MUSIC

One of Yokota's most loved releases that explores the intersection of jazz, new age ambience and a world of found sound and samples.

Grinning Cat confounded devotees of Sakura with a far more complex set of tracks. A landscape of ambiguous emotional resonance within an album of measured extremes. Sentimental without being schmaltzy, joyful without being saccharine, Grinning Cat sees Yokota at his most playful and experimental, channelling moments of transitory wonder and jubilation, and opening up a sonic environment in which we can romp and play.

SONIC TRANSITS Electronic and Tape Music by Peruvian Composers (1964-1984) This compilation offers a first overview of the early works of electronic and tape music created by Peruvians between 1964 and 1984. This period marks a technical and aesthetic evolution that allows us to understand the development of electronic music in the Peruvian context, from an initially internationalist model to a more situaded one. The first phase occurs in the 1960s, when many composers migrated outside Peru in search of advanced training and access to knowledge and infrastructure that the academic music scene in Peru could not provide. During these specialization trips, Peruvian composers gained access to the languages of the international avant-garde of the post-war period. César Bolaños traveled to Argentina, to the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) at the Instituto Di Tella, where he produced an extensive body of work, including "Intensidad y Altura" (1964) for magnetic tape, the first electronic work produced in the CLAEM electronic music laboratory. Similarly, Edgar Valcárcel was a CLAEM fellow and also spent time at the Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center in New York, where he composed, among other works, "Invención" (1967) for magnetic tape. Enrique Pinilla also passed through there, composing "Prisma" (1967) for magnetic tape. Alejandro Núñez Allauca was another CLAEM fellow, where he composed "Gravitación Humana" (1970) for magnetic tape. However, several Peruvian composers faced the dilemma of how to continue these sonic explorations locally without relying solely on specialization trips to access the infrastructure of major international laboratories. Due to the inability to establish a laboratory for electronic music production in Peru during these early decades, given the weak institutional framework of the academic music circuit and the absence of budget allocations for the National Conservatory, it was rather private initiatives in recording studios that paved the way for the sustained production of experimental pieces with electronic setups and media, largely oriented towards the production of music for film and dance. This was accompanied by a notable interest in utilizing the sounds of native Peruvian instruments. This also marked a shift from an internationalist model of electroacoustic music towards an openness to other types of sonic experimentation. Composers such as Arturo Ruiz del Pozo, Luis David Aguilar, and Corina Bartra belong to this new period, which also marks the emergence of an initial scene of experimental music and free improvisation. Ruiz del Pozo pursued a Master's in Electronic and Film Music at the Royal College of Music in London, where he composed "Selvynas" (1978), part of his series "Composiciones Nativas," concrete music pieces based on native Peruvian instruments. Upon returning to Lima, he continued producing music for films using electronic sounds and setups. Luis David Aguilar also became involved in music for film and television, composing, among other works, "Hombres de viento" (1978), the soundtrack for José Antonio Portugal's film, which mixes native and Western instruments amplified and processed electronically. He would be one of the first to have a private recording studio. Corina Bartra, after being part of various improvisation ensembles alongside musicians such as Ruiz del Pozo and Aguilar, traveled to London where she took courses in composition and electronic music, composing the mixed work "Aves en vuelo al sur" for voice, instruments, and tape in a private studio. Sonic Transits: Electronic and Tape Music by Peruvian Composers (1964-1984) is part of the Essential Sounds Collection series produced by Buh Records for Centro del Sonido, a website set up as a digital archive of Peruvian experimental music and sound art. The compilation has been curated by Luis Alvarado and is published in a limited edition of 300 copies in double vinyl format. It includes extensive notes and visual documentation. Mastered by Alberto Cendra. Art and desig by Gonzalo de Montreuil.

First vinyl edition of the album Rhetorical Islands, originally released by Giuseppe Ielasi in 2012 as a limited-edition CD on his Senufo Editions label, with recordings made in 2011 as a commission for l’Audible Festival, Paris. The album’s ten tracks have neither titles nor accompanying text, standing for themselves as what Ielasi himself has called “isolated sound worlds”. They are nonetheless unparalleled in their plasticity, acoustic events with a rare degree of tangibility. Ielasi evokes physical objects, some of which seem to have been constructed out of paper and cardboard, others based on a mechanics of elastic materials. Of course these objects are hallucinations, and precisely because Ielasi constructs them so masterfully there’s no need for any further information. Here’s to everyone creating their very own sculptures while listening to Rhetorical Islands! The front and back cover features 0.058, a work on paper by the artists Thomas & Renée Rapedius. They make sculptures whose form and artistic inspiration are defined by their materials. Like Ielasi’s acoustic islands, their impact derives from self-referentiality, resulting in paradoxical objects that embody both a detailed material study and a potential for free association.

