MUSIC

EM Records is proud to present “8 Automated Works”, the first full release by Componium Ensemble, an “indeterminate chamber music” ensemble helmed by Spencer Doran of Visible Cloaks. Situated in a lineage of automated music that traces back to the ancient Greeks, Doran uses the possibilities of digital technology and its ability to automate a huge range of virtual instruments to move beyond human impulses and limitations to allow “new shapes to emerge”. Dedicated also to Noah Creshevsky, pioneer of what can be considered cyber-human music, Componium Ensemble features a wide and intriguing range of instruments including prepared piano, bowed harpsichord, celesta, bass clarinet, flute, cello, bamboo tingklik and more, often in multiple groupings. Despite this variety of instrumentation and the seemingly formidable theoretical underpinnings, the music is very accessible and attractive, spaciousand fresh, with a light touch and a sophisticated melodic sense which will appeal to pop fans as well as classical/contemporary music listeners. The album is mixed by longtime collaborator Joe Williams (Motion Graphics, Lifted) and available in 10-inch vinyl, CD and Digital formats, with EN/JP liner notes by Doran and a hyper-realistic cover by Japanese visual artist/graphic designer Kai Yoshizawa, using 3DCG software. The CD and Digital formats also feature a Carl Stone remix bonus track.

“The history of automated instruments reaches back as far as Archimedes and his "organum hydraulicum”, but it was the Banū Mūsā brothers in 9th-century Baghdad who first perfected the concept of a programmable, automated musician: a mechanically controlled flute which performed using a cistern’s hydraulic water pressure and a system of arrangeable punchcards using a visionary proto-MIDI structure. As European clock-making and mechanical music caught up to the Islamic Golden Age a millennium later, automated instruments intersected with aleatoric composition in Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel’s “self composing” Componium, a mechanical organ with two irregularly-shifting barrels that is said to have been able to arrange upwards of 55 trillion variations of an 80 bar piece divided into alternating 2 bar sections of pins. It is this intersection of chance systems and musical automatons that forms the terrain for the pieces on this release.

These basic principles remain unchanged in the contemporary virtual studio, but the array of automatable instruments within our software systems has widened to a near-unfathomable degree (not to mention the speed and ease in which they can be summoned). Virtual players can be manipulated by far deeper aleatoric processes of note randomization, tempos modulated by the pseudo-naturalistic values of perlin noise, with even the physical properties of instruments erratically contorted and continuously in flux...” - S. Doran (from the album’s liner notes)

EM Records is proud to present “8 Automated Works”, the first full release by Componium Ensemble, an “indeterminate chamber music” ensemble helmed by Spencer Doran of Visible Cloaks. Situated in a lineage of automated music that traces back to the ancient Greeks, Doran uses the possibilities of digital technology and its ability to automate a huge range of virtual instruments to move beyond human impulses and limitations to allow “new shapes to emerge”. Dedicated also to Noah Creshevsky, pioneer of what can be considered cyber-human music, Componium Ensemble features a wide and intriguing range of instruments including prepared piano, bowed harpsichord, celesta, bass clarinet, flute, cello, bamboo tingklik and more, often in multiple groupings. Despite this variety of instrumentation and the seemingly formidable theoretical underpinnings, the music is very accessible and attractive, spaciousand fresh, with a light touch and a sophisticated melodic sense which will appeal to pop fans as well as classical/contemporary music listeners. The album is mixed by longtime collaborator Joe Williams (Motion Graphics, Lifted) and available in 10-inch vinyl, CD and Digital formats, with EN/JP liner notes by Doran and a hyper-realistic cover by Japanese visual artist/graphic designer Kai Yoshizawa, using 3DCG software. The CD and Digital formats also feature a Carl Stone remix bonus track.

“The history of automated instruments reaches back as far as Archimedes and his "organum hydraulicum”, but it was the Banū Mūsā brothers in 9th-century Baghdad who first perfected the concept of a programmable, automated musician: a mechanically controlled flute which performed using a cistern’s hydraulic water pressure and a system of arrangeable punchcards using a visionary proto-MIDI structure. As European clock-making and mechanical music caught up to the Islamic Golden Age a millennium later, automated instruments intersected with aleatoric composition in Dietrich Nikolaus Winkel’s “self composing” Componium, a mechanical organ with two irregularly-shifting barrels that is said to have been able to arrange upwards of 55 trillion variations of an 80 bar piece divided into alternating 2 bar sections of pins. It is this intersection of chance systems and musical automatons that forms the terrain for the pieces on this release.

