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with his third album “vin ploile” the bucharest, romania based producer, musician and dj petre in-spirescu captured a whole new audience in 2015 and reached out with minimal leftfield ambient sounds to music loving folks, that are not part of the world-wide dance music universe.
well known as one of the key figures of the romanian electronic dance music scene since his first ep “tips” on luciano’s label cadenza, inspirescu stepped away from club sounds that made him famous due to releases on labels like vinyl club, lick my deck or amphia.
also his two solo albums “intr-o seara organica...” and “grădina onirică“, both released on [a:rpia:r], the record label he initiated with his buddies rhadoo and raresh in 2007, do not have much in common with the sound of “vin ploile” - a mesmerizing deeply musical album that he only tuned in with some elements of piano, string and wind instruments as well as analogue electronics.
at the end of 2015 his nine slow swinging arrangements where celebrated in many polls and now, just a bit more than one year after the release of “vin ploile” petre inspirescu delivers “vîntul prin salcii” – another longplayer enlarged with seven, up to epic twelve minutes long arrangements, that continue where “vin ploile” ceased.
they all listen to the name “miroslav” and only differ numerically in their title. you can call them ambi-ent. you can call them minimal music in the sense of classic compositions by steve reich or terry riley. they groove – sometimes more, sometimes less. and they spread the sounds of flutes or saxophones, delicate piano figures, organic jazz drumming, arpeggiated analogue synth-lines, mesmerizing strings, choral singing, alienated looped vocals and spaced out new aged spheres.
what unites them all is the way, the melodies dance upon and in each single tune. their beautiful tex-tures ensnare and they are continuously engaged with experimentation. a mystical album full of evolu-tionary music to which each listener is able to paint his very own emotional picture. moody, dark and at the same time light-flooded shape-shifting compositions - made for those who love to surrender them-selves to a gentle dance between experimentation and attractiveness.
the cover artwork for petre inspirescu’s album was made again by the illustrator and photographer julian vassallo, who’s artistic works fascinate with a touching spirit of distance, that captures the truth in each single motif. just like petre inspirescu’s music, only that his art grooves with notes that tell somehow: there is no truth. there is only perception.
Being pioneers with a new album created in no more than 6 months, THE ORB are bound to be exposed to fan expectations running high, while quizzical questions about little fluffy clouds and the good old times take over. It's especially jarring as the duo of accomplished soundsmiths Alex Paterson and Thomas Fehlmann has become known for its genre-bending curiosity and surprising sonic detours, exploring experimental soundscapes as well as club-friendly beats. The funny thing is, though, that whatever the context, you know a track from THE ORB when you hear it. Case in point: COW / CHILL OUT, WORLD!, their latest full-length offering - a masterful ambient album that branches out in many directions, but unmistakably sounds like THE ORB in either ear (and probably to your third ear, too).
"The idea was simply to make an ambient album", Dr Paterson explains, "we didn't look back and study earlier recordings, but wanted a more spontaneous approach, a focus on THE ORB today, our vibe in 2016." In contrast to their much-acclaimed previous full-length MOONBUILDING 2703 AD (KOMPAKT 330 CD 124) - which took years to prepare and finetune -, the new album was produced over the course of only five sessions in six months, directly following the like-minded ALPINE EP (KOMPAKT 339): "it got so spontaneous that a track like 9 ELMS OVER RIVER ENO (CHANNEL 9) consisted only of material collected at North Carolina's Moogfest in May – second-hand records from local stores, field recordings, live samples from gigs that we liked, and of course an excursion to the Eno River, which actually exists. This geographic intimacy and the spontaneity are among the top reasons why we love this album so much."
Herr Fehlmann sees the duo's relentless gigging schedule as a formative influence on the new album: "the countless performances we've played in the last years - probably up to 300 - have brought us closer as a musical unit. The spice of our concerts is improvisation - a fertile process that we’ve brought to the studio, where we operate with very simple rules of engagement (in this case "ambient") and go wherever the flow takes us." It's an approach that one might expect from traditional acoustic instrumentation, not necessarily an electronic set-up, but for THE ORB it works wonders: "we're quite happy and also a little bit proud that we've reached this level of unscripted levity with purely electronic means. We're finessing ourselves, sort of, always looking for the next sonic surprise that leaves us rubbing our eyes about how the heck we got there."