As hard as obsidian and blazingly fast bass playing, ferocious orchestral soundscapes, and a relentless series of sharp turns traversing progressive, ambient, electronic, and experimental music—this ambitious work, true to its name “Chamber Concerto,” pushes the very limits of musical structure itself.

Bruce Haack's "The Electric Lucifer" is rightly considered one of the masterworks of 20th century electronic music. Originally recorded in 1968-69, it's an eminently listenable work where Pop-psychedelia and Moog musique-concrete sounds coalesce.

ノイズ界の二大巨頭、Merzbow と Bastard Noise が真正面から激突したコラボ作『Brick Wall Evolution』。Merzbow の流動的で有機的なハーシュノイズと、Bastard Noise の低域重視のパワーエレクトロニクスが融合し、圧倒的な密度と質量を持つ音響が立ち上がる。高周波のきらめきと地鳴りのような低周波が層を成し、混沌と秩序が同時に存在するノイズの地形が刻々と変化していく。タイトル通り、進化した音の壁！！

ITALIA SYNTHETICA 2025 features a FRED VENTURA curated selection of unreleased tracks from a collective of Italian artists and producers who have long been influential in the electronic underground scene. These musicians continue to push boundaries and explore new frontiers within electro, synth-pop, and new wave.

Label co-founder Conrad Pack returns to SELN with what is in essence a Dub EP, but so much more. The failsafe formula of stepping percussion and “ital” bass lean on a familiar soundsystem nature with engulfing pads finishing the job to evoke a true BIG SMOKE FEELING. Although the melody itself wouldn’t sound out of place in a UK Drill number the song overall still touches on DIY ++ sonics (yes it’s as good as it sounds if not better). Recorded during the height of the Scram era, masterminded by Leeway (Guy Gormley), and hosted by the late soundsystem luminary Julian Fairshare at Ormside Projects, the influences are crystal clear; Steppers-esq, leaning heavily on London’s musical legacy past and present, whilst still pushing for SOMETHING NEW. Praise EP will be available as a limited edition Vinyl (edition of 200) and digital download. You can catch Pack performing a special live set at our forthcoming 'late night event’ at Ormside Projects on 4th October alongside Kerrie, Jah Vibemaster & Sam Clarke.

Diagonale des Yeux is a new band formed by EYE and panoptique (Parasite Jazz, Simple Music Experience...). Their homemade world drifts along the fringes of cabaret, strange 1980s French underground pop music to contemporary lo-fi scene — evoking the spirit of Nini Raviolette and The Residents — while delivering beautifully written songs that lodge themselves in your head almost immediately like a Cindy Lee ballad. The tracks on Madeleine squeak and creak, wobbling on fragile hinges before suddenly opening onto moments of pure beauty. Drums and guitars follow up synths and electronic percussions captured on tape; chance and dialogue shape meaning and intention through "exquisite corpse" lyrics in diverse languages, with a kink for choirs.

Upgrade & Afterlife stands as a pivotal and singular recording in the catalog of Gastr del Sol, the duo of David Grubbs and Jim O’Rourke. Originally released in 1996, this album is frequently cited as a landmark of post-rock and experimental music, praised for its blend of avant-garde abstraction, folk minimalism, and a restless, exploratory spirit. The album opens with “Our Exquisite Replica of ‘Eternity’,” a piece that has become emblematic for many listeners: a slow-building, cinematic soundscape that combines mangled drones, brassy orchestral samples (from Hans J. Salter’s The Incredible Shrinking Man soundtrack), and electronic textures to create a sense of alien strangeness and emotional depth. The track’s title, inspired by a sign on a Japanese perfume vending machine, hints at the band’s playful conceptual approach.

Throughout Upgrade & Afterlife, Gastr del Sol continually subverts expectations: “Rebecca Sylvester” begins as a sparse guitar ballad before dissolving into ambient abstraction, while “Hello Spiral” and “The Relay” explore fractured electronics, shifting grooves, and prismatic vocal layers. The closing track, a cover of John Fahey’s “Dry Bones in the Valley (I Saw the Light Come Shining ‘Round and ‘Round),” features a guest appearance by Tony Conrad on violin, bridging American folk traditions with the avant-garde and providing a fittingly monumental conclusion.