These basic principles remain unchanged in the contemporary virtual studio, but the array of automatable instruments within our software systems has widened to a near-unfathomable degree (not to mention the speed and ease in which they can be summoned). Virtual players can be manipulated by far deeper aleatoric processes of note randomization, tempos modulated by the pseudo-naturalistic values of perlin noise, with even the physical properties of instruments erratically contorted and continuously in flux...” - S. Doran (from the album’s liner notes)

2025 repress. There are certain albums which shake the world immediately upon release, and others which come from far underground and whose shocks and aftershocks rise to the surface gradually over the years, gaining momentum and power. “Ten Dubs That Shook The World” is of the latter type. Since its original vinyl release in 1988, the prescient impact of this Australian homemade dubwise solo massive by Anthony Maher aka Sheriff Lindo has become ever-more apparent and influential. With its dual-island combination of Jamaican dub and UK industrial and post-punk, and the twinning of spaced electronic drums and effects with some very fine, superbly rooted bass lines, the tectonic "Ten Dubs" has proven to be a durable, doubly-solid shaker. This 2025 repress is dedicated to the original producer John Blades, founder of the Endless Recordings label, who along with Maher and Richard Fielding constituted The Loop Orchestra.

2025 repress. There are certain albums which shake the world immediately upon release, and others which come from far underground and whose shocks and aftershocks rise to the surface gradually over the years, gaining momentum and power. “Ten Dubs That Shook The World” is of the latter type. Since its original vinyl release in 1988, the prescient impact of this Australian homemade dubwise solo massive by Anthony Maher aka Sheriff Lindo has become ever-more apparent and influential. With its dual-island combination of Jamaican dub and UK industrial and post-punk, and the twinning of spaced electronic drums and effects with some very fine, superbly rooted bass lines, the tectonic "Ten Dubs" has proven to be a durable, doubly-solid shaker. This 2025 repress is dedicated to the original producer John Blades, founder of the Endless Recordings label, who along with Maher and Richard Fielding constituted The Loop Orchestra.

At long last, Takao is back with his long-awaited second album, seven years in the making. His 2018 "Stealth" was (and still is) a much-loved set, mixing elements of ambient and environmental music; with this new release Takao breaks free of the gravitational pull of these earlier influences and strides confidently forward. "The End of the Brim" jettisons some of the more abstract elements of his previous work, embracing a “universal listenability” and a more concrete intensity, with a focus on supple rhythms and strengthened senses of melodic development and harmonic sophistication. This musical growth can be linked with Takao’s admiration of composers Ken Muramatsu and Toshifumi Hinata, who are generally associated with commercial “production music” and easy listening. Another contributing factor is his private study with veteran keyboardist Ichiko Hashimoto of Colored Music. The ten tracks here include three vocal tracks, with three different singers (Yumea Horiike, Cristel Bere, Atsuo Fujimoto of Colored Music) and seven keyboard-led pieces. The vocal pieces are integral parts of the album’s flow, rather than typical “songs” driven by the name and personality of the singer. All of these factors, plus the veteran presence of engineer Hiroshi Haraguchi, known for his work with Haruomi Hosono, who mixed half of the album's tracks, along with the use of excellent old-school synths, aligned with Takao’s forward-looking vision, have combined to give us an album with a unique sense of timelessness. A spotlight illuminating future paths for pop music, available on CD/Vinyl LP/Digital, with English/Japanese lyrics, and liner notes by Yuji Shibasaki.

Seefeel is a pioneering, experimental electronic band. Formed in London in the early 1990s, they emerged as one of the most innovative bands bridging shoegaze and electronic music, known for their textured soundscapes, minimalist rhythms and ambient sensibilities. This new, expanded version of Pure, Impure brings together Seefeel’s three classic EPs; More Like Space, Plainsong, and Time to Find Me, and includes Aphex Twin mixes and a previously unreleased demo of “Moodswing”. Remastered by Geoff Pesche at Abbey Road Studios, this 11-track collection also features newly reimagined artwork.

Angus MacLise, the first drummer for the Velvet Underground, was a poet, composer, and a member of The Theatre of Eternal Music alongside La Monte Young.

The "Tapes" 3CD Box is the first-ever reissue of a 3-cassette compilation that Pleasure Editions originally released in 2015, limited to only 100 copies. The 3CD box set comes with a miniature poster and track lists, and each CD has a paper sleeve that reproduces the original cassette card artwork. This comprehensive 3CD box set is over three hours in length and includes session recordings with Tony Conrad and William Breeze (of Coil, Current 93, and Psychic TV), mystical recordings from the filming of Ira Cohen's "The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda" (1968), shortwave experiments, and sounds of Tibetan Buddhist monks recorded by MacLise.

The "Tapes" compilation features excerpts from the archives of the Angus MacLise Papers, which are held at Columbia University Library. The archives contain over 100 hours of reel-to-reel tape recordings of live improvised music, theatrical performances, and sound experiments created by MacLise and his associates during the 1960s and 1970s. MacLise produced the original recordings in his own unique style, characterized by rough and peculiar editing.

The release is curated and sequenced by Will Cameron and Mark Iosifescu.

Jim O'Rourke completed a new sound restoration and mastering of the recordings in 2023.

The 3CD box comes with a miniature poster, a sheet of track list, and each CD comes with a paper sleeve which reproduces the original cassette sleeve artwork.

it was recorded live at my first concert in new york city in the summer of 2022, right before i recorded iiyo iiyo iiyo and right after i recorded the doober with sam gendel and then Nothing with Louis Cole.

i think it is my most grooving record.