Once more, THE ORB's trademark playfulness is on full display on COW / CHILL OUT, WORLD!, and it doesn't limit itself to the multi-layered sampling and psychedelic sound composites that the duo has become known for - you'll find it in the album title as well. The simple invitation (or order?) to chill out (relax? Calm the eff down?) is converted into an acronym – and the cow that you might expect to find on a Pink Floyd cover or with iconic UK chill-out/dance pranksters The KLF. It's not so much an obscure trope coming full circle as a perfect example for THE ORB's multitimbral approach to sound and meaning - a compelling, immersive journey to diverse places and impressions. Each track title is a conceptual work in its own right, playing with multiple references, some of which remain highly personal and mysterious. But the greatest feat of THE ORB's latest outing might just be how all this semantic doodling never gets in the way of the actual listening, at all times directly relating the artists' sonic vitality and cheerful nosiness. Chill out world! and treat yourself to an outstanding new ambient experience from THE ORB.
Thomas Fehlmann remains as one of the most endearing and respected artists on Kompakt. He has inspired generations of fans and musicians over the course of his 30+ year career. From his early days as part of the legendary band Palais Schaumburg, and the pioneering Detroit/Berlin act 3mb (With Juan Atkins and Moritz Von Oswald), to his longstanding membership with The Orb, combined with his contributions as a solo artist to esteemed imprints R&S, Plug Research and of course Kompakt, where we have proudly released two full length solo albums: Visions Of Blah (Kompakt CD 20/Kompakt 67) and Honigpumpe (Kompakt CD 59 / Kompakt 157), his musical works have been prolific, not to mention four singles and a full serving of tracks found on our Pop Ambient and Total collections. Now, after 3 years, Fehlmann returns with 'Gute Luft'…
“Okie Dokie It´s The Orb On Kompakt“ is already the 13th album of one of Britian's most prized cult bands. We feel it's better that way, because the music of The Orb only has an intensive effect when taken in as a long playing full length. And it proves with this lovingly conjured collection of songs brought together like a collage. The first half of Okie Dokie showcase The Orb´s love for minimal Techno and Schaffel/Shuffle as it is so obviously present in the foreground, while the second half is only reserved to the classic Orb-ish ancestral domain. There are wonderful guest appearances by Schneider TM and Kompakt´s ambient-guru Ulf Lohmann. As many of you know, there is so much history about The Orb you could write a book. Since Jimmy Cauty and Alex Paterson, in the flush of euphoria invented Chill Out and Ambient House in the first summer of love 1988, an incredible amount of things have occurred. The following timeline should give you a rough idea. - Alex Paterson gives up his job as roadie for Killing Joke. - “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain That Rules From The Centre Of The Ultraworld” is not only the record with the longest title of the world, but it also marks the departure into the new sonic worlds of post-Rave Ambient. - While Cauty goes different ways with The KLF, The Orb re-form themselves and have a big hit with Little Fluffy Clouds in 1990. - The debut album “The Orb´s Adventures Beyond The Ultraworld“ hits the Top 30 in England. - The Orb produce “Higher Than the Sun“ for Primal Scream. - The Orb perform “Blue Room“ as chess-playing aliens at Top Of The Pops. Everything goes. - “Blue Room“ clocking in at 39:58 minutes goes into music-history as the longest time for a chart single ever. - The Orb achieve great success in Glastonbury '92 + '93. - The Copenhagen double concert “to the sunrise and sunset” is eternalized on record: “Live 93“ - Previously a floating member of The Orb, Thomas Felmann becomes a fix member in 1997 - No joke: Robbie Williams takes part of The Orb for a short time. The collaboration “I started A Joke“ is released on a benefit compilation - After 2002 The Orb found with Kompakt a new ambient-loving partner and release a row of singles and play live, as the trimmed-down version as Le Petit Orb. And one more for the extra hush-hush: The Orbs first album “A Huge Ever Growing Pulsating Brain...” was actually a Kompakt release. You can check it out. Besides the actual label Wau! Mr. Modo you can read... Kompakt Discos. Ha!!