Critics have described the album as “stark and minimalist at times, jazzy and far-ranging at others,” with a unique ability to make “background music that quietly asserts itself into the foreground”. Pitchfork noted its way of letting “folk and avant-garde abstract each other into something warm, minimal, and slanted”. The album’s cover, Wasserstiefel (Water Boots) by Roman Signer, further underscores its enigmatic and conceptual nature.

Upgrade & Afterlife remains a touchstone for listeners seeking music that is as immediate as it is strange, as spiky as it is immersive-a record that continues to reveal new layers with every listen, and a high point in the collaboration between Grubbs and O’Rourke

Quickly following on from last year's 'Ghosted II', the third Reichian kraut-jazz session from Oren Ambarchi and his long-time collaborators loosens the screws a little, inviting in Americana, dream pop and blues influences and zeroing in on the tiny details.

Ambarchi, bassist Johan Berthling and percussionist Andreas Werliin are familiar with each other at this stage to fully let rip. 'Ghosted III' is their third recorded set in four years, and although they're still led by the jazz-taught instincts that guided their subtle, minimalist-inspired folk-jazz-rock debut, they've unclenched their muscles and let rip this time around. There's a new-found, liberating slackness to opener (and lead single) 'Yek', where Ambarchi daubs his chiming guitar notes over Werliin's jerky rhythms and Berthling's unraveled bassline. Catching the desert dust at first, it hardens into a Tangerine Dream-cum-Philip Glass nu-new age shimmer before it comes to a close. And 'Do' pulls back the bluster even further, reducing Weliin's drums to a faint patter, and filling the gaps with Ambarchi's cosmic pad-like guitars. After the 'TNT'-era Tortoise in dub Leslie-powered euphoria of 'Seh', the trio get back into the groove with 'Chahar', pulling Ambarchi's fictile notes into an orbit of ratcheting drums and repeating bass plucks that concludes with a splatter of xenharmonic guitar tones.

They venture into Americana territory on the long, plodding 'Panj', padding the low end with Ambarchi's swirling organ-esque tones that transform into concertina-ing zaps, and the best is saved for last - 'Shesh' is a dream-pop/post-rock melter that's among the best tracks Ambarchi, Berthling and Werliin have recorded, falling somewhere between Labradford and Talk Talk. Gorgeous.

After a two-decade interlude, Jim O’Rourke’s Moikai returns with Spectral Evolution, a major new work by Rafael Toral. Making his name in the mid-1990s with influential guitar drone platters like "Sound Mind Sound Body" and "Wave Field" (both reissued by Drag City in recent years), Toral has never been one to rest on his laurels repeating his past glories. In the early years of the 21st century, Toral laid the guitar aside, along with the focus on extended tones that had defined much of his music until that point. He began his ‘Space Program’, a thirteen-year investigation of the performance possibilities of an ever-expanding set of custom electronic instruments, played with a fluid phrasing and rhythmic flexibility inspired by jazz. Dedicated to honing his skills on these idiosyncratic instruments, Toral has performed with them extensively both solo and in many collaborations, including in his Space Quartet, where his mini-amplifier feedback integrates seamlessly into the frontline of a classic post-free jazz quartet rounded out with saxophone, double bass, and drums. Since 2017, Toral’s work has been entering a new phase, often still centred around the arsenal of self-built instruments developed in the Space Program, but with a renewed interest in the long tones and almost static textures of his earlier work; he has also, after more than a decade, returned to the electric guitar. Spectral Evolution is undoubtedly Toral’s most sophisticated work to date, bringing together seemingly incompatible threads from his entire career into a powerful new synthesis, both wildly experimental and emotionally affecting. The record begins with a brief ‘Intro’ that sets the stage for the unique sound world explored throughout the remainder of its duration: over sparkling clean guitar figures, Toral stages a duet between two streams of modulated feedback, seeming less electronic than like mutant takes on a muted trumpet and an ocarina. This segues seamlessly into the stunning ‘Changes’, where a dense array of Space instruments solo with wild abandon over a thick carpet of slowly moving chords, growing increasingly chaotic over the course of eight minutes yet always fastened to the lush harmonic foundation. On these and many other moments on the record, Toral manages the almost miraculous feat of having his self-built electronic instruments (which in the past he had seen as ‘inadequate to play any music based on the Western system’) play in tune. In an unexpected sidestep away from any of his previous work, the chord changes that underpin many of the episodes on Spectral Evolution are derived from classic jazz harmony, including takes on the archetypal Gershwin ‘Rhythm changes’ and Ellington-Strayhorn’s ‘Take the “A” Train’, albeit slowed to such an extent that each chord becomes a kind of environment in its own right. Threading together twelve distinct episodes into a flowing whole, "Spectral Evolution" alternates moments of airy instrumental interplay with dense sonic mass, breaking up the pieces based on chord changes with ambient ‘Spaces’. At points reduced to almost a whisper, at other moments Toral’s electronics wail, squelch, and squeak like David Tudor’s live-electronic rainforest. Similarly, his use of the guitar encompasses an enormous dynamic and textural range, from chiming chords to expansive drones, from crystal clarity to fuzzy grit: on the beautiful ‘Your Goodbye’, his filtered, distorted soloing recalls Loren Connors in its emotive depth and wandering melodic sensibility. The product of three years of experimentation and recording, and synthesizing the insights of more than thirty years of musical research, "Spectral Evolution" is the quintessential album of guitar music from Rafael Toral.

Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke's fifth collaboration remixes live material from their 2023 European tour. Pareidolia weaves improvised performances from France, Switzerland, Italy & Ireland into a dynamic sound collage, blending computer-generated textures with flute & harmonica. A meditation on perception & randomness.

For this collaborative release, Eiko Ishibashi & Jim O'Rourke edited and remixed material captured at shows they played during a lovely two week tour through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland in April 2023. Pareidolia shapes an ideal collage from the best resonances and relationships from those nights. A dynamic medley of colour and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air around you, appealing to your suggestibility, wherever you find it - "the tendency to perceive a specific, often meaningful image in a random or ambiguous visual pattern; to see shapes or make pictures out of randomness."

Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O'Rourke toured Europe for two weeks in 2023, a wonderful passage through France, Switzerland, Italy and Ireland. Pareidolia, the duo's fifth collaborative release, is a remix made up of resonances from those shows. The movement of sound in each performance and the relationships of sound between them; a dynamic medley of colour and shape to pulse through earbuds, speaker cones and the air immediately surrounding you. Improvisation is the preferred collaborative mode for Eiko and Jim. They both prepare separately, without discussing anything beforehand. The dialogue in the moment determines the performance; anything that takes place is a possible point of departure, allowing for a unique experience each time they play. These 2023 shows marked the first time Jim and Eiko had played together outside Japan. Perhaps the flow of parts unpacked from their respective computers was inspired by the experiences of the tour: the nature of the assembled audience, the quality of the meal on the day at hand. Additionally, Eiko played flute and they both played a bit of harmonica intermittently throughout the performances. These live acoustic signals were routed back to the hard drives, to provide further material to play with — and as they travelled, recordings of the previous nights' shows were among the materials for the next performance. With all this to play with, there was much fun to be had every night. Pareidolia's final mix is one further rearrangement of the elements — comping — say, a bit of Jim from Paris against Eiko in Dublin for a minute, before bringing them both back into the same room for a spell before another set of interactions comes into play. The choices and edits represented here make yet another unique dialogue, as well as a kind of 'best' version of what they were doing on the tour.

For us at home, the sense of inevitability in the parts as they flow together might suggest structure; happily, this occurs without Eiko and Jim really committing to anything of the sort. Their available sound sources could present as a hot-wired noise onslaught, with all faders up full. Endless possible interpretations to be had on either side of the experience! This is one of several ways that the LP title and sequence of song titles come into play. Listeners hearing something more should have a good look in the mirror and perhaps consider the old saying: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you."

