MUSIC

Jim Coles’s fifth instalment of his best-selling ‘Acid Dub Studies’ series arrives in the form of the third set of original works exploring the infectious sound of the 303 bass-line in a dubwise setting. The album takes in traditional dub mixing approaches in a digital and roots/digi-dub style whilst also making space for more electronic and ambient processes to close the project.

‘Acid Dub Studies III’ arrives after 2 years of touring the material in a live setting at festivals and clubs including CTM at Berghain, Les Nuits Sonores, and Andrew Weatherall's Convenanza festival and is the culmination of some 5 years of experimenting with a style that has been met with critical acclaim, reaching far and wide into many a DJ’s box having been noted by some as a truly ground-breaking approach to working with the 303.

Properly deep and mysterious future-primitivism on the debut recordings from a reclusive artist about whom we know almost nothing except that they hail from the Mesolongi region of western Greece. Uncanny ambient chamber spectres are the order of the day, with a sound that could have been conjured decades or just weeks ago - who knows - giving something like The Caretaker processing crates of rebetika instead of the usual ballroom dirges.

Aeson Zervas is yet another enigma to emerge from a country that, in recent times, has gifted us the inventive spirits of Christos Chondropoulos’ and Nikolas Rafael Hadjilaskaris’ nebula of projects spanning Live Adult Entertainment, Christian Love Forum and ElHellEll - not to mention Jay Glass Dubs - and which has made Athens a magnet for the Euro avant garde and experimental in-betweeners.

Zervas’ music exists in a space out of time, manifesting a more discreet sound than any of his compatriots, but sharing a feel for displaced, etheric space and timeless, nostalgic romance. His eight-part debut album summons the ghosts of Greek folk and classical music in slow moving arrangements set in eerily iridescent plasma. Uncredited voices and instrumentation are wreathed in hypnotic, noumenal plumes that settle on the mind like smoke caught by moonlight.

He clearly shares the hypnagogic allure and sozzled sensuality of The Caretaker, as though James Kirby was reminiscing on a past life or spirit quest in Greece, but he also somehow reminds us of the solemn beauty of Dominique Lawalrée’s Belgian attic meditations, distinguished by subtle flourishes of near black metal dungeon gloom and arcane synth flickers that jolt the mind into unusual states of curious delight.

Unmissable, if you know what’s good.

When Jako Maron reimagined Réunion island's politically-charged maloya sound on 'The electro Maloya experiments of Jako Maron', he focused on the genre's distinctive, revolutionary rhythms. Electro-plating the call-and-response thuds, he used the language of techno to upset the expected template, disrupting maloya's 6/8 pulse with modular bleeps and Roland kicks. He takes a different approach on 'Mahavélouz', focusing on the bobre, traditional maloya's only melodic instrument, a long bow amplified by a calabash that's known as the berimbau in Brazil. Maron was fascinated by the bobre's unique sonic signature, and noted that when it's usually played, it's drowned out by the louder percussive instruments. So he enlisted a number of traditional bobre performers to play a series of solos, using them to guide the album's four lead tracks and distorting and compressing the serrated hits until they stood confidently in front of his undulating roulér (bass drum) and sati (hi-hat) patterns.

"These four pieces are the culmination of my research into electronic maloya," explains Maron. "There's no need for words on this music; the bobre is the voice, and it is an ancestral voice. It's a reimagining of maloya kabaré in an electro form." This is the music that Maron has used to drive his recent live performances, so it prioritizes maloya's dancefloor potential. Swapping the traditional roulér and sati sounds for TR-606, TR-909 and TR-707 hits, he generates a hypnotic roll on opening track 'Paré po saviré' (rise up), forming a rubbery backdrop for Amemoutoulaop's acidic bobre twangs. Maron describes the track as a "call to bring spirits and people together", and using piercing feedback squeals to harmonize with the bobre, he introduces us to the voice that anchors the entire album. On 'Bék dann dir (try harder), he augments the bobre with glassy Korg Polysix chimes and Machinedrum sounds, and 'Zésprimaron'(the Maron spirit), ushers us towards a ceremony, shuffling his rhythm into a ritualistic throb, and using squelchy synth sounds to flutter into a trance.