NYC’s Urner chimes with Dutch label topo2’s tastes for shimmering electronic melody and subtly crooked structures on a quietly charming LP made from Japanese lava, modular synths and software: tipped to fans of Irdial’s Anthony Manning, Georgia’s Brian Close, Visible Cloaks. In the wake of a self-issued 2020 debut and tape on Atlantic Rhythms, ’Afterimages’ is Isaac Pearl aka Urner’s 3rd album and the first to fix his ephemeral tactility to vinyl. Under a name and title hinting (to us at least) a play on psychedelic or oneiric experience, the music follows with an often fleeting, tongue-tip sensuality that patently fits topo2’s emerging remit, as heard in their sides by Upsammy, Mor Elian, Windu. It’s not hard to trace lines from ‘80s Japanese environmental ambient to ‘90s electronica and modernist reflections on new age, partly thanks to its combo of clinking, rhythmelodic Sanukite lithopone tones - think a xylophone made from rare volcanic rock - with analog and digital synth sources, applied with a mix of care and nuanced daring that feels timeless yet also up-to-date in its oloid asymmetry. A whispering opener ‘Options, Thoughts’ unfolds into hyaline dimensions, where the rest settles, offbeat, at meditative pace, between plucked melodic chin reactions of ‘Stranding’, dreamy aeolian harmonics of ‘Anni,’ and air-kissing romance of ‘Lover Cusp.’ The Visible Cloaks comparison is apt on a standout ’Suspend’ and the cascading notes of ‘Tides,’ to a quietly fizzing conclusion.
In spring 2025, Abul Mogard and Rafael Anton Irisarri created the source material for their second album, Where Light Pauses in the Silence of the Sun, during a three-day residency at Morphine Raum in Berlin. Functioning as both recording studio and performance venue, the space has no stage, with the audience gathered around the performers. Working within an open framework, the duo reshaped the music each evening while recording the performances live to multitrack. Rotary speakers, modular synthesizers and bowed guitar formed the core of their sonic language, captured through a 1970s mixing console and microphones placed around the room. Back in Mogard’s studio in Rome, the material was further crafted as motifs were stretched, fragments isolated, and tempos dissolved. Irisarri recorded additional guitar textures and treatments in New York, while passages recorded by Martina Bertoni and Andrea Burelli in Berlin reinforced the harmonic centres and brought breath, refinement and a new sensibility to their compositions. The process continued as Mogard’s layering and subtraction reassembled everyone’s parts into the final arrangement. The album opens with “In the Eastern Wild,” building from a sparse outline into a monumental formation of low-frequency weight, its internal motion shaped by the rotating Leslie speaker. “Over the Domes” widens into a broader acoustic field, where sustained modular tones meet waves of softly plucked guitar. The music then turns inward with “A Blue Descent,” centred on Bertoni’s cello, whose growling timbre introduces a melancholic depth. At the album’s centre, “In a Quiet Radiance” unfolds around a slow guitar ostinato, its luminous stillness opening into a more expansive and reflective state. Across its ten-minute span, Burelli’s violin lines and Bertoni’s lower cello phrases gradually surface, weaving through the harmonic field. Mogard brings Burelli’s processed voice to the fore, its emotive, operatic presence becoming one of the record’s pivotal moments. “Of Blessed Ages” suspends the sonic flow, shifting between parallel major and minor chords as lingering, slowly decaying melodies shape the music’s internal drift. The closing “Among Shadows” settles into a darker resonance as layered textures recede. Mogard and Irisarri’s shared language balances restraint and maximalism. UK magazine Crack describes the music as “a tidal wave held in suspension,” while Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant writes, “What a colossal sound, and how this music strikes at the emotions.” Reflecting on the residency sessions, Irisarri recalls: “At moments I genuinely couldn’t tell if a sound was coming from me or from Abul. It stopped feeling like two people making decisions and began to feel like we were inside a system moving on its own." Marja de Sanctis’ cover artwork revisits the vessel sculpture from the duo’s first album, Impossibly Distant, Impossibly Close. There it appeared as raw, unfired clay. Here it has been fired in the kiln and finished with a glaze. Light gathers on its polished surface and spills into the surrounding space. As she explains, “I wanted to convey the idea of continuity within the duo, and the vessel became a kind of container for that idea. However, their music felt different this time, and with the collaboration of Martina and Andrea, I felt it should have a sleeker, softer, more glamorous look, very distant from the first raw appearance.” The transformation of the vessel from raw clay to fired form suggests a passage from immediacy toward permanence, mirroring the music’s gradual expansion.