A sequel to last year's sublime 'Spectral Evolution', 'Traveling Light' is a suite of weightless, uncannily beautiful jazz standards, transformed into orchestral drones and electronic chirps by Toral and his virtual band. It's flawless material that draws a clear line from Billie Holiday through Clara Rockmore, Fripp & Eno and Alvin Lucier to MBV and Gastr del Sol and beyond. Unmissable gear, from one of the scene's unassailable legends. Culture never emerges from a vacuum. It accumulates and evolves, building on what occurred before and gleaning influence from what happened nearby; the more cultural threads converge, the more complex, nuanced and developed the resulting braids become. Toral acknowledged this fact quite brazenly on last year's 'Spectral Evolution', bringing over a decade of impenetrable off-world experimentation to a halt and shoving his bare hands into the creative soil that inspired iconic tomes like 1995's 'Loveless'-inspired masterpiece 'Wave Field' and the meditative Éliane Radigue-cum-Rhys Chatham 'Violence of Discovery And Calm of Acceptance'. Taking a dip in the pool of concepts that eddy underneath rock music's labyrinth of caverns, he referenced Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, turning vintage progressions into idiosyncratic contemporary gestures. And on 'Traveling Light' that basic theme is expanded again; here, Toral takes six recognizable early 20th century standards and applies a very similar treatment, augmenting them with additional "canonical jazz sounds" from clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, flügelhorn player Yaw Tembe and flautist Clara Saleiro. Playing guitar and bass with his self-built ensemble of electronic devices (that includes a modified theremin), Toral lets his influences float even closer to the surface here, picking out familiar jazz and exotica flourishes, early electronic echoes and organ-esque polyphonic sustained tones that stretch across hundreds of years of musical history. On opener 'Easy Living', a Ralph Rainger composition from 1937 that's been recorded by Billie Holiday, Bill Evans and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among others, the original chord sequence is slackened by Toral's sustained guitar tones and sine waves, but not blurred completely into impressions. This time around we're treated to more tangible shapes: Toral's cheeky, expertly rendered riffs, horizontal exotica-inspired rhythmelodic chimes, intimate woodwind breaths that pull us back to the '30s and squealing pitches that can't help but remind us of Clara Rockmore's Robert Moog-produced milestone 'The Art of the Theremin'. It feels like being chucked in the American cultural petri dish while new organisms mutate around you - everything's recognisable somehow but novel, peculiar. Lovingly valve saturated strums, bent by Toral's whammy, introduce 'Body and Soul' (a 1930 standard that's best known for being recorded by Frank Sinatra) before they're met by alien chirps from his arsenal of generators. But it's the willowy harmonies that buoy this one, echoing the haunted choral drones that prop up centuries of European sacred music. Toral's very specific with his references; when Amado's tenor moans whisper around the dense polyphonic hums, there's a tacit acknowledgement of the enduring influence of African American spirituals and gospel on folk, blues, jazz, country, rock 'n roll and R&B. The album's most affecting segment comes at the conclusion though, with 'My Funny Valentine' and 'God Bless the Child', easily two of the most conspicuous compositions of the era. On both, Toral hovers between clarity and abstraction, overlaying bone-dry fingerpicked improvisations on the former that scrape over Chicago's musical timeline, from "hot jazz" to post-rock, and finishing the album with Fennesz-like distortions that crack and dissolve into Saleiro's levitational flute tones. It's astonishing stuff, honestly - maybe not as immediately startling as 'Spectral Evolution', but refined, polished and concentrated in every way. You're unlikely to find a more moving set this year, that's for sure.

A sequel to last year's sublime 'Spectral Evolution', 'Traveling Light' is a suite of weightless, uncannily beautiful jazz standards, transformed into orchestral drones and electronic chirps by Toral and his virtual band. It's flawless material that draws a clear line from Billie Holiday through Clara Rockmore, Fripp & Eno and Alvin Lucier to MBV and Gastr del Sol and beyond. Unmissable gear, from one of the scene's unassailable legends. Culture never emerges from a vacuum. It accumulates and evolves, building on what occurred before and gleaning influence from what happened nearby; the more cultural threads converge, the more complex, nuanced and developed the resulting braids become. Toral acknowledged this fact quite brazenly on last year's 'Spectral Evolution', bringing over a decade of impenetrable off-world experimentation to a halt and shoving his bare hands into the creative soil that inspired iconic tomes like 1995's 'Loveless'-inspired masterpiece 'Wave Field' and the meditative Éliane Radigue-cum-Rhys Chatham 'Violence of Discovery And Calm of Acceptance'. Taking a dip in the pool of concepts that eddy underneath rock music's labyrinth of caverns, he referenced Duke Ellington and George Gershwin, turning vintage progressions into idiosyncratic contemporary gestures. And on 'Traveling Light' that basic theme is expanded again; here, Toral takes six recognizable early 20th century standards and applies a very similar treatment, augmenting them with additional "canonical jazz sounds" from clarinetist José Bruno Parrinha, tenor saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, flügelhorn player Yaw Tembe and flautist Clara Saleiro. Playing guitar and bass with his self-built ensemble of electronic devices (that includes a modified theremin), Toral lets his influences float even closer to the surface here, picking out familiar jazz and exotica flourishes, early electronic echoes and organ-esque polyphonic sustained tones that stretch across hundreds of years of musical history. On opener 'Easy Living', a Ralph Rainger composition from 1937 that's been recorded by Billie Holiday, Bill Evans and Rahsaan Roland Kirk, among others, the original chord sequence is slackened by Toral's sustained guitar tones and sine waves, but not blurred completely into impressions. This time around we're treated to more tangible shapes: Toral's cheeky, expertly rendered riffs, horizontal exotica-inspired rhythmelodic chimes, intimate woodwind breaths that pull us back to the '30s and squealing pitches that can't help but remind us of Clara Rockmore's Robert Moog-produced milestone 'The Art of the Theremin'. It feels like being chucked in the American cultural petri dish while new organisms mutate around you - everything's recognisable somehow but novel, peculiar. Lovingly valve saturated strums, bent by Toral's whammy, introduce 'Body and Soul' (a 1930 standard that's best known for being recorded by Frank Sinatra) before they're met by alien chirps from his arsenal of generators. But it's the willowy harmonies that buoy this one, echoing the haunted choral drones that prop up centuries of European sacred music. Toral's very specific with his references; when Amado's tenor moans whisper around the dense polyphonic hums, there's a tacit acknowledgement of the enduring influence of African American spirituals and gospel on folk, blues, jazz, country, rock 'n roll and R&B. The album's most affecting segment comes at the conclusion though, with 'My Funny Valentine' and 'God Bless the Child', easily two of the most conspicuous compositions of the era. On both, Toral hovers between clarity and abstraction, overlaying bone-dry fingerpicked improvisations on the former that scrape over Chicago's musical timeline, from "hot jazz" to post-rock, and finishing the album with Fennesz-like distortions that crack and dissolve into Saleiro's levitational flute tones. It's astonishing stuff, honestly - maybe not as immediately startling as 'Spectral Evolution', but refined, polished and concentrated in every way. You're unlikely to find a more moving set this year, that's for sure.