Maron concludes his live bobre experiments with '1 piton 3 filaos' (one hill and three trees), and it's his most ambitious fusion, with hallucinatory flutes and technoid stabs rising weightlessly in-between Amemoutoulaop's frenetic performance. But this isn't the end of his investigation: Maron fleshes out 'Mahavélouz' with tonal studies that replicate the bobre synthetically. On 'Mdé prototrash', the characteristic ping is re-created by his modular system, and it's almost indistinguishable from the original instrument, buzzing and popping alongside Maron's surging percussion. The sound is more uncanny on 'dann kér Mahaveli' (in the heart of marvelous land) but no less affecting, knotted around synthetic bird calls and entrancing warbles. Even more idiosyncratic than its predecessors, 'Mahavélouz' is a bold step forward for Maron that builds on ancient foundations to construct a staggeringly new kind of dance music.

The artist sometimes known as Huerco S. ushers a phase shift of sound to the shoegazing harmonic gauze of Make Me Know You Sweet, his immersive debut proper as Pendant. In this horizontal mode, Brian Leeds relays abstract stories from a headspace beyond the dance, placing his interests in the Romantic landscapes of JMW Turner, Robert Ashley's avant-garde enigmas, and Indigenous North American philosophy at the service of a more expressive, oneiric sound that sub/consciously avoids the trap falls of "chillout" ambient cliché. Across seven amorphous, texturally detailed tracks he establishes far reaching coordinates for both Pendant and the West Mineral Ltd. label, which aims to release everything except the commonly accepted, traditional forms of late 20th/early 21st century dance music, while also representing the work of his inner circle of friends, producers, artists. In that that sense there's a definite feeling of "no place like home" to his new work, but that home appears altered, much in the same way The Caretaker/Leyland Kirby deals with themes of memory and nostalgia. It's best described as mid-ground music, as opposed to the putative background purpose of ambient styles, or the upfront physicality of dance music. Rather, the sound billows and unfurls with a paradoxically static chaos, occupying and lurking a space between the eyes and ears in a way that's not necessarily comforting, and feels to question the nature and relevance of ubiquitous pastoral, new age tropes in the modern era of uncertainty and disingenuity. The results ponder an impressionistic, romantically ambiguous simulacrum of real life worries and anxiety, feeling at once dense and impending yet without center. From the keening, 11-minute swell of "VVQ-SSJ" at the album's prow, to the similar scope of its closer, Pendant presents an absorbing vessel for introspection, modulating the listener's depth perception and moderating our intimacy with an elemental push and pull between the curdling, bittersweet froth of "BBN-UWZ", the dusky obfuscation of "IBX-BZC" and, in the supremely evocative play of phosphorescing light and seductive darkness in the mottled depths of "KVL-LWQ", which also benefits from additional production by Pontiac Streator. Make Me Know You Sweet taps into a latent, esoteric vein of American spirituality that's always been there, yet is only divined by those who remain open-minded to its effect. Master and lacquer cut by Matt Colton.

Delicate glitches drifting like particles, ambient textures rising like mist—West Mineral, the seminal imprint founded by Huerco S. and a defining force in the post-2010s “Dubient” movement, returns with another essential release. Sleepdial is the solo project of Denver-based experimental musician Luke Thinnes, known for his releases as Dubharp on 100% Silk and as French Kettle Station on Slagwerk. This debut LP offers a soundworld where blurred drones and error-like noise artifacts linger with echoes of nameless, half-remembered emotions. Navigating the liminal zones between loop and non-loop, structure and collapse, it gently scatters fragments of memory into Dubient silence. A crystalline document of dreamlike introspection—one that glows quietly within the contemporary experimental continuum. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

Very different from Biosphere's last AD 93 offering, 'The Way of Time' is a freewheeling set of atmospheric vintage synth jams, dubby ambient techno experiments and decelerated electro workouts that's inspired by American poet and author Elizabeth Madox Roberts' 'The Time Of Man'. Essential listening for fans of 'Patashnik', then.