'28’ is the work of two Japanese artists both now resident in France and both aged 28 - hence the title. This album is the result of over 3 years worth of collaboration between the pair, coming together to form a beautiful marriage of sweet female vocals, alongside pristine, lusciously textured and layered electronics, and some clever yet funky beat programming. ‘28’ has the feeling of a classic electronica album. The sonic precision, clarity, and detailing of each element has been lovingly worked on; everything fits and flows together as the album unfolds with an organic, slowly unfurling logic. Often built up in overlapping layers, Noriko’s voice is beautifully recorded and placed within the mix. Although largely sung in Japanese, her vocals add a warmth and solidity to the album – like a series of breathy vapour trails or lullaby coos and hums, which are occasionally chopped into and stuttered via computer, yet never jarringly so. Added alongside the gentle loops and textures of the music, the album is consequently held between a kind of swaying, fluid drift where the various layers gently slide across one another, and the sudden elastic snap of the beat.
Aoki and Tujiko’s collaboration began in 2002 when they were both booked the same event for The Cartier Foundation in Paris, got talking and began working together on the track ‘Fly’ for the first time. As they worked, it quickly dawned that they both really liked what they were doing and so decided to extend the project to an album-length collaboration. Yet following that show, the pair found little time to work together because Aoki was at the time living in Osaka whilst Tujiko was in Paris. As a way around this problem, they began sending their audio files to each other as CDRs, working separately on ideas and then slowly building their tracks bit by bit. Consequently, it took a long time to finish this album, although the process sped up when Aoki also moved to Paris just under a year ago.
Whilst this album marks the first time the pair have worked together on a recording, AOKI has previously released four albums on the Japanese-based Progressive Form label and one on Cirque. Somewhat better known to European audiences, Noriko has released albums on Mego, Sub Rosa, Tomlab, all of which have received glowing and considerable coverage.
Meitei’s 2020 album 'Kofū' was the bold bookend to an expedition, where sounds were first navigated and then subverted in 2018’s 'Kwaidan' and 2019’s 'Komachi'.
All three albums were Meitei’s attempt at immersive storytelling, reimagining moments of Japanese history he felt were being washed away – not least by the unforgiving sands of time – through wistful compositions that stretched across ambient music, hauntology, and musique concrete.
When it came to finalizing 'Kofū', Meitei found he was left with over 60 fully realized tracks, bursting with ideas that fired in divergent, curious directions. Meitei was content with the 13 tracks he had selected. But when it came time to begin his next album, he found that it had been sitting in front of him all along. He realized his work wasn’t over yet.
Meitei sounds right at home celebrating the past he first reimagined in his previous work. The merriment is palpable in its first two tracks of 'Kofū II' – a loop of cheery whistling amidst the clanking of wood leads into strings, cricket sounds and flutes, all united in bustling harmony.
'Happyaku-yachō' is where it comes into focus. Pitch-shifted vocal samples roam around in the crowded sonic field. “My image of this music is that it expresses the vibrant mood of Edo's merchant culture,” says Meitei, “where old Japanese dwellings were densely packed together in a vast expanse of land.” The affair becomes bittersweet as the track leads into the desolate 'Kaworu', a compositional piece lifted from his 'Komachi' sessions – a final requiem to his late grandmother.
