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In 2016, after reissuing two Bruce Haack albums, Haackula and Electric Lucifer Book II, Telephone Explosion began speaking with Ted Pandel (Bruce’s lifelong friend and business partner) about working on the 1970 masterpiece The Electric Lucifer. It turned out there was another matter that he wanted to discuss: finding a final resting place for the Bruce Haack archive.
We were shown test-pressings of The Electric Lucifer board mixes from his Columbia studio sessions, countless pieces of written music, a large number of personal photos, an invitation from Raymond Scott inviting Bruce to play his newly created Electronium instrument (now owned by Devo’s Mark Mothersbaugh), poems, press clippings, and, most importantly, a heavy-duty shelf containing 213 reel-to-reel tapes.
All of the chosen material on The Preservation Tapes is unreleased, and has only been heard by a handful of people.
The Bruce Haack archive is now resting in the Provincial Archives of Alberta, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Beyond Rare! These historical recordings of a 1967 concert at Hope College in Michigan involving John Cage, Toshi Ichiyanagi and David Tudor, performing compositions by Ichiyanagi and Alvin Lucier, were recently discovered in an archive in Japan. The Lucier piece, "Music for Solo Performer”, was the first musical composition to utilize human brainwaves; this 1967 performance, released here for the first time, is an early realization of the piece, featuring Tudor, Ichiyanagi and Lowell Cross, using alpha waves to activate a wide range of percussion instruments. This proto-industrial version is heavily influenced by the amplified performance techniques pioneered by Cage and Tudor in the 1960s; quite different from the 1982 Lucier/Pauline Oliveros realization on Lovely Music. Ichiyanagi’s 1967 composition “Appearance” combines live electronics with acoustic instruments and adds Cage to the list of performers. This is the same piece which was released in 2006 by Omega Point, but the source tape used here is believed to be the master tape, resulting in a significant improvement in audio quality. These are historically significant and musically fascinating recordings, available on LP and CD. The release includes liner notes by Ibe Osamu of Omega Point, who explains how the tape was discovered, as well as liner notes by sound artist Minoru Sato, a researcher of Lucier's work who was in contact with the composer during his lifetime. Ichiyanagi contributes a note about “Appearance”.
Beyond Rare! These historical recordings of a 1967 concert at Hope College in Michigan involving John Cage, Toshi Ichiyanagi and David Tudor, performing compositions by Ichiyanagi and Alvin Lucier, were recently discovered in an archive in Japan. The Lucier piece, "Music for Solo Performer”, was the first musical composition to utilize human brainwaves; this 1967 performance, released here for the first time, is an early realization of the piece, featuring Tudor, Ichiyanagi and Lowell Cross, using alpha waves to activate a wide range of percussion instruments. This proto-industrial version is heavily influenced by the amplified performance techniques pioneered by Cage and Tudor in the 1960s; quite different from the 1982 Lucier/Pauline Oliveros realization on Lovely Music. Ichiyanagi’s 1967 composition “Appearance” combines live electronics with acoustic instruments and adds Cage to the list of performers. This is the same piece which was released in 2006 by Omega Point, but the source tape used here is believed to be the master tape, resulting in a significant improvement in audio quality. These are historically significant and musically fascinating recordings, available on LP and CD. The release includes liner notes by Ibe Osamu of Omega Point, who explains how the tape was discovered, as well as liner notes by sound artist Minoru Sato, a researcher of Lucier's work who was in contact with the composer during his lifetime. Ichiyanagi contributes a note about “Appearance”.
"Minami-kaze α Wave (Southerly wind alpha wave)“ is a very rare ‘vocal piece’ that Henry Kawahara has produced, and released under the name HMD (H Music Deperception) in 1993. The song is a vocal version of the cyber-occult exotic instrumental piece "Nanpu“ included in the compilation “Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm: The Essential Henry Kawahara” [EM1197TCD/DLP]. This track is a rare example that proves he had also a genius for producing ‘pops’ in the general sense of the word, and which seems to have challenged head-on the pop songs produced by Haruomi Hosono or Tetsuya Komuro in the 80s-90s.