SDK is the collaboration between Stano and David Kitt. Stano, a post-punk pioneer from Dublin, is known for his strikingly individual work. A recurring collaborator with All City, Going Back to the Unknown marks his first new material for the label and his return to vocal work after many years.

The project began after a chance meeting at All City led to a connection with David Kitt. In Kitt’s studio, guitars, pedals, tape delay, and synths combined to form dense, dreamlike textures. The music moves between ambient atmospheres, layered guitars, and fractured song forms. Stano’s words appear only where the music calls for them:

“I just turned the pages until the right lyric appeared — I like when the music dictates what the words should be.”

On the collaborative process, Stano adds:

“There wasn’t a conscious decision, it was just a reaction to what David was playing. It seemed to happen organically, we were really on the same wavelength. At the end of that day I knew we had something really interesting.”

The result is Going Back to the Unknown, a collection shaped as much by intuition and chance as by design. The album is completed by Kitt’s contribution “Fireworks,” which seals the record’s arc.

Ostinato as Resistance: Rafael Anton Irisarri’s Landmark Work Reimagined

Marking the tenth anniversary of the American composer’s critically acclaimed album, this new edition arrives renewed, both sonically and visually.

First released in 2015 during a period of personal upheaval and creative reinvention, it endures as a testament to resilience, transformation, and the connection we hold with the places that shape us.

Written in the aftermath of a devastating theft, A Fragile Geography was born out of loss. Just days before a cross-country move to New York, Irisarri’s entire Seattle-based studio was wiped out. Instruments. Recordings. Archives. Gone without a trace. He arrived on the East Coast to an empty room and the daunting task of starting over.

“This album wasn’t just a record; it was a lifeline,” Irisarri reflects. “It became a way to process the emotional chaos that followed: uprooting, instability, and ultimately, the slow, intuitive rebuilding of a life.”

Composed and recorded in the rural woods of the Hudson Valley, the album took shape in seclusion, surrounded by nature, and through a process guided by improvisation. Embracing limitations, Irisarri wove textural layers of field recordings with half-remembered melodies from his Seattle years, piecing them together like fragments of memory. Tracks like “Displacement,” “Hiatus,” and “Persistence” juxtaposed haunting stillness with restless momentum, mapping an inner terrain of grief, catharsis, and rebirth.

Among its defining sounds is “Empire Systems,” a monumental centerpiece built around a simple four-chord progression, organ textures, and guitar drones. Gradually, the track expands into layers of immersive loops and thick, enveloping distortion that wash over the listener like a rolling wave. Often cited as the album’s most majestic passage, it captures Irisarri at his most sonically ambitious. With a harmonically saturated structure crafted from restraint and repetition, it remains one of his most recognizable compositions: an exercise in the art of maximal minimalism.

From the outset, “Reprisal” received praise from BBC’s Mary Anne Hobbs, who championed the track on her radio show. Her support played a key role in introducing Irisarri’s work to wider audiences and solidifying his place within the lineage of electronic, drone, and experimental sound artists. A slow-burning elegy, the piece emerges from a haze of distortion and sub-bass, with dense, unrelenting drones carrying a sense of mounting tension. Just as it seems to collapse under its own weight, flickers of guitar emerge like distant light through fog. It’s a meditation on dissonance, resolve, and the elusive possibility of release.

The closing track, “Secretly Wishing for Rain,” is steeped in saudade: a longing for Seattle’s dour grey skies, lush green landscapes, and desaturated sunsets. Through it, Irisarri mourns a vanished chapter of life bound to the city, a time documented in scattered mementos and cherished collections, now permanently gone. A reflection on what could never be recovered: an era lost to time. Julia Kent’s looped cello motifs added a melancholic warmth to the track, marking the first collaboration between the two artists and sparking a musical dialogue that would keep growing in the years that followed.

More than a career highlight, A Fragile Geography has laid the foundation for Black Knoll studio, which Irisarri rebuilt from the ground up. The studio has since grown into a creative hub for countless projects, with Irisarri engineering records for iconic music figures like Terry Riley, Ryuichi Sakamoto, William Basinski, MONO, Devendra Banhart, Grouper, Emeralds, Steve Hauschildt, Julianna Barwick, and many others. Carried by its lasting influence, the album has quietly captured the ear of a younger generation, its sound and emotional arc finding new listeners in unexpected corners.

The album’s new visual language was reimagined in collaboration with Mexico City–based designer Daniel Castrejón. Irisarri captured ghostly images at Gaztelugatxeko Doniene, a historic coastal site in Bermeo, Euskal Herria. Castrejón then treated the photographs with distressed textures and spectral overlays. The final artwork channels the rugged, elemental forces that shaped both the music and Irisarri’s aesthetic, renewing his ties to ancestral ground inspired by the Basque homeland of his bloodline.