The album is bursting with spectral vignettes of wandering samurais, red lanterns, ninjas, puppet theatres, poets, even a vengeful assassin ('Shurayuki hime', known to Western audiences as ‘Lady Snowblood’).
'Saryō' is as elegant and refined as you would expect. It induces stillness in its repetition, with each synth note a brushstroke. It was inspired by a Sengoku-era tea house he once visited, designed by national icon Sen no Rikyū. Meitei tied it to the reaction he felt while poring over the ink paintings in his grandmother’s house. “The decayed earthen walls and faded tatami mats gave me an emotional impression,” he says. “And the cosmic flow of time drifting in the small room. I decided to put my impression of this into music.”
In 'Akira Kurosawa', an appropriately thunderous track, Meitei finds deep resonance in his vast filmography, which drew equally from Japan’s rich heritage and troubled circumstances post-WWII.
'Kofū II' is not a leftovers album, nor is it a straightforward companion piece. In this album, Meitei has his biggest reckoning with the Japanese identity yet. Over the years, he has attempted to peel back what he believes has defined Japan and its people. After seeking answers with three full-length albums, his fourth poses more questions.
If his first three albums inspired a sense of longing – or, perhaps inevitably, fed an irreparable nostalgia doomed to history – 'Kofū II' compels us to reassess our relationship with the past. By constantly looking back, are we ever afforded a clearer present? After capturing the “lost Japanese mood”, where does that leave its country in the modern world? Meitei offers no immediate answers with 'Kofū II'. It forces you to sit with its disparate moods, to meditate amidst the textured fragments.
'Kofū II' will be released on 180g LP, CD and digital format on December 10, 2021 (LP expected to land January 28, 2022) via KITCHEN. LABEL. Both LP and CD format are presented in a debossed sleeve with obi strip and include a 16-page insert with words in Japanese and English from Meitei, printed on premium paper stock with design by KITCHEN. LABEL founder Ricks Ang, and is mastered by Chihei Hatakeyama in Tokyo, Japan.
From 1993, a hallmark UK Dub album returns to the light. Pressed in small run and extremely hard to find. Produced at Earthquake Studio by TNT Roots and Winston Dread. Raw, undiluted music reflecting the evolution of Dub and contains the seeds of all their future work. Heavy sounds that stand the test of time. Back on the streets after 30 years,fully restored and remastered to honor the dubplate masters of UK Sound System culture.
For our 17th expedition, we once again put our trust in expert bass navigators, Inner Echo. After an exceptional outing on PSI011, the Bristolian duo have been further honing their craft via an LP on Moonshine, and the launch of their own imprint, EchoPlex Recordings. They return to the Challenger Deep with a brace of dub-drenched, bass heavy excursions. Limited press, no digital.
Darkai returns to Artikal with his next EP featuring 2 tracks of deep, dark, dubstep pressure. 'See Jah' takes the lead with it's unique mystic dubbed out swing of sub low weight. 'Low Tek' flips the script, the dark heavyweight stomper has been mashing up venues worldwide. With support by Mala, Youngsta, J:Kenzo, Distance and Mantra.
D&B torch carriers UVB-76 pay dues to Bristol’s rich trip hop history with Lucid Dreams’ debut LP marriage of OG ‘90s dank with subtle touches of club pressure slowed to cinematic, doom-jazzy vapours RIYL Raime, Tricky, Jabu, Bohren & der Club of Gore. The Lucid Dreams handle signifies Jason Luxton aka Clarity’s marked switch from inch-tight contemporary D&B into roughly-related downbeat interzones surely evoking a putative, nocturnal Bristol for anyone raised on Tricky, Portishead or Massive Attack classics. Seemingly crafted by candlelight and bathed in opiated atmosphere, the album unfurls a midnight soundscape in considerable depth across 15 parts in 64’ - plenty time to roll one (or two) and luxuriate in the LP’s carefully plotted course of dub-swept, smudged bass ’n drums and smoky pall. Like Raime before him, Lucid Dreams ideally inhabits a certain dark slipstream of intrigue that riddles post-punk thru to trip hop and its downbeat descendents, but also factored with a feel for D&B’s psychoacoustic spatial engineering that is key to his music’s appeal. Exquisite attention is paid to the dusty jazz drums and low register spectres shapeshifting its cloistered structures from the Bohren-pced doom shuffle of ‘Smoke & Mirrors’ up to what feels like dark echoes of proto-Goa or sci-fi scores in ‘Reincarnation’. His noirish ‘Reverie’ plays out like a Tricky witching hour special, and ‘Clairvoyance’ feels like Photek or SD on 33-not-45, next to dankest Wild Bunch/early Massive Attack nod ‘Slow-Wave’, and ‘Sleepwalking’ balances Flying Saucer Attack and ‘Mezzanine’ vibes, whilst ‘Transcendence’ holds a fine line of weightless ‘90s noir tension into the high plains drift of a ‘Realisation’ recalling aspects of Memotone’s ‘Warm Shadows’. A real sleeper gem.