The Henry Kawahara project on EM Records was developed only with the enthusiasm of proving Kawahara's existence if he is to be erased as nothing in the current art context, and we have confirmed that there are a lot of supporters all over the world for our opinion when we released "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm" (several articles and interviews have been given). This single is a 'prescription' for the sequel, tentatively titled "Cybernetic Defiance and Orgasm 2: Other Sides of Henry Kawahara," which is currently in the process of being prepared. This 7” is a limited one-off release, not included in the compilation.
Morphing between the sensory and the suppressed, Radwan Ghazi Moumneh and Frédéric D. Oberland’s debut album summons a poetic musical proclamation of transfigured reality and social amnesia. These seven tracks evolved collaboratively over two years, beginning as a series of duets that Moumneh instigated at Montréal’s Hotel2Tango studio in summer 2023. The Arabic title of Eternal Life No End translates more literally as "A dark, cursed night, like the seekers themselves" and the album is an outcry amidst the oceans of injustice flooding the SWANA region, haunting the lives and visions of vast populations.
Like Dante and Virgil in Dante’s Inferno, Oberland and Moumneh’s compositions chart an emotional vortex, as dream-time seeps into trancelike percussion and hypnotic melodies, channeling collective urgencies that ripple through the currents of Radwan’s voice and Arabic lyrics. Oberland’s passages of saxophone and clarineau evoke shamanic exhortations of evil, while Moumneh’s buzuk strums and swarms, often through electronic processing, with tempestuous mourning about unfolding tragedies. An array of instrumentation fleshes out the wider soundscapes: daf (a Middle Eastern frame drum) and bongos, a modified electric rababa, shuddering bass and other synthetic filigree from Oberland’s Buchla and Deckard's Dream synths.
"It's a healing process in a way," says Oberland about the work. "Since the genocide started, I’d had a complete artistic block and the inability to articulate what people are living through" explains Moumneh, who ultimately packed his instruments and gear and flew to Paris in the summer of 2024 to work on the album in earnest with his long-standing friend. The two had collaborated on multiple previous occasions, with Oberland’s primary group Oiseaux-Tempête, and through Moumneh's work as Jerusalem In My Heart and as a producer/engineer on various other projects. Eternal Life No End builds on their abiding allyship as Oberland and Moumneh navigate energies and emotional shifts in newfound ways, merging their sensibilities and uncovering deeper resonances. “We worked day and night together and made clear decisions collectively” states Oberland, who nonetheless also took the lead in positioning Moumneh’s voice to shine through these compositions—there is singing on four of the album’s seven tracks. The duo played reverse roles of a sort and ventured new creative processes, as Moumneh openly took direction from Oberland, setting aside his usual lead-producer role as steward of Jerusalem In My Heart.
"Squeal of Swine" and "Dagger Eyes" open the album with dual gut punch, as hand percussion, low end synth tones, and ricocheting buzuk and rababa set the stage for Moumneh’s keening Arabic singing, reflecting a sea of sickness currently drowning the state of humanity. On the instrumental track "A Dream That Never Arrived", a lo-fi dancehall-inflected beat anchors otherworldly melodic lines set against electroacoustic sound design in spatio-temporal displacement. Eternal Life No End is accompanied by an audio-visual essay for the electronic (and vocal) song "The Serpent", assembled by Oberland and shot on Super 8mm camera in Montréal, Paris and Beirut, including footage of Gaza protests in Paris, and of the Frequent Defect event at Irtijal Festival’s 25th anniversary edition in Beirut. Lebanese graphic designer, printmaker, and calligrapher Farah Fayyad provides talisman-like artwork of entwined serpents, similarly inspired by this centerpiece album track.
Kanazawa Akiko, a leading singer in the folk music world celebrating her 50th anniversary, finally releases her killer tune fusing folk and reggae.
This track (“Akita Ondo ~ Akita Daikoku Mai” medley) was featured on the hugely successful album “HOUSE MIX 1” (released in 1991), produced by Soichi Terada, founder of FAR EAST RECORDINGS, a pioneer of Japanese dance music currently experiencing renewed appreciation overseas.