In 1987, RAFAEL TORAL began making his own compositions and solo recordings. 30 years later, these recordings sound remarkably prescient and perfectly timeless—almost fresher today than when they were first released. Rafael has spent the time since then developing his conceptions, with continued explorations in the many records that have followed. On the 30th anniversary of his start, Drag City is reissuing Sound Mind Sound Body and Wave Field, his first two long out-of-print albums, on vinyl for the first time. Sound Mind Sound Body was partly inspired by exploring some of the working principles of Brian Eno and Robert Fripp, extrapolated by Rafael via a unique signal path leading out of his guitar. He paid notice to the massive impact of discreet gestures, creating slow-moving tones and spacious orchestral resonances, drifting and droning with glacial majesty, hardly recognizable as guitar much of the time. The first of these pieces were recorded in 1987, and in 1994, they were released on Portugal’s AnAnAnA, with material evolved in the years between, producing a remarkable equilibrium over an hour’s listening. Further evidence of the necessity for gradual development exists in subsequent reissues: for the 1998 Moikai reissue, “AE 1” was recorded, and for this edition, “AER 7 E” was rerecorded and the material for “AE 2” was recorded for the first time ever—all from original processes as noted, and none of which will cause the listener to notice a change in the otherworldly atmosphere.

Mats Gustafsson meets Jan St. Werner in 2019 when they both perform with Peter Brötzmann and a group of prolific improvisers for three days at Flutgraben in Berlin. Mats and Jan notice their mutual passion for performing not just inside spaces, but also with them, activating environments and shaping sound through diversion. Mats introduces Johan Berthling, whose complex bass explorations complement the frantic jitter of Mats’ saxophone and pedals, and Werner’s digital nerdery. The trio instantly agrees on sound as a physical material, one that can bend, shift, and move anywhere within instants. They establish musical forms only to immediately dissect and reassemble them again. It’s a nervous ride: a hyperactive conversation, keen on detail and open to argument. Though IFANAME’s sound is instantly graspable, it is also hard to pin down. Nothing seems stable, yet it endures, holding together like some kind of catchy glue that vaporizes as quickly as it forms. IFANAME is question and concern; it is music as much as it is movement. It is attention, care, curiosity, and disaster. Wherever IFANAME came from, there is much more waiting, ready to burst and reshape in front of and inside your ears.

Edward Artemiev's re-recording of his scores to Andrei Tarkovsky's classic films Зеркало (Mirror) (1975) and Сталкер (Stalker) (1979), reissued on 180-gram vinyl. When Artemiev recorded these scores in Moscow in 1989 and '90, there were no legitimately available releases of the original soundtracks. Artemiev chose to fill that void himself with these recordings, released on Torso Kino in the Netherlands as part of a 1990 double-LP set also containing re-recordings of Artemiev's score to Солярис (Solaris) (1972). This set is now long out of print, and Mirumir is pleased to present the collection on two separate LP releases, remastered, with new artwork, and officially licensed by the artist himself.