Smacking that sweetspot between grime, techno, bassline and soca, Anthoney J Hart (East Man, Imaginary Forces) aka Basic Rhythm delivers a full-bore pack of rampers for Bristol-via-Berlin’s bassbin overlords, Sneaker Social Club. Active in a vein of uchronic, ‘nuum-bending invention since the 2010’s, but with roots reaching back to ‘90s pirate radio, Hart’s decade-straddling steez yields the crankiest horsepower as Basic Rhythm on ‘8 Bar Techno’. Hewing hard to the brief, he dissects and recombines styles & patterns with a fiercely upfront quality, trampling on putative borders with a rudeboy alacrity that works a treat on up-for -it ‘floors. The durable torsion of OG jungle tekno and its myriad derivations are twisted into tensile girders, variously splitting the difference between 4/4 grime and hard groove techno in ‘the title tune, or panel-beating sublow into rictus bashiness on ‘Weed Killer’, while firing killer rounds of vocal cuts including the dancehall-grime of ‘Vibez’ with NyNy, or electroid drill with Lyrical Strally and Eklipse. Along with the precision-tooled rufige of ‘Kонец века’ with Moscow Legend, the mutant soca gallop o ‘Ice cold’, and diesel-fuelled grime-techno of ‘More Pricks than Kicks’, or the dive-bombing darkness of ‘The Deluge’, it’s a hard set for discerning 140BPM shotters, and surely one of Basic Rhythm’s deadliest.
Felipe Gordon is back on Shall Not Fade with his new album Tezeta and f*ck is it special. Felipe Gordon is SNF label mainstay... (we released his triple repressed debut album "A Landscape Onomatopeya" in 2022 as well as 7 x 12" EPs on SNF over the years plus an extra 12" on Lost Palms)... so given his consistent and exceptional output on our record label you'd probably forgive some complacency with this write up, you might even afford us license to assume we're preaching to the choir and allow us to rest easy knowing that at this stage Felipe Gordon's records sell themselves.... Well none of those things are happening here because when an artist makes a record this complete, this good, you have to try to find the words. You use words like "timeless", "complete and "special". Words that can carry the weight. Because when you've listened to an album dozens of times, and not once, in any part, on any listen in any way has it fatigued you, you need to say. When a record felt so wonderfully familiar from the first listen and just kept on giving you the same feels ever since, you need to say. When a record makes you think about you how you feel about certain Air & St Germain albums (even when you know what it means to put that in a press release), you need to say. So here we are, saying these things.. Tezeta is a special record, one that exists in the rarefied air. A proper album. A record that every time you press play you will immediately remember why you own it and why you love it. A record that your subconscious will know so well that if shuffle is on you will know in an instant. An album that when it's in your collection and the first track starts you get a twinge of annoyance because you didn't listen again sooner and when the final track stops you stop too. Given paint and a canvas we can most of us paint a picture, but only those that are gifted can paint something that makes us feel. Tezeta makes you feel. Feel familiarity when it's playing, yearning when its not, and absence when it ends. This alone would be enough to make the argument as to why this album is special and justify the gushing opening paragraph of this press release. But we're not done yet. We don't really have a word in english for what Felipe Gordon has created with this album and how it makes you feel. "Tezeta" that word. Tezeta is a one of four musical modes within the traditional Ethiopian modal music system known as Qiñit. Mulatu Astatke, the father of Ethio-jazz, frequently uses this mode, often translating it as "nostalgia" or "longing". Gordon says Mulatu's own tezeta recordings convey to him "feelings of melancholy and longing from a point of affection". This is exactly the feeling Gordon has captured. It is what he has woven through every recording