At the time of release, a non-commercial 7-inch record was created for promotional purposes based on an idea by Soichi Terada, who arranged the album. Now, a 7-inch single featuring the original arrangement by Soichi Terada is officially set for release, just like the original.
Jeux d’eau is the result of an exploratory collaboration between the experimental ensemble Copenhagen Clarinet Choir and Danish composer and performer Anders Lauge Meldgaard. At the heart of the project is Meldgaard’s compositions and performance on New Ondomo—a Japanese instrument modeled on the pioneering French electronic instrument, the ondes Martenot, but what makes the music truly shine is the Copenhagen Clarinet Choir’s vibrant energy and adventurous spirit, bringing Meldgaard’s vision off the page and into a living, breathing soundscape through their playful and imaginative ensemble performance.
The initial spark for Jeux d’eau was struck during Meldgaard’s visit to the gardens of Villa d’Este in Tivoli, Italy—a place animated by fountains that once inspired Franz Liszt and Maurice Ravel to compose piano works of the same title. Echoing these earlier musical impressions, the project channels that lineage into a new sonic journey. Where some composers of the past often sought to define strict structures, Meldgaard’s work on Jeux d’eau instead offers an open framework—one that invites playful interaction and improvisation among the musicians. Recorded at The Village in Copenhagen, the album is a sonic experience where the organic resonance of the clarinet choir intertwines with the unpredictable textures of the New Ondomo and electronic landscape.
The work Jeux d’eau is open yet structured, forward-moving yet richly repetitive, drawing clear inspiration from American minimalists such as Terry Riley and Steve Reich, but rather than simply echoing the work of these pioneers, the music explores fresh terrain infused with a lyrical touch of late-romantic European sensibility, where flowing melodies and rich harmonies soften the rigor of repetition. At the same time, the music resonates with the clarity and delicacy that could be associated with Japanese composers such as Jo Kondo or Sueko Nagayo. The result is a sound world that is playful yet profound, one that continually shifts between pulsating momentum and delicate stillness. With each piece, the ensemble invites listeners into a captivating journey where tradition meets experiment, and where collective performance transforms composition into something vividly alive.
Conceived as a tribute to water and a reflection on the fragile bond between humans and the natural world, Jeux d’eau is both a sonic meditation and a quiet call to action. Through fluid forms and open notations, the work draws listeners into a space where music mirrors the dynamics of nature—demanding real-time awareness, collective sensitivity, and respect for balance. Like flowing water, the music adapts and transforms, reminding us that our environment, too, is ever-changing and in need of care. In this way, Jeux d’eau does more than celebrate nature’s beauty: it asks us to recognize our responsibility to protect the living systems that sustain us, and to pay caring attention to the world we live in.
"When you notice the cheerful mystery playing with the synths, the edges of this small world start to look slightly distorted. In any era, someone is always creating mysterious music on their own." (7FO) Music in DNA is an album recorded in the early 1980s in New York City and self-released in 1984 in Japan by Yasuhito Ohno, a young Japanese man breaking free from the constraints of his homeland. The album is a naive burst of outsider DIY enthusiasm, inspired by the multiple avant-garde movements of the era, in music, painting and performance, as well as the native energy of 80s NYC. Ohno channeled his youthful “edge” and zeal into open-minded lo-fi musical explorations using a mere two machines: the then-new technological glories of a four-track cassette recorder and that polyphonic synthesizer masterpiece, the Roland Juno-60; on several pieces he vocalizes. These seven tracks have a zestful, innocent, anything-goes charm, free from preciousness and self-consciousness: a raw and youthful human spirit at play in a new world. Ohno was also inspired by the humanistic promise of the general technological developments of the day, including DNA research, personal computing, and early computer graphics, an example of which can be found on the cover. Ohno later returned to Japan, becoming a renowned composer/producer. In an era of jaded cynicism, Music in DNA is a welcome taste of big-hearted innocence, a revival of a raw self. Available on CD/LP/Digital, with E/J liner notes by the artist.