Mastered by Stephan Mathieu with exceptional attention to detail, this anniversary edition uncovers every nuance in the sound design, enhancing clarity and presence. With each listen, new elements emerge, inviting discovery and reconnection.

“I don’t experience this album as a document of grief anymore,” says Irisarri. “I hear adaptation and I'm reminded that when everything falls apart, something meaningful, maybe even beautiful, can emerge.”

Highest grade sand trampling proto-Goa trance invocations from Alexis Le Tan & Joakim’s prized Parisian project Full Circle, hailing the likes of Chris & Cosey, early Nu Groove, and more ancient ritualist spirits, on a new set of lush, buoyant steppers and sidewinders for Good Morning Tapes.

After leaving loosey goosey dancers hanging for a few years since their coveted Good Morning Tapes editions, Full Circle pick up exactly where the ‘Further Knowhere’ mixtape left us in a utopian 3rd place slipstream. ‘Beyond Knowhere’ pursues a particular late ‘80s/early ‘90s dragon, and in return answers a certain dancefloor need for music that propels both body and spirit with an effortless sensuality that’s lesser heard in clubs nowadays.

Perhaps most notably they emphasise the influence of Chris & Cosey over that era in lead ace ‘Odd Perceptions’ in the lushest whorl of dubbed-out 909, sitar, and overtone singing for 8 minutes practically guaranteed to trigger sweat and palpatations. If you’re not feeling the frisson by the time of its bassline coda 7 mins deep, you may need to see a doctor.

Chakras aligned, they continue to elevate the senses with the pendulous acid stepper ‘Painting Noise’, reframing a vocal sample - “take this brother, may it serve you well”, as also found on Major Problems’ Overdose’ - in a tripper early trance-steppers style riding gunky acid bass and head-smashing FX, before taking it down a gear to the Konders-esque digi-dub chug of ’Sharp Water’, again rubbing Nu Groove influence with a damn effective, psychedelic steez.

Big tunes!

Marking what will inevitably be a holy grail moment for fans of Italian library music, and an inevitale revelation for anyone approaching it for the first time, the venerable Dialogo returns to their broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series with the first ever vinyl reissue of “Industria 2000”, an astounding 1974 LP created by the legendary Italian pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, under the moniker Jarrell. Regarded by many as one of the greatest experimental library records ever made - at times missable for the contemporaneous byproducts of studios like GRM or EMS, while doubly foreshadowing the synth infused soundtracks of John Carpenter and the idioms of Industrial music and Noise - it’s an immersive marvel that was years ahead of its time.
** Ltd. 300 copies, remastered edition, audiophile pressing. Perfect replica of the original packaging, newly remastered for optimal sound. ** Italy is a treasure trove of obscure and archival sounds. For decades, the products of its free-wheeling sonic cultures - spanning numerous musical genres - remained as sinfully overlooked, before being uncovered by devoted diggers and illuminated by numerous reissued initiatives. Recently, the Milan based imprint, Dialogo, has led the charge into the shadows of Italy’s past, releasing a steady stream of holy grails, from the astounding Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai “Dimensioni Sonore” box set, issued in 2020, and a dedicated initiative to the work of Piero Umiliani, to a slew of coveted albums from the legendary Cramps catalog, and that’s only the tip of the iceberg. Their latest, the first ever reissue of “Industria 2000”, an astounding 1974 LP created by the legendary Italian pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, under the moniker Jarrell, joins their recent reissues of “Equinox” and “Solstitium”, to launch Dialogo’s broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series, one of the most coveted and rare bodies of library music ever laid to tape. Regarded by many to be among the best and most forward-thinking experimental efforts in the entire field, and among the only library records to have ever been offered the Creel Pone treatment, “Industria 2000” is an absolute marvel of wild, avant-garde electronics and synthesis, pushing toward glorious states of pure abstraction, threaded by unexpected anchors in pop. Issued in a beautiful, perfect replica highly limited vinyl edition, if ever there was a perfect introduction to the wonders of Italian library music, this is it!

Resting within the vast expanse of visionary albums produced in Italy during the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, is the territory loosely categorised as Library music; recordings that were commissioned and owned by record labels, to be licensed for use within television programs, radio, and film, as stock. While Library music was produced in numerous countries during this period, nowhere was it more unique and groundbreaking than in Italy. Many of the country’s most noteworthy composers - Ennio Morricone, Piero Umiliani, Egisto Macchi, Bruno Nicolai, Sandro Brugnolini, etc. - used the context as an aggregator of radical experimentation and creative freedom, as well as a means to deliver forward-thinking music to broad audiences. Long coveted by diggers, samplers, and beat makers, these albums collectively represent one of the great treasure troves of 20th Century recorded sound: vast in its breath and endlessly adventurous and unpredictable in realisations of creative ambition.