on this album. Tezeta is the prime ingredient. It's the base note in recipe, it's sprinkled over the signature jazz-sampled house tracks. It powers the vast array of synthesizers Gordon deploys. It underpins the explorations into trip-hop. It's present in Gordon's varied vocal deliveries and it tunes his guitar. It's in the running order. It's the flow. Tezeta is tezeta in electronic music form, with 4/4, breakbeats, samples and synths. Gordon says a big part of what differentiates this album from from his previous albums is that is was recorded in a period where he allowed himself to create music without the constraints of time or self-pressure which coincided with a moment of heavy personal growth which allowed him to reflect deeply on his work. There is a word in Portuguese "Saudade" that Gordon says has a similar meaning to Tezeta - Saudade is defined as a deep, sometimes bittersweet, longing or nostalgia for someone or something that is absent or lost. But here at SNF we think that in Tezeta nothing has been lost. Quite the opposite. Through Felipe Gordon's artistic explorations we have all gained something very special indeed.
Viva is the second album by the German band La Düsseldorf, realized in 1978 and it is considered its most successful release. Indeed, the album contains both the singles "Rheinita", which was their most successful single, and "Cha Cha 2000"; an expansive and utopian piece that mixes repetition, piano passages, chants, and electronic textures into a kind of dreamlike manifesto for a more ideal society. Probably the band’s most famous song. The album represents a combination of modern electronic textures, pop clarity, and krautrock experimentation which has secured Viva a lasting place in the history of German experimental rock. This vinyl reissue is the first after fifteen years.
La Düsseldorf's debut album, formed by Klaus Dinger after the dissolution of NEU!, sublimated the experimental nature of Krautrock into a pop sensibility.
The tracks "La Düsseldorf," "Silver Cloud," and "Time" create a hypnotic and celebratory atmosphere through their repetitive motorik beat and shimmering synthesizers. The album is marked by the energetic vocals of Klaus Dinger and a sense of openness within its minimal structure.
Transcending the boundaries of German rock, this work radiates a genre-crossing appeal, where an art-rock perspective fuses with a DIY spirit. It stands as a symbol of Krautrock's evolution, continuing to shine brightly with a freshness that influenced later new wave and techno music.
*2025 reissue* Ralf and Florian (original German title: Ralf und Florian) is the third studio album by the German electronic band Kraftwerk. It was released in October 1973 and it saw the group moving toward their signature electronic sound. This work introduces greater cleanliness in the sounds and intensifies the use of electronic instrumentation, namely synths (Mini Moog, the EMS AKS and Farfisa), drum machines and, for the first time, a prototype vocoder. The formation thus approaches the stylistic code of the best-known works, starting from Autobahn, the latter considered to be the true debut of Kraftwerk. In 2008, Fact named it among the 20 greatest ambient albums ever made.
Artist, producer, composer, and keyboardist John Carroll Kirby presents Blowout, his new album out June 30th with his latest song “Oropendola.” The record is inspired by a period in Costa Rica spent playing with local musicians while Kirby imagined “failed utopias.”
In 2021, Kirby visited Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica to film an episode of his Kirby’s Gold travelogue series with the Kawe Calypso Band. Here, Kirby wrote the majority of Blowout between the early-morning wake-up calls from the local oropendola birds and psychedelic sunsets. Kirby says, “The oropendola is a very cool bird that lives in a sac-like hanging nest. There was a tree full of them outside where I stayed that woke me up every morning at 5 am, so I had to write a song about them.” The album was finished upon Kirby’s return to Los Angeles with a stripped-down band at 64 Sound Studios.