"When you notice the cheerful mystery playing with the synths, the edges of this small world start to look slightly distorted. In any era, someone is always creating mysterious music on their own." (7FO) Music in DNA is an album recorded in the early 1980s in New York City and self-released in 1984 in Japan by Yasuhito Ohno, a young Japanese man breaking free from the constraints of his homeland. The album is a naive burst of outsider DIY enthusiasm, inspired by the multiple avant-garde movements of the era, in music, painting and performance, as well as the native energy of 80s NYC. Ohno channeled his youthful “edge” and zeal into open-minded lo-fi musical explorations using a mere two machines: the then-new technological glories of a four-track cassette recorder and that polyphonic synthesizer masterpiece, the Roland Juno-60; on several pieces he vocalizes. These seven tracks have a zestful, innocent, anything-goes charm, free from preciousness and self-consciousness: a raw and youthful human spirit at play in a new world. Ohno was also inspired by the humanistic promise of the general technological developments of the day, including DNA research, personal computing, and early computer graphics, an example of which can be found on the cover. Ohno later returned to Japan, becoming a renowned composer/producer. In an era of jaded cynicism, Music in DNA is a welcome taste of big-hearted innocence, a revival of a raw self. Available on CD/LP/Digital, with E/J liner notes by the artist.
*100 copies limited edition* "Music, like love, surprises you, makes your heart race, gives you new eyes with which to look at yourself in the mirror..." - Gigi Masin With an exclusive presentation by Gigi Masin, Up To 23 release their second album, now with an expanded three-member lineup following the permanent addition of Enrico Coniglio alongside founder members Marco Buffetti and Francesco Fincato. The album draws inspiration from the 1980s, evoking atmospheres reminiscent of sci-fi soundtracks. Partly romantic, partly doom ambient, the work unfolds as a requiem for our planet. Liquid and enveloping atmospheres drift between ambient territories with a distinctly melodic character - explored through treated guitars and synthesizers - and subtly electronic paths traced to the rhythm of patterns built through sequencers and programmed structures. Dramatic and evocative moments emerge throughout this succession of varied yet perfectly integrated and fluid soundscapes, where sounds and progressions combine with ever-shifting solutions, following a descriptive thread that remains consistent as it continuously unravels through encompassing and emotionally engaging textures. "Gigi Masin Presents: An Apple A Day You Die Anyway" is the perfect soundtrack to these dark times that Up To 23 want to color in order to continue to hope, to live without having to survive.
Six touching tracks that, starting from quiet ambient atmospheres, initially soft, tenuous, and crepuscular, gradually seem to soar... ascending towards celestial spaces, revealing ever-wider and brighter landscapes below, ever-more distant horizons, ever-more infinite spaces... Highly evocative progressions, guided by sober and delicate melodies and driving, pulsating bass lines, wonderfully deep (best enjoyed with a good stereo system to truly appreciate them), the kind that make your stomach churn before you even perceive the exact frequency and harmonic progression, often "set" in restrained rhythmic patterns that mark the time, making a sonic journey even more dynamic and compelling. If it doesn't surprise you, it's probably only because you've already had the opportunity to explore and "plumb" FABIO ORSI's most recent discography, and are already accustomed to the best of what this new wave of distinctly electronic but ambient-inspired music has to offer.
“Certain albums hit like howling bullets at pivotal moments, tearing open the face of music to reveal hidden sonic muscles and fusing them back into something both strangely familiar and yet entirely unrecognisable. We believe this is one of those records.” The double album Death of Music delivers 16 crooked vocal pops, some ruthless, others unexpectedly disarming. In some songs, Ajukaja & Mart Avi function like a two-headed saurus swinging its spiky tail to shady pop-house smackers. In others, Ajukaja's serene organ licks descend into subterranean caverns, allowing Avi to float to the surface on their wavelengths and turn his voice into billions of extinct moths, enslaved by the moonlight’s pull. There are songs that face destruction and those that seek to prevent it. One kykeon rap goes, “If you die before you die, then when you die, you don't die!”. Ajukaja & Mart Avi have embraced this notion to create new music that allows them to thrive in the algorithmic wasteland. 13 years in the making, these 66 minutes are packed with lifetimes of truths you didn’t know you needed to know. They are Ajukaja & Mart Avi – two against death.
