection of the natural and mechanical, reality and surreality, marking a tremendous finale which can only lead to a new beginning.

A refracted audiobook soundtracking the bathing culture of the Ottoman Baths in Budapest, cut-up from Dalia Neis’ metaphysical thriller ‘The Swarm’ ( The Elephants Press, 2023). theelephants.net/ephemera/the-swarm This is the fourth iteration of their Trans-Danubian odyssey, beginning in Dali Muru & The Polyphonic Swarm’s LP, before drifting into book form, radio show, and now audiobook. This audiobook is an updated, revised version of the original NTS show broadcasted in January 2022.

Zero Kama was an experimental music project founded by Zoe DeWitt in 1983. The first release of Zero Kama was the title V.V.V.V.V., recorded for the Nekrophile Rekords cassette compilation The Beast 666. In 1984 followed the cassette release of the album The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H., which is commonly regarded as one of the key albums of the industrial-subgenre 'ritual'. The fact that all instruments used for this recording were exclusively made from human bones and skulls, its elusive musical style, the implied occult symbolism as well as the short-time existence of Zero Kama, whose backgrounds remained unknown for a long time, have been contributing to the cult status of this project until now.

Following an invitation of the NL-Centrum Amsterdam, Zero Kama played two live concerts in the Netherlands in 1985, and - after two more releases on the Nekrophile compilation The Archangels of Sex Rule the Destruction of the Regime - completely withdrew from the public. While The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. was recorded solely by Zoe DeWitt, the later live performances were realized with befriended musicians such as Didi Neidhart and Muki Pakesch, whom Zoe DeWitt knew from the Austrian music underground of the 1980s.

Since that time there have been a couple of re-releases of Zero Kama recordings, amongst others the 1988 Vinyl version by the French label Permis de Construire, followed by the CD release in 1991. In 2001 the French label Athanor published The Goatherd and the Beast, a 10" vinyl containing tracks from various compilations that were recorded besides The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H.. This collection was also included as a bonus CD in the Live in Armhem double CD release by Athanor in 2008. In 2014 Athanor finally published a remastered version of The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. as both vinyl and CD.

Infinite fog Productions presents an anthology release of Zero Kama. The first time ever, everything recorded by the project released as one set on limited CD, VINYL and CASSETE. Recordings transferred from original tapes, carefully mastered by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios and Micro Majong at Micro Majong Studio. Designed by Cold Graves.

DEVIL’S NIGHTMARE (La terrificante notte del demonio) 1971 by ALESSANDRO ALESSANDRONI, considered one of the most evocative and suggestive horror soundtracks, marked his debut release on LP, from original master tapes, in 2017 thanks to Cinedelic records, and in a few days it was sold out. It is now repressed in 300 copies. Don't miss it!

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

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."

オリジナル盤カセットは最早入手不可能にも近い一枚！配給元最終ストック。ウクライナ出身の作曲家、映像作家、ライターであり、70年代中盤から90年代にかけてスペイン・マドリッドの前衛音楽シーンで絶大な影響を誇っていたIury Lechが同国地下実験音楽の聖地〈Hyades Arts〉より1989年に発表した1作目のアルバム『Otra Rumorosa Superficie』が〈Utopia Records〉からアナログ・リイシュー。〈Grabaciones Accidentales〉の〈El Cometa De Madrid〉（マドリッドの彗星）シリーズで紹介されたアクトを筆頭に筆頭に独創的なアーティストたちが世界でも類を見ないクリエイティヴなシーンを興隆させたマドリッド音響派周辺のシーンを代表する１枚。先に再発されていた次作同様、天上風景を醸すモダン・クラシカルの傑作ですが、こちらにはよりアヴァンギャルドかつ仄暗い影を滲ませており、深い内省を感じさせる一枚となっています。そこ知れず幽玄にして幻影的なモダン・クラシカルの傑作。180g重量盤。限定300部。