On 2021's 'Angel's Flight', Geir Jenssen focused his gaze on Beethoven's String Quartet No. 14, tweaking and stretching it to tease out its essence. He's on more familiar ground here, using Joan Lorring's voice, from a 1951 radio adaptation of 'The Time Of Man', to guide us through a spruced-up spread of his signature sounds. If you've kept up with his releases, then you'll know that the last few albums have been made with restored keyboards and drum machines - a marked shift from his period using samples and software.

'The Way Of Time' seems to follow the same path: opener 'Time Of Man' is barely more than a brassy analog lead and Lorring's smudgy voice, while the title theme (that repeats in various forms), with its acidic plucks and sequenced repetitions takes us back to Jenssen's milestone album 'Patashnik', when he set the bar for ambient techno. It's a welcome return to familiar sonics; unlike his last couple of synth-heavy albums, that sounded like fun diversions and jams, 'The Way Of Time' holds neatly together as a unit, well braided by its journeyman theme. Lorring's voice is the anchor, and Jenssen's able to refresh his most referenced material with contemporary processes and techniques.

“Horizons” is an album by COMPUMA, developed from his 2023 digital-only “Horizons EP” released via Bandcamp. Inspired by his roots in Kumamoto and the landscapes he encountered during walks in various locations, the album captures the calm and comfort of everyday life. Blending ambient, downtempo electronic, and imaginary environmental sounds, it offers a minimal yet richly atmospheric listening experience.

Ever-evolving the mythologies and magic of Dialect’s sonic sphere, Andrew PM Hunt returns with Atlas of Green, elegantly molding unexacting details of memory and mistranslation into the framework of the British musician and composer’s creative pursuit. The album imagines a young musician named Green working in a future dawning era where lost signals and enduring impulses are unearthed from the sediments of technology and time. Across twelve compositions, Atlas of Green is a patchwork of scavenged relics and bygone hues, cast through the iridescent shimmers of a mid-future in flux. Audiophile quality vinyl pressed at RTI and mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Big Hands is the alias of Andrea Ottomani, an Italian-born, London-based artist, whose productions have maintained an impeccable level of homogeneity over the last decade. His debut album, titled Thauma, was conceived in dreams over two consecutive nights as he traversed the storm-ridden Mediterranean Sea in late June 2024 and was later brought to life with the intent of preserving the sounds and structures as they were originally dreamt. Composed of ten tracks that seamlessly morph into one another, the album contains recordings of tuned percussion instruments (such as bells and the balafon) captured whilst travelling across the Mediterranean (Italy, Greece, Egypt, and Turkey) as well as collaborations with his tight-knit orbit of talented musicians.

Palestinian artist, بنت مبارح (Bint Mbareh), echoes and wails in dialogue with Abraham Parker’s & Izzy Karpel’s brass interjections on Fuoco Lento, then proceeds to send chills down the spine as she starts singing in Arabic on A Juniper Tree Whose Roots Are Made of Fire. Tenor saxophonist, Buster Woodruff-Bryant, lays down snake charmer waltzes on Sticks And Stones, followed by a spiritual sax solo on Rinascita which features the natural timbres of Yusuf Ahmed’s bamboo kit. Mantras, along with recordings of Andrea’s community, are dispersed throughout the album, amplifying the nostalgia and melancholy associated with the music. There’s an underlying archaic thread woven into the percussion that meshes perfectly with the organic acoustic instruments, ultimately becoming indistinguishable from the electronic drums or modular synthesis. Field recordings of the sea, cicadas, call for prayer, and the overall recurring noise from the surroundings evoke a vivid sense of space and are the foundation for realizing this visionary sound.