Skudgy downbeat morsels from Montel Palmer in TBZ mode for Amsterdam’s discogs search-dodging Not On Label Ready rolled to spark up and enjoy, ‘New (EP)’ turns out six endearingly cruddy exercises in lo-fi, economically dubbed beat craft in a style akin Tapes, Lolina, Jahtari, and Delroy Edwards. Never breaking a sweat, TBZ faithfully hews to the mode on all six counts from the Casio-keyed dancehall swivel of ‘M&M’ thru the plucky fizz of ’So It Goes’ via the dazed sleepy strut of ‘Hi Friend’, orientalist melodic phrasing on ‘Cut Off’, and the woozy melodica rumination ‘Bridge Burned’, with a sweet lick of dusky beachside 8-bit soul in ’N_T’.
Cruddiest nightglyde steez by the mysterious Sister Marion, voiced by Mass, for John T. Gast’s 5 Gate Temple A must check for anyone feeling Dean Blunt’s circle or Tribe of Colin, ‘B Safe’ scries early ‘10s road rap styles thru JTG’s murky crystal ball with Mass seemingly rapping from the other end of a long corridor over a blend of dungeon synth vamps, road rap/proto-UK drill and dread soundsystem rumbles, revealed in starkest terms on the version.
Bambe welcomes Low Jack — the alias of French producer Philippe Hallais — to the label with his debut single “MARKET,” backed by a remix from Bambe label head Bambounou. Following the dark ambient explorations of his recent album Lacrimosa on Stroom, Low Jack returns decisively to the dance floor, channeling his club instincts while preserving a deep-rooted connection to contemporary art. Originally conceived as a commissioned composition for Australian visual artist Thomas Jeppe, “MARKET” was created to accompany an immersive installation exploring the hallucinatory rhythms of cosmopolitan life. The work was presented in February 2025 at Circolo UltraFiorucci, a newly launched cultural space in Milan, where sound and image converged to envelop visitors in Jeppe’s vivid, destabilized urban vision. Recontextualized for the club, “MARKET” bridges installation and dance floor, reinforcing Low Jack’s singular ability to move fluidly between experimental art contexts and forward-leaning club music — now sharpened further by Bambounou’s remix, which pushes the track into electro territory.
Seven years after their debut ‘Gulden Onversneden’, Klein Volk once again puts bread on the table with ‘In Weelde Verbrast’, a tribute to the important afterthoughts of everyday life in times of utter seriousness. Amidst the vestiges of things taken for granted, Klein Volk felt the need to take root and delicately tend to their kinds of whim and naïveté - all balanced out in a garden of opportunity, for seasons to come. Klein Volk is Marie Baeke, Timo Bonneure and Wesley Buysse.
Part of only a small and very much underground music scene in his hometown of Venice, Gigi Masin self released two modestly pressed LP's 'Wind' (1986) and 'Wind Collector' (1991) and appeared along side Charles Hayward for the Sub Rosa compilation LP "Les Nouvelles Musiques De Chambre Volume 2" (1988).
Having met with little commercial success in Italy at the time, Gigi Masin's solo albums remained for the most part totally unknown. His music has though in recent years, and seemingly by pure word of mouth, developed almost something of a cult following.
Gigi Masin's uniquely intricate and at times deeply emotive compositions take the listener into a realm of contemplation, a spellbound mind state where time and space appear to dissolve. His sparse and hypnotic often loop-based compositions seem to draw parallels with Detroit Techno's earliest beginnings, all at once conjuring those same feelings of both melancholic longing and ecstatic joy.
With access to Masin's large body of work, far greater than that of the handful of released recordings, Music From Memory's new compilation covers a period of over 30 years, from the mid 1980's up until recent works . Including seventeen compositions, most of which have remained unreleased or unavailable until now, 'Talk To The Sea' aims to shine a light on Gigi Masin's unique and heartfelt talent. This is electronic music from the soul."