Library music is notoriously mysterious. Its creators often worked in the shadows, with their music becoming far more familiar than the names of those who created it, something made that much more complex by the fact that composers often worked under numerous monikers and aliases, making it often impossible to know who truly made these astounding works. Among the most noteworthy of these figures was the pianist and composer, Amedeo Tommasi, who in addition to leading numerous, highly regarded jazz bands during the 1960s, and recording with artists like Chet Baker, Bobby Jaspar, René Thomas, Buddy Collette, Conte Candoli, and Jacques Pelzer, produced a large body of library music across the 1970s and '80s under the names Amedeo Forte, Atmo, Konnell, Mantissa, Silva Savigni, and Jarrell. It was under the latter alias that he created the 1974 LP, “Industria 2000” for RCA’s now legendary “Original Cast” series. Over the years, this single gesture has become one of the most highly regarded experimental library records ever laid to tape, commanding eye watering prices on the secondary market.

Comprising twelve tracks centred around the process of synthesises, “Industria 2000” is thematically rooted around the environments and work in a mechanised and industrial world. Rather than the here and now, it seems to project itself into some imagined future, and in so doing embodies this notion by presenting a totality of music that is often years ahead of time and stands almost entirely on its own within the field of 1970s creativity. Ranging from hypnotic, minimal pieces like “Mondo Industriale” that foreshadow the work of John Carpenter by a handful of years; to wild, complex electroacoustic gestures like “Industria 2000”, “Meccanizzazione” and “Sala Macchine” that could easily be mistaken for the contemporaneous byproducts of experimental electronic studios like Groupe de Recherches Musicales GRM or Elektronmusikstudion EMS, the proto-industrial rhythmical textural assaults of “Energia Pesante” that prefigure numerous idioms of noise and underground electronic music by a decade or more, and wrenches thrown by pastoral, melodic pieces like “Lavoro Sereno”, and off-kilter, completely uncategorizable works like “Lavoro a Catena”. Once encountered in both its discrete moments and totality, there’s little question why it made the cut and passed the rigorous criteria for inclusion in Creel Pone’s incredible catalog of CDr reissues back in 2012.

An absolute marvel that’s remained almost entirely inaccessible on vinyl for decades, Jarrell’s “Industria 2000” is a true visionary release, transcending the perceived bounds of Italian library music as one of the greatest experimental works in the entire canon, as well as one of the most definitive artefacts of Amedeo Tommasi’s celebrated career. Joining Dialogo’s broader initiative dedicated to the Italian arm of RCA’s legendary “Original Cast” series, this beautifully produced, limited edition LP immaculately reproduces the original Italian press and marks it’s first appearance on vinyl in roughly 50 years. An engrossing listen from the first sounding to the last, this is a holy grail moment for fans of Italian library music, and an inevitable revelation for anyone approaching it for the first time.

An important piece in the history of experimental music, Richard Maxfield's 1969 album “Electronic Music” has been reissued by PAROLE! The album contains electronic music/music concoctions created in the early 1960s while Maxfield was a member of Fluxus and deeply involved with La Monte Young, David Tudor, and others. Pastoral Symphony" is a soundscape of continuous electronic sounds, an innovative experiment at the time. Bacchanale" is a collage of disparate materials, including jazz, Korean folk songs, spoken word, and Terry Jennings' saxophone. Piano Concert for David Tudor" has an underground tension, mixing internal piano techniques with amplified metallic sounds. The “Amazing Grace” piece, which is a minimalist work that anticipates Steve Reich and Terry Riley by layering tape loops at different speeds, greatly expands the possibilities of electronic music of the 1960s, and is also connected to the origins of minimalism and contemporary music. It still has a stimulating resonance. The vintage equipment and hand-crafted collage textures that stand out only on analog vinyl are irresistible!

Sounds From The Screen reissues Paolo Ferrara’s 1974 album "Sound," newly remastered for today’s listeners. Blending rare groove, psychedelic flair, and cinematic funk, the album features energetic rhythms and inventive arrangements, reaffirming Ferrara’s status as a visionary in Italian library music.

Sounds From The Screen proudly announces the reissue of Sound, the legendary album by Italian composer Paolo Ferrara. Originally cut in 1974 on the iconic Italian library label Canopo, Sound returns in a newly remastered edition, inviting a new generation of listeners to experience its unique blend of rare groove, psychedelic flair, and cinematic funk.

Sound is an alchemic mixture of frenzied rhythms, bossa-tinged themes, and acid funk stompers. The album’s percussive nature and genre-blurring arrangements showcase Ferrara’s mastery in crafting evocative soundscapes that transcend time. Well known for his psychedelic and electronic explorations, Ferrara is in full rare groove mode here, delivering a record that is as enthralling today as it was at its inception

Long considered a hidden gem among collectors and connoisseurs of Italian library music, Sound has been meticulously rescued from the dust and given the reissue treatment it deserves. This release offers both seasoned fans and new listeners the chance to immerse themselves in Ferrara’s visionary world, where every track pulses with energy and inventive spirit.