Music by Andrea Ottomani
Additional percussions on A4 by Yusuf Ahmed
and on B2 by Hayato Takahashi
Mastered and cut by Noel Summerville
Artwork by Andreas Bauer 

'Skinned' is the debut album from Danish composer, producer and singer ML Buch. After releasing her debut EP Fleshy in 2017 ML Buch is ready with her first full-length album Skinned that takes her expansive guitar work and catchy melodies to another territory. With her unique experimental pop and vocals that seem to slide into your ears as fluorescent liquid, ML Buch portrays the reality of intimacy in a digital era. Working primarily with synthetic midi sounds, the general love of songwriting and guitar music is ever present. The album comes with an extensive visual side in the form of five music videos acting as tableaus that echo the encounter between screens and skin and how the senses wriggle, flutter and weave in and out of our online presence and intimate lives. As if in search for something real, ML Buch takes the listener on the other side of the skin. Led by tender love songs like I’m A Girl You Can Hold IRL and Can’t Get Over You With You we journey through her throat and into her intestines, discovering a fascinating realm of shiny mucus and bile in flesh and yellowish colors. Panoramic images were captured by a small pill camera travelling through the body of ML Buch and act as extentions of the architecture of the music. This literal way of internalizing modern technology is symbolic of Skinned where eclectic instrumental compositions share the space with strong hooks and ML Buch’s spherical voice.

Soundtrack of the late seventies, early eighties with particular attention to vintage instrumentation and the hard and pure approach that distinguishes the elegance and refinement of this composer, musician, able to make us relive echoes of the past while remaining comfortably seated on the sofa of our home. Alberto Bazzoli amazes with this new test. There are elements of great importance in Missori, a set of tracks that become a dedication to the city of Milan. An album that is a sort of introspective concept capable of narrating, musically, the events of an ordinary employee in the gray city of northern Italy. An album from which you can perceive an underlying melancholy perpetuated through moments of great class, where the taste for the past comes out in all its splendor. Alberto Bazzoli, founder of the label L’amor mio non muore and keyboardist on Baustelle’s latest tour, delivers to listeners an Italian cross-section of rare beauty where all the elements in the field are essential parts of a whole that smells of emotional amarcord capable of finding, in the lost, the key to understanding the modern complexity of living.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1619206400/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://albertobazzolimusica.bandcamp.com/album/missori">MISSORI by Alberto Bazzoli</a></iframe>

After another long period of silence, Deaf Center return with two long-form, hypnotic pieces recorded in an intimate setting. “Reverie” can be seen as a follow up to 2014’s “Recount”, which saw two pieces of music created around their live-sets in different periods. This time, we are treated with a contemporary, raw live performance from October 2024 in Rabih Beaini’s studio, Morphine Raum in Berlin, during the 15th anniversary celebration of Sonic Pieces. This was the first concert from the two old friends since 2019. As always, the duo favours improvisation, and what emerged on this evening turned out to be a truly magical encounter between the two, with Otto A Totland on piano and Erik K Skodvin on guitar, cello, electronics and processing.

In “Rev”, deeply effected piano motifs reverberate and echo in the depths of the room, evolving through looping and electronics into a blissful, mesmerising cloud of (dis)harmony. The sound is reminiscent of the 7inch "Vintage Well" mixed with the basic elements of 2011's "Owl Splinters”. “Erie”, on the other hand, begins almost jazz-like as a piano and cello duo, slowly transforming into a full-bodied organ drone. Towards the end of the piece, the piano motifs from before repeat and vary, for then to slowly settle into gentle melancholy, supported only by a low, rumbling ambient shadow. The immediate duality of the two performers has rarely been so strongly felt, Totland’s deep melodic feeling is underscored by Skodvin’s abstract ambience and processing. Dark versus light, loud versus quiet - this has always been at the core of what makes Deaf Center a special project.

Although this is a live performance, the quality and scope of the album are more akin to a real studio recording. A welcome stop on the path towards the next chapter in Deaf Center’s history, and a great way to forget everything and for a moment get lost in reverie.

Editions Mego reissue the 2001 release Asuma by Finnish artist Ilpo Väisänen. Originally released on CD this is the first ever vinyl issue, remastered by Rashad Becker. 2001 is a landmark year for the artist following a wave of success from the notable outfit Väisänen formed alongside Mika Vanio, Pan Sonic (as they were now known then). Following a string of highly acclaimed and influential releases such as “Vakio”, “Kulma”, “A’ and “Aaltopiiri” Pan Sonic had toured the globe extensively leaving a trail of blown expectations and rumours of all manner of objects in venues cracking or falling apart due to the immense sound the duo concocted with their unique instruments.