Emily A. Sprague’s Cloud Time is an improvised ambient document of her long-awaited debut tour of Japan, recorded in autumn 2024. Compiled from over eight hours of live material captured in venues across the country, the album reflects a dialogue between performer, place, and moment, presented with no additional mixing and only minimal edits. Originally conceived as a journey rather than a traditional concert tour, Sprague approached each performance as an open exchange with her surroundings, redesigning her live setup to allow for real-time responsiveness and spontaneity. The result is a series of distinct, site-specific sound pieces shaped by intuition and environmental influence. Rather than follow a chronological order, the seven long-form tracks are sequenced to convey a narrative flow that mirrors the emotional arc of a full live set. Tracks like ‘Nagoya’, ‘Tokyo 1’, and the ten-minute ‘Matsumoto’ gently pulse with layered synthesis, embodying an ambient mode rooted in the ethos of kankyō ongaku and deep listening traditions. Cloud Time invites listeners into a reflective space where sound becomes a means of connection, stillness, and surrender—an offering from Sprague’s deeply personal and healing encounter with time, place, and presence.
Post-classical composer, sound artist, and curator Matthew Patton returns with his second album as Those Who Walk Away. Afterlife Requiem is an elegy to friend and collaborator Jóhann Jóhannsson. Drone, electroacoustics, and near-silences extracted from unfinished recordings on Jóhannsson hard drives, underpin two string quintets—Ghost Orchestra (Reykjavík) and Possible Orchestra (Winnipeg)—processed and erased in a doleful durational work. Patton also works again with Andy Rudolph (Guy Maddin) and Paul Corley (Sigur Rós, Ben Frost) on co-production and sound design, to forge a simmering physicality that juxtaposes roiling low-end with haunting movements of ghostly strings.
“Everything I have ever written is a Requiem. Everything an ending. Death is smeared all over this music. My work is about disappearance—of the present, the past, of everything. Afterlife Requiem gets slower and slower over its duration, it is one huge ritardando, time is not just slowing down—it is disappearing. Without even thinking, two related tragedies occurred and came to the surface organically while I was writing, recording, and working: the death of my mother and the death of composer and friend Jóhann Jóhannsson. When I start writing, I am not thinking of anything in particular, I am just writing, composing, recording, and listening… but something always makes itself apparent or pushes itself through in an unforeseen way. After my mother’s medically-assisted death, in clearing out her apartment, I realized that I was also erasing the physical manifestation of her world—and that I was doing the exact same thing with the music I was writing and recording. During this time, Jóhann’s death also kept making itself apparent.
For Afterlife Requiem I have taken short abandoned fragments from Jóhann Jóhannsson's hard drives and placed these disembodied audio ghosts in alternating sections within my own music, leaving them impure—and in the process blurring the distinction between making and un-making. After his death, I had been given these hard drives from Jóhannsson's Berlin studio to listen to. This music was abandoned, in various states of formation and dissolution: an index of decayed and dead memories, forgotten and now existing only within a series of interlocking mechanical parts which in time will themselves fail and disappear, like everything else. For months, I listened to these remains of Jóhann’s music obsessively, trying to discover clues about Jóhann before he died. Many times I would find that he had left the recording device going long after the recorded music was over. He seemed to be unaware that the music had ceased or didn't register this was the end of the music or maybe he was distracted by something else. But I found these long silences profoundly emotional and touching.
The disappearing elegies of Afterlife Requiem are not so much music as they are the remains of music. In this way I always work towards the subtraction of meaning. The music is distant and smeared, damaged, ghost-like and haunted, only hinting like a half-forgotten memory of what once existed; a condensed depiction of decay and erasure. I have underlaid the whole of this new piece, from beginning to end, with these disembodied silences from Jóhann’s own work, space, and time. Now gone forever, his recorded silence remains; a monumental vacancy lost to the world. Throughout the piece, and especially in the ‘Memorial Environment’ sections, I also incorporate countless natural-world sounds, everything from volcanic lava to freight elevators to human blood flow to turbine hiss to suicide injections.