For the very first time on vinyl, Jah Wobble's 1997 extraordinary descent into downtempo and world beat science. Released on his now-defunct 30 Hertz label, »The Light Programme« showcased an excellent cast of musicians. On board are historical Can drummer Jaki Liebezeit – with more of his African-induced rhythms – multi-instrumentalist - and The Wire contributor - Clive Bell, conga player Neville Murray, guitar and synth player Mark Ferda and the exceptional harpist Zi-Lan Liao. If you enjoyed »My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts« you’ll fall in love with »The Light Programme.«

SCULPTURES is composer and pianist Derek Hunter Wilson’s third solo album, an ode to the ancient and contested shorelines of the Pacific Northwest. Deeply embedded in place, the six longform pieces that make up the album reflect the artist’s journey through grief (including losing his father) and the passage of time, each one built upon loops created from extended sessions with harpist Joshua Ward. Like the foggy, moss-encrusted locations that inspired the album, Sculptures has a timeless feel to it, shadowed by the rumblings of a colonial system in decay. Award-winning poet Mathias Svalina composed a poem in honor of the album, entitled “A Dream for Sculptures”: "The roof of the church collapsed long ago. Vines cover the stone walls, thick, old columns of rough, dark bark & new shoots so thin & so green they almost seem, when the breeze shakes them, to be more light than plant. Tall grasses & thorny things twist through the weather-warped pews, the air thick with plant-wet breath. Each architectural feature of the church has been smoothed & vagued by growth, all but the altar, which sits on a square slab of white marble. You walk to the altar, stepping through the tangles of scrub & burr as smoothly as crossing a salt flat. You rise onto the slab of marble. The air thinner & dry. And from here you can hear it, the insistent creeping & creaking of never-ending growth, wordless with want. A small gold bowl has been left on the altar. In the bowl sits three blue flowers. The petals have been tied back with thin silver, each petal tightly overlapping another, the bloomed flowers have been forced back to buds. You lift one blue flower to your nose. It smells of old coins, shiny from centuries of fingers, of corroded batteries. Vibration rises through your feet. And again. And again. There is something beneath the altar, trying to get out. You press your shoulder into the altar & push with all your might. Your every tendon & muscle strain. Your lungs burn. Sweat streams from your face. And finally, the altar moves, only a touch & then it grinds forward, revealing a hole. Beneath the altar the cold seas splashes, wave after wave of icy saltwater churning up. You take a deep breath. You close your eyes. You dive in."

For Chantal Michelle, composing music is a form of choreography. Within surreal sonic environments, distinct sounds form relationships—moving together, then drifting apart—in a process of continuous reemergence across the auditory field. This ever-shifting constellation gestures toward the fragility and mutability of perception, a recurring focus in Michelle’s work. Trained as a dancer from an early age, Michelle brings a heightened spatial sensitivity to her practice: an intuitive understanding of how forms coexist and move through three dimensions, and an appreciation for the beauty found in unlikely juxtapositions of materials and ideas. Since establishing her solo career in 2021, she has gained international recognition for her patient, meticulous recordings, often developed in tandem with installations, multi-channel compositions, and sound sculptures. Within these subtly disorienting sonic architectures, new relationships can emerge, new boundaries can be drawn, and listeners are invited into an experience of time that resists linearity.

All Things Might Spill, Michelle’s first album for Shelter Press, is an examination of sustained tension and the mystifying experience of time dilation in the moments just before a rupture or collapse. The music inhabits a space of instability, and even as it uses continuous tones and defined melodic phrases, there’s an air of irresolution—like a moment of unease suspended indefinitely. Much of the album was recorded during the winter months of 2024 in Berlin, with many early-morning hours spent immersed in a space of subtle disquiet. Light is said to spill into darkness, and this transitional time, heavy with expectation, can be heard in the music.

On “Presence of Border,” vaporous voices twist and entwine as they float above ambiguous harmonies that seem to extend into an infinite distance. Two short pieces, “Magnetic Field I” and “Magnetic Field II,” contain processed recordings of a tromba marina played by Argentinian sound artist Alma Laprida. The juxtaposition of scratchy tones and wispy harmonics creates tambura-like drones that draw the listener towards an elusive center. Later in the album, “Drying of Frozen Soils” features modal clarinet lines by Severin Black that are initially almost imperceptible within the foggy, synthesized backdrop before emerging into a ghostly counterpoint. A similar relational structure of obscurity and clarity defines the title track, where wordless vocals pierce a noisy field recording captured on a ferry crossing the East River from Brooklyn to Manhattan.