Tristes Tropiques is an album of synthetic exotica, pseudo-ethnographic music and manipulated field recordings.
Find out more about Andrew Pekler’s Tristes Tropiques in the following interview:
Jan Jelinek: You’ve titled your album Tristes Tropiques – a reference to Claude Lévi-Strauss’ famous account of his travels among native peoples in the Mato Grosso. If I remember correctly, the book can be read in two ways: as an ethnographic study of indigenous Brazilian tribes, and as a critique of anthropological methods. What exactly about Tristes Tropiques inspired you? The melancholy travelogue, or the formation of a new, critical school of thought?

Andrew Pekler: Both. Lévi-Strauss’ constant reflection on the purpose of his work and the often melancholy tone of his writing constitute an internal tension which runs throughout the whole book. Tristes Tropiques is many things; autobiography, traveler’s tale, ethnographic report, philosophical treatise, colonial history. But ultimately, it’s the author’s attempt to synthesize meaning from fragments of his own and other cultures that resonated most strongly with me – and led me to a new perspective on how I hear and make music.

JJ: Listening to Tristes Tropiques I noticed a certain oscillation between references, which is what I really like about it. Obviously, your music alludes to the beloved fairytale kitsch of exotica, but it also repeatedly shifts to a mode of ethno-poetic meditation music that seems to have no beginning or end. Where do you yourself locate the tracks gathered here?

AP: As a listener and as a musician, exotica music of the 1950s and 60s has always been a constant reference point and inspiration. And perhaps my listening has been ‘ruined’ by exotica, but as I have dug deeper into ethnographic archives of ‘traditional’ music, I’ve come to the realization that all recordings that evoke, allude to, or ostensibly document other musical forms have a similar effect on my imagination: I am most intrigued when I perceive some coincidentally familiar element within the foreign (a tuned percussion recital from Malawi that immediately brings to mind Steve Reichian minimalism, or the Burundian female vocal duet that sounds uncannily like a cut-up tape experiment, etc.). I suppose this album is an attempt to recreate the same kind of listening experience as what I’ve described, just with the electronic means that I have at hand.

JJ: I know that you perform Tristes Tropiques not only as music, and that there is visual and spatial aspect to the presentation. Can you reveal more about this?

AP: I made an accompanying video – mainly close-up footage, shot in Thailand, of various tropical flora. The video was recorded at very slow speed and this gives the plants, flowers, trees, bamboo, etc. the appearance of rather abstract objects. In live performance, this abstracting effect is further emphasized through real-time modulation of the colors, brightness and other parameters of the video image. There is also an installation version of the video that is meant to be projected on multiple screens / walls and with its own soundtrack of heavily manipulated field recordings captured in the same locations in the jungle.

JJ: We can get an idea of what this looks like from the beautiful video stills on the back cover of the album.

An archaeological sound source from the famous label Unseen World, which continues to send obscure electronic music. An early collection of early recordings by Carl Stone, an American composer who studied under Morton Subotnick and is a professor at Chukyo University, and a master of sampling and cut-up collage.
This work consists of 6 unreleased songs from the 70's and 80's and 7 songs of "Shing Kee" excerpted from the work "Mom's" released by New Albion in 1992. "Shing Kee" (1986), which is a sampling of Schubert's "Bodhi" sung by Akiko Yano, has a great sense of ambience for sustained sounds, and Seth Graham and Kara-Lis Coverdale are also surprised by the timeless three-dimensional electronic sound. , "Shibucho" (1984) and "Dong Il Jang" (1982) are also ambitious works in which cut-ups were attempted using sampling methods. Our Rashad Becker is in charge of mastering. An avant-garde electronics masterpiece that unfortunately demonstrated a strange soundscape like melting modern architecture. Even if I listen to it now, it doesn't feel old at all. Recommended for a wide range of people from DJ material to new age to ambient drone lovers. A gatefold specification & booklet & DL code limited track is also included.

Shutting Down Here is a special work. Symbolically, it covers a period of thirty years, between two visits by Jim O'Rourke to the GRM, the first, as a young man fascinated by the institution and his repertoire, the second, as an accomplished musician, influential and imbued with an aura of mystery. Shutting Down Here is a piece shaped like an universe, a heterogeneous world in which collides the multiple musical facets of Jim O'Rourke: instrumental writing, field recordings, electronic textures and cybernetic becomings, dynamic spaces, harmonic spaces, silent spans . This variety of approach, strangely, does not in any way weaken the coherence of the whole and this is the talent of Jim O'Rourke, a talent, properly speaking, of composition, where all the sound elements compete and participate to stakes that exceed them and of a common destiny, that is to say of an apparition.

Sweeping ambient from Colorado's Matthew Sage.

"Tender / Wading finds Matthew Sage, aka M. Sage, in the foothills and pastures of Colorado, writing, recording, and returning to a patch of his homeland and identity, one act of sympathetic care informing the next. Constructed primarily on piano and clarinet, and then embellished with guitar, modular synthesizer, percussion, and field recordings captured around the perimeter of his home, the album is a sweeping, serene vision of vitality, radical softness, and the reassuring sense of coming home, even if home has changed. Since the early 2010s, Sage has assembled an idiosyncratic catalog of music that sprawls in various sound directions, manifesting with releases on Geographic North, Orange Milk, and Moon Glyph, and garnering both critical attention and a loyal listenership present for each new turn. In 2023, Sage debuted on RVNG Intl. with Paradise Crick, which coincided with his ongoing output within the improvisatory ambient jazz quartet, Fuubutsushi, and he now delivers his next solo endeavor and direction. Tender / Wading follows Sage’s return to Colorado after nearly a decade in Chicago, now nurturing a couple acres of neglected space with his young family thirty miles outside his hometown. In a holistic contrast to Crick’s synthetic sound-world, Sage renders art from the act of stewarding new growth, questioning constructs of domestic life, and understanding the footsteps of his former self through the dirt-smeared, sweat-fogged lens of the present. The yield is his most autobiographical material to date, marked by time and changes in perception and meaningful details from Sage’s psychic search."

“Quiet ecstasy from a composer without boundaries”

4/5 The Guardian ‘Experimental Album of the Month’

“An emotional tapestry of lush organic instrumentation and synthetic drones, touching on the beauty in grief and the grief in beauty”

RA ‘Recommends’

In May, composer, musician, and producer Kara-Lis Coverdale released her first new album in eight years, From Where You Came. It was followed by her second album of 2025, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, in September. Today, Coverdale details her third full-length release of the year, Changes In Air, out 21 November via Smalltown Supersound, and unveils its lead single ‘Curve Traces of Held Space’.

Changes In Air is a work for electric organ, modular synthesis, and piano in five sections. The album was adapted from a work originally written for installation at Skarven in Oslo, a floating sauna facing the expansive fjord which is heated by wood fire and solar radiation. Five “materials” influence the album's arrangements: wood, water, sun, glass, and metal. Coverdale composed, played, and recorded Changes In Air alone in Marquette, Manitoba in 2019 and completed it this year.

Known for her musical innovations at the intersection of experimental electronics and minimalist traditions, Coverdale’s releases have garnered acclaim for their deep exploration of timbre. This year’s trilogy of albums released by Smalltown Supersound are Coverdale’s first major new works since Grafts (2017), Aftertouches (2015, Sacred Phrases), and A 480 (2014, Constellation Tatsu).

Coverdale has performed concert halls, clubs, and festivals throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia headlining and touring with Big Thief, Caribou, Gagaku Ensemble and Floating Points (including as a part of his Promises ensemble at The Hollywood Bowl in LA). She has previously collaborated with with Actress, Yasuaki Shimizu, Caterina Barbieri and Lyra Pramuk and has created compositions for film, theatre, dance, symphonic instrumentation, and installation, including Cello Octet Amsterdam, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Vanemuine Theatre, NYC Contemporaneous Ensemble and Ludens Choir with pipe organ a connective tissue throughout much of her work.

“Quiet ecstasy from a composer without boundaries”

4/5 The Guardian ‘Experimental Album of the Month’

“An emotional tapestry of lush organic instrumentation and synthetic drones, touching on the beauty in grief and the grief in beauty”

RA ‘Recommends’

In May, composer, musician, and producer Kara-Lis Coverdale released her first new album in eight years, From Where You Came. It was followed by her second album of 2025, A Series of Actions in a Sphere of Forever, in September. Today, Coverdale details her third full-length release of the year, Changes In Air, out 21 November via Smalltown Supersound, and unveils its lead single ‘Curve Traces of Held Space’.

Changes In Air is a work for electric organ, modular synthesis, and piano in five sections. The album was adapted from a work originally written for installation at Skarven in Oslo, a floating sauna facing the expansive fjord which is heated by wood fire and solar radiation. Five “materials” influence the album's arrangements: wood, water, sun, glass, and metal. Coverdale composed, played, and recorded Changes In Air alone in Marquette, Manitoba in 2019 and completed it this year.

Known for her musical innovations at the intersection of experimental electronics and minimalist traditions, Coverdale’s releases have garnered acclaim for their deep exploration of timbre. This year’s trilogy of albums released by Smalltown Supersound are Coverdale’s first major new works since Grafts (2017), Aftertouches (2015, Sacred Phrases), and A 480 (2014, Constellation Tatsu).

Coverdale has performed concert halls, clubs, and festivals throughout Europe, North America, Asia, and Australia headlining and touring with Big Thief, Caribou, Gagaku Ensemble and Floating Points (including as a part of his Promises ensemble at The Hollywood Bowl in LA). She has previously collaborated with with Actress, Yasuaki Shimizu, Caterina Barbieri and Lyra Pramuk and has created compositions for film, theatre, dance, symphonic instrumentation, and installation, including Cello Octet Amsterdam, Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra, Vanemuine Theatre, NYC Contemporaneous Ensemble and Ludens Choir with pipe organ a connective tissue throughout much of her work.

Exploring the water engineering relationship between Japan and the Netherlands across a trilogy of experimental releases, the third and final part of Field Records' Waterworks series is courtesy of Yui Onodera. Pairing delicate synthesis and instrumentation with field recordings and negative space, the accomplished artist and sound architect examines the impact of water engineering on Japan's Kiso Three Rivers.

The location refers to the confluence of the Kiso, Nagara and Ibi rivers on the Nōbi plain in Gifu prefecture. In the late 19th century, Japanese authorities collaborated with Dutch engineer Johannes de Rijke to separate the three rivers at the lower part of the Kiso delta. These extensive improvements, which were finalised in 1912, successfully shielded the city of Nagoya from regular flooding.

Onodera's minimalist palette and detailed approach to spatial sound design balances microscopic field recordings and tonally-rich traditional instruments, which he applies with stark focus to the subject of the Kiso Three Rivers across eight extended pieces of music arranged into two distinct parts. The A-side's shorter tracks are delicately sculpted miniatures interweaving chiming bell tones, treated guitar impressions and hushed pads. The B-side's two longer suites are more overtly minimal in nature, emphasising sampled water sources accented with patient brush strokes of synthesis.

Field Records takes a look into the vast catalogue of Celer, the prolific ambient project from Tokyo-based American artist Will Long. Perfectly Beneath Us was originally released in 2012 as a CD-R on Still*Sleep, and now it’s being presented as a vinyl release, remastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Celer began in California in 2005 as a collaborative project between Will Long and Danielle Baquet, resulting in reams of self-released work up until Baquet passed away in 2009. Long opted to keep their project going, and Celer has continued to grow as an expansive exploration of purest ambient. With such a sizeable library of sounds to explore, the reissue of Perfectly Beneath Us serves as an ideal entry point into the middle period of Celer's catalogue, presenting four pieces of sustaining, lethargic movements, wreaked in profound subtlety.

This captivating piece of work rewards the attentive listener as much as it soothes the casual drifter. Now beautifully framed on a carefully considered reissue, this record fits neatly with the label's own repertoire of evocative, subliminal electronics.

Wolfgang Voigt makes a return to Astral Industries, seeing the continuation of his long-running Rückverzauberung (Reverse Enchantment) series. In line with previous volumes, one may expect the unconventional, idiosyncratic sound Voigt is reputed for. ‘Im Tunnel’ however, takes a more concentrated viewpoint - a metaphysical transmutation that brings with it an experience of mind-melting drones and swelling intensity.

Entering the tunnel is like opening a portal, but as the fabric of time-space begins to collapse on itself, it feels more like a rude awakening. Pulsing undulations rise and fall like the turbines of a spacecraft, marked by dissonant chords and a simmering cloud of complex and ever-shifting textures. Pushing thresholds and expectations, the unearthly nature of the tunnel over time disintegrates any proposed state of completion. A treacherous voyage, and possibly bewildering for some, the work is both unrelenting and uncompromising. Should one decide to step into the tunnel, be sure to take all necessary precautions and procedures.

Italian sound artist Marco Shuttle debuts on Astral Industries with AI-39. Alluring and evocative, ‘Sonidos y Modulaciones de la Selva’ is a journey deep into the Amazon rainforest, seeking to capture its power and vastness, but also a rumination on the problem of its impending destruction.

In this album Shuttle sees the continuation and further ripening of an ongoing creative process, utilising both audio and visual documentations as source material. On this occasion most of the field recordings were taken in the Tupana Arü Ü nature reserve in the Amazonas region of Columbia, between Leticia and Puerto Nariño.

For the compositional process Shuttle employs a distinctly minimalist approach, achieving highly rich and articulate soundscapes with relatively little. Painting with an almost impressionistic stroke, the depth of imagery is underpinned by a strong experimental leaning and a sophisticated musical language.

Within its wild freeform, the seamless interplay between nature and the machines sees them merge into a mysterious dance - a liquifying sequence of scenes that shimmer with flora, fauna and the unmistakable aliveness of the jungle. A procession of sputtering and cavernous pulsations, sprawling biologies and hidden mysteries, the jungle as an entity, a spirit, begins to emerge. With all its peculiarities and strangeness, it reveals a world of seeming chaos, yet underneath it all a thread of something innately conscious.

Although it could be considered a form of sound diary, the scope spans much further than a standalone creative work. Within its intoxicating montage of shifting forms, ‘Sonidos y Modulaciones de la Selva’ stands as a sonic ethnography, and a contemplation on time, space, and our evolving relationship with nature.

Ongoing large-scale logging, agriculture and infrastructure projects are leading to significant deforestation in the Amazon, and continues to threaten biodiversity, the global environment and the livelihoods of indigenous communities. Part of the proceedings from this release will be donated to Amazon Watch (amazonwatch.org), a nonprofit organisation that works to protect the rainforest and advance the rights of indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin.

“Special thanks goes to Marco Cruz from Amazon Jungle Trips and to Aberlardo and Manuel (who is also the narrator of the story at the end of Part 2), the indigenous guides who took me deep into the forest and made me experience its overwhelmingly powerful beauty. This record is dedicated to Colombia and all the fantastic people I met in this wonderful country” - Marco Shuttle