Artist Robert Smithson said decades ago: ‘It is the dimension of absence that remains to be found’. For me, this music also measures how time runs out. In fact, time already has run out. Eternity has already begun.”
– Matthew Patton (Those Who Walk Away)
A split CD commemorating the Japan tour by MARK FELL, RIAN TREANOR, and KAKUHAN in September and October 2023 is now available!
Known as a giant of electronic or experimental techno music since the 90's, they have released many works on labels such as Mille Plateaux, Line, Mego, and Raster Noton. In recent years, Mark Fell has been going beyond the boundaries of "techno" to offer a truly "modern" sound.
In 2023, NYEGE NYEGE TAPES will release "Saccades," a collaboration with Ugandan/Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, and RIAN FELL is creating music at the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music, with new deconstructions and linkages. RIAN TREANOR creates music that involves new deconstruction and interlocking from the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music.
KAKUHAN (Koshiro Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa), who started his activities in 2022 after various collaborations, "stirs" as the name implies, the poles/tunes possessed by various types of music such as "electronic music/strings," "contemporary music/club music," "composition/ improvisation," etc. that the unit is equipped with.
This 9-song split CD, which includes completely new compositions by these three artists, is not a mere "split (mish-mash)," but rather an approach that transcends and melds the boundaries of "physical/metaphysical" on the periphery of music after techno music is evident in each of the compositions. The ongoing attitude of the three artists toward music is truly and casually expressed in this work, which should be listened to beyond genres.
KAKUHAN haven't released much, but what's out there is some of the most astonishing hybrid electroacoustic music that's emerged in the last few years. Owing as much to Autechre as it does to Arthur Russell, it's dizzyingly psychedelic music that flits between wild free improvisation and obsessive, micro-edited precision, unclassifiable rhythmic and tonal experimentation that nods to the renaissance era and the contemporary dancefloor sometimes in the same breath. And in 2023, not long after the release of their now-classic debut album "Metal Zone", KAKUHAN were invited to perform live at Unsound in Kraków. The duo were offered the opportunity to collaborate with a local artist, so after serious consideration decided on percussionist and musicologist Adam Gołębiewski, a veteran improviser who's performed and recorded with everyone from Yoko Ono and Thurston Moore to Mats Gustafsson and Ken Vandermark.
Hino and Nakagawa were struck by Gołębiewski's unique tone and his very specific, immediately recognizable approach to drumming, realizing immediately that the collaboration would stretch their concept even further. "Personally, I was looking forward to hearing how Hino's rhythmic sequences and Adam's percussion would interact," says Nakagawa. But it's Gołębiewski's interaction with his cymbals particularly that bridges a gap in KAKUHAN's sound, existing in the space between Nakagawa's cello and Hino's stuttering samples. In fact, the performance was so successful that the trio headed to Kraków's KPD Studio shortly afterwards, dubbing an exclusive session with engineer Rafał Drewniany that would become "Repercussions". The session's vision is captured perfectly by the album cover, a painting from Polish artist Alicja Pakosz that shows a knife edge splitting a jet of water. It's the relative sharpness of Gołębiewski's sound that defines this project, cutting through Nakagawa and Hino's musical rituals and creating something new in the process.
Using a bow to extract eerie metallic resonances from his kit, Gołębiewski often sounds like another string player, punctuating Hino's exacting rolls and Nakagawa's blood-curdling pizzicato echoes with knife-edge squeals on opening track II. And when the flurries of beats vanish completely on VII, Gołębiewski and Nakagawa are left to create xenharmonic ambience with their scraped, atmospheric drones, letting Hino's low-end rumbles and boiled textures suggest a rhythm from the periphery. Nakagawa's cello practically sings on 'IV', sounding more like woodwind or bird calls than strings, and Gołębiewski acts as a cracked mirror, replying with uneasy scrapes and acrobatic rhythmic bursts that neatly augment Hino's complex electroid sequences. Not jazz exactly, it's hallucinatory expressionism that straddles the line between harmony and dissonance, control and chaos or human and computer.