This is music with a spacious terrain and a dense atmosphere. Change is slow, but dramatic, each shift meticulously charted to evoke feelings of wonder and anticipation while retaining a sublime sensitivity to how individual sounds relate to the motion of their surroundings. Michelle masterfully abandons narrative, composing in three dimensions. We are left with the ambiguity of the word “might”—the lingering possibility of the energetic rush of the breach, the spill, now at the horizon, now imminent, somehow both at once.

Michelle's practice has been shaped by rigorous study and recognized by a wide array of arts organizations worldwide. She received her MFA from Bard College’s Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts in 2024, and has since been awarded the 2026 Villa Aurora Artist Grant, the 2025 Arbeitsstipendium Ernste Musik und Klangkunst from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture, and was selected for the 2026 GMEA residency in Albi, France. Her work has also been supported by the US-based Foundation for Contemporary Arts and the Sonic Art Research Unit in the UK and has been presented at the Royal Academy of Arts in the UK, Fridman Gallery in New York City, and MUTEK Mexico.

'Nekkuja' is a place for Herlop's warmest, sweetest sentiments to rise to the surface and crack through the topsoil. She describes the record as a way for her to seek and affirm inner light, and it's undoubtedly her brightest, poppiest statement to date. The forward-thinking, experimental touches that nourished 'Pripyat' are still present, but blessed with a level of positivity that's rare to find in a scene so entranced by darkness and melancholy.

Solo Suono is the first collaboration between saxophonist Filippo Ansaldi and electronic musician Simone Sims Longo, both based in Cuneo, Italy. Solo Suono is an album between acoustic gesture and electronic treatment, beyond the classical while starting from the classical. Breath, amplified mechanics, residual sounds, expressive freedom, and different forms that integrate electroacoustic composition. Passing through looped gestures, electronic processes, and concrete sound explorations, it investigates textures that blur the line between organic and synthetic, emphasizing subtle timbral shifts, evolving patterns, and the interaction between chance and structure. Fragile, immersive, and at times meditative, the music opens a space where the listener can inhabit both the immediacy of performance and the expanded sound world of electronic manipulation. Solo Suono is a phrase open to multiple interpretations, a naïve description of music.

Living in the present is an album built around the work of American minimalist poet, Robert Lax (1915-2000) who is widely praised for his artistic concept of reduction, in which a pause becomes as important as the things said.

The album brings together the sound of Robert Lax reading his poetry, narrative field recordings by Nicolas Humbert and subtle yet imaginative timbres by Carina Khorkhordina (trumpet) and Miki Yui (electronics) who is also behind the final mixing of the album.

Living in the present is drawing from an archive of audio recordings originally made by film maker Nicolas Humbert while shooting a film on Robert Lax entitled Why Should I Buy A Bed When All That I Want Is Sleep?, ( Nicolas Humbert and Werner Penzel, Germany, 1999) The film was made on the Greek island of Patmos where Lax has lived withdrawn for 3 decades.

More than 25 years after the premiere of Why Should I Buy A Bed When All That I Want Is Sleep?, Humbert, Khorkhordina and Yui are revisiting the original audio material and patiently open worlds within worlds, pointing to new harmonic textures and isolating timbres, synchronizing different layers of time and traces of various locations into a new composition in its own right.

In some ways this album feels like an expansion of the work Humbert and Penzel did with Lax across six years, between 1993 and 1999, where they developed a unique intimacy in their textual-visual collaboration. On two long pieces, for each side of the album, “Where do i begin” and “One moment passes, another comes on” respectively – Yui’s electronics and Khorkhordina’s trumpet interweave beautifully with Humbert’s field recordings, in a manner that shadows the reflective reduction of Lax’s poetry. Indeed, it's no surprise that Lax’s poetry draws musicians into its orbit; it offers the curious a welcoming reduction in which only individual words and syllables represent the essence of language.

Lax’s poetry is notable for its qualities of near-stillness and its capacity to pause the reader’s thought, asking them to hold the sensuality of language for an extended, quietly revelatory moment. His readings on this album share a similar cadence, interested in settling with syllables, with single or several words, for an extended time.

Ultimately, Living in the present unfolds with unforced grace and poetics – one moment passes, then another comes on. (Jon Dale)