Taking a break from the ecstatic cacophony of Pan Sonic, Väisänen retreated to work on a solo release which conjured the spirits of the former outfit whilst simultaneously carving out a more personal take on these new electronic forms.

Asuma is a precise study of drones, rhythms, clicks, ambience and gentle confusion. Whilst inhabiting a zone of abstraction the results also move in a natural field as Väisänen’s native Finland permeates these recordings as much as the idea of experimentation itself.

Autioitu 1 opens the album as delicate pinball rhythms bounce across the spectrum as a hairy drone hovers underneath. The mood is both intriguing and unsettling. Tukahduttaja is a delightfully disorientating sound sculpture that is hard to pinpoint what it actually is. Klikki is comparable to a microscopic version of Pink Floyd’s “Several Species Of Small Furry Animals Gathered Together In A Cave And Grooving With A Pict”. Asumaton is a foreboding miniature acting like a segway to Vallitseva which embraces the icy clicks that punctuates much of the Pan Sonic output. Arvioimaton Ongelma is an audio riddle whilst Jaettu jitters around a dancefloor crawl. Autioitu closes proceedings as a gentle ambient thumper. Asuma is awash with contradiction and mystery. This is time wrapped in twisted turns and rewards a neat payoff for those interested in the absolute fringes of electronic ‘dance’ music.

Nicolás Melmann (born in Buenos Aires and now based in Barcelona) explores sound's social and poetic dimensions through transdisciplinary projects. Drawing inspiration from Erik Satie's concept of "furniture music," Melmann's compositions transform the listening experience into havens of calm and contemplation.

Música Aperta is a fusion of acoustic and electronic sounds, rich in beautiful harmonies, where carefully soft elements interplay with delicate raspiness. Made up of three parts, the music unfolds slowly, immersing the listener in time. Música Aperta resonates with echoes of Satie, the meditative minimalism of Arvo Pärt, the roughness of Phill Niblock, and the nostalgic reflections of Richard Skelton.

Another way of listening to Música Aperta is through its digital encore – an extension of the album experience that brings the concept of open music to life – "a work that remains unfinished and open to transformation." The website features a reactive audiovisual interface where images dynamically respond to the music's behavior, translating electroacoustic frequencies into real-time cinematic landscapes. The album blends instrumental and electronic textures while allowing listeners to interact with different layers through a virtual mixer, enabling them to create unique sound combinations and personal sonic experiences.

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, "Fever of the World" is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds us that when it feels easy to resign ourselves to world weariness, we should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.

Squarepusher's debut album has been remastered and reissued for the 25th anniversary! Feed Me Weird Things", the shocking debut album by the genius Squarepusher, had a huge impact on the music scene. The long-awaited reissue of the album, which has not been available on CD, LP, streaming or download for more than 10 years, is scheduled for June 4th, exactly 25 years after its release! To coincide with the announcement, "Theme From Ernest Borgnine" was released! This reissue, supervised by Squarepusher himself, has been remastered from the original DAT, and includes the two songs "Theme From Goodbye" and "Deep Borgnine" that appeared on the B-side of the EP "Squarepusher Plays..." released at the same time. The 16-page booklet includes self-reflective liner notes, explanations of each song including information on the equipment used, and rare photos and notes from the early days of the band's career. The domestic CD with paper jacket comes in high quality UHQCD (playable on all CD players) and includes a translation of the booklet, a bilingual translation of Richard D. James' contribution, and a commentary. His latest album, "Be Up A Hello," released in 2020, drew attention for its extensive use of 90's equipment, but if you listen to "Feed Me Weird Things," which includes songs he wrote when he was just 19 years old, you will understand that the early impulses of that time still drive him today, and that he continues to create unconventional works. One of the reasons why "Me Weird Things" shines so brightly in the electronic music scene, where various sub-genres have emerged, and stands out from other good works by other artists of the same era, is that Tom Jenkinson, who was strongly influenced by jazz, has achieved a revolutionary fusion of jazz and electronics, and has been able to create a new style of music that is very different from the one that has come before. One of the reasons it stood apart from the better works of its time was that it was the first work in which Tom Jenkinson, heavily influenced by jazz, achieved an innovative fusion of jazz and electronics, and showcased his superb bass playing. While the intricately composed and sometimes super-fast developing beats were inspiring, the already accomplished bass playing sounded pleasant and appealing, captivating all progressive music fans. Squarepusher is a man who wonders what kind of sound he can make without using the flute as an instrument, using only the holes in the flute. Richard Rodgers and Julie Andrews brought us the Sound of Music, or the sound of music, John Cage and Simon & Garfunkel brought us the sound of silence (in "4:33" and "The Sound of Silence"), and now Square Pusher is bringing us the sound of music that has never been heard before. And now, Square Pusher brings us the "Sound of Sound," or "the sound of sound. - Richard D. Jams Richard D. James (original text on artwork) The track list of "Feed Me Weird Things", one of the most important works for "Rephlex" run by Richard D. James and Grant Wilson Claridge, was supervised by Richard based on the tape given to him by Tom. The artwork also includes the only contribution Richard has ever written for another artist (a bilingual translation is included in the commentary of the domestic CD). After his early EPs and "Feed Me Weird Things" released in 1996, Squarepusher signed with Warp and released "Port Rhombus EP" at the end of the same year, followed by "Vic Acid EP" and "Hard Normal Daddy" in 1997, and has been at the forefront of the label ever since.

After five years spent largely confined to the United States, Ron Trent is set to return to global touring in 2025. To mark the occasion, he’s partnered with Rush Hour to release Lift Off, a brand-new album of music recorded at different points over the last decade.

Arriving almost 35 years since he wowed the world with his game-changing debut, the Afterlife EP, Lift Off was inspired by Trent’s desire to ‘let the imagination speak for itself’ while exploring the diverse influences that have shaped his unique musical perspective. A departure from his previous album, 2022’s downtempo masterpiece as Warm, What Do The Stars Say To You, the 10-track set features a mixture of epic instrumentals, inspired collaborations and vocal cuts whose music was written with certain singers in mind.

While Lift Off features music that ripples with Trent’s familiar aural trademarks –rich rhythms, warm chords, impeccable instrumentation, inspired arrangements, and lashings of heady hand percussion – it sees the long-serving producer explore a variety of sounds and tempos, in the process blurring the lines between dance music’s past, present and future. In his words, it’s a vision of what dance music can become, where nods to new wave, alternative and slow jams sit side by side with up-tempo dancefloor workouts rooted in R&B, jazz-funk, house and sunset-dance.

Presented on two double vinyl albums and a single digital download release, Lift Off contains some of Trent’s most magical and sonically detailed music to date. For proof, check the lilting synth-strings, enveloping chords, samba-soaked percussion, vibrant electronics, elongated organ solos and starry synths sounds of ‘Woman of Color’, the Wally Badarou-inspired ‘Hot Ice’, the alternative Balearic love song ‘And Fly Away’, and the alternative 80s/New Order-influenced ‘Just Another Love Song’, where his own hazy vocals catch the ear.

From the start of the project, Trent wanted to create music with musical collaborators and hand-picked vocalists in mind. Two regular collaborators make an appearance, with fellow Chicagoan (and Jungle Wonz member) Harry Dennis delivering a delightfully poetic spoken word vocal on the incredible ‘Her’ – a subtly Latin-tinged epic that’s amongst Trent’s most picture-perfect concoctions to date – and fellow Rush Hour artist Lars Bartkuhn adding virtuoso jazz guitar solos to the equally inspired ‘Street Wave’.

Perhaps more headline-grabbing is the inclusion of legendary disco-boogie vocalist, producer and arranger Leroy Burgess, who accepted Trent’s