Blowout sways between the title’s two definitions – a moment of destruction and one big party. While writing the album, Kirby thought of episodes of collective madness or delusion, like Fyre Festival and the Heaven’s Gate cult. The album imagines “a festival where everyone gets beamed up to utopia or heaven instead of starving or dying unfulfilled.” Kirby says, “I’m trying to use imagination in music to create my own myths, and keep things playful and funny and not too sanctimonious.”
A Note from Lawrence English TripleAkuma is the third in a series of essential live documents from Merzbow. The stage and the studio are not the same place, and Merzbow has an acute understanding of this juxtaposition. Whilst the sheer density of the music might be maintained across both spheres, the live experience of Merzbow is truly something that exists as profoundly physical and moreover, overtly performative. Merzbow’s live methodologies draw not just from a saturation of frequency at all levels, but a recognition of how frequency can be used to affect the body. Working at the extremes of both low and high sonic energies, he creates a situation within which the fullness of the body can be tested; the aural body, that of our ears (and importantly our mind’s ear), and the physical one (after all, the body itself is an ear). TripleAkuma, recorded in his hometown of Tokyo, captures a particularly fierce and free performance. There’s a morphic and lava-like quality to the sounds he creates here and the very room itself bares into the recording, adding a certain excessive intensity to the way the sounds carry in space, and time. There is no one exposure that could capture the true force and presence of Merzbow live, but each capture, like this one, deepens our understanding of his truly unique and provocative sonic universe.
HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER 1978 INSTRUMENTAL ALBUM RELEASED ON CULT LEBANESE LABEL BYBLOS. CURATED BY DIKRAPHONE'S AHMED KHALIL AND FEATURING THE DANCEFLOOR KILLER "AL GHABA".
Wewantsounds continues its Middle East reissue series with Assa’d Khoury’s 1978 rarity, Electronic Touches Belly Dance. Reissued for the first time in nearly 50 years in partnership with Byblos Records founder Mozart Chahine, the album features Oriental classics reimagined through Khoury’s pioneering funky, electronic keyboards together with the monster breakbeat of cult track "Al Ghaba." This definitive edition includes original artwork, remastered audio, a new introduction by Ahmed Khalil (Dikraphone), and an exclusive interview with Chahine conducted by Mario Choueiry (IMA)
Long a highly coveted find for DJs and vinyl collectors worldwide, Assa’d Khoury’s 1978 album has earned its cult status as one of the most sought-after instrumental LPs from the region. This release marks the very first reissue of the album, which has remained virtually impossible to find since its original pressing. Khoury (1953–2020), a Syrian virtuoso pianist, violinist, and leader of the "Spring Band," bridged Levantine tradition with the cosmic, psychedelic textures of the late 1970s. As Dikraphone's Ahmed Khalil notes in his introduction, the music serves as "a sensory portal to a bygone Damascus, where a psychedelic Farfisa and mesmerizing rhythms create a unique groove" that remains remarkably fresh today.
The album’s history is tied to the legacy of the venerable Lebanese Chahine family. Mozart Chahine, son of the inventor of the quarter-tone keyboard, founded the Byblos label to champion music from the region. In an exclusive interview conducted by Mario Choueiry (IMA), he recalls encountering Khoury at his Damascus music store and recording the entire album in a single day. "The musicians were seasoned, much like jazzmen," Chahine reminisces, noting that the session captured a rare, immediate energy between the ensemble members.
The musical journey spans the Arab world, offering electronic reinterpre-tations of Arabic standards and paying respect to Egyptian master Sayed Darwish. From Mohammad Abdel Wahab’s "Ahwak"—rendered here in an almost psychedelic version—to the Lebanese traditions of Melhem Barakat, the record culminates in the avant-garde "Al Ghaba." An original Khoury composition with a killer breakbeat, "Al Ghaba" is a very funky highlight that has become particularly popular among Arabic music crate diggers. Closing the album in style, it perfectly fulfills Khoury's intent: a sound for modern times, reaching toward a futuristic energy that remains as potent now as it was in 1978. A cult classic which Wewantsounds is delighted to reissue and which will surely please all Arabic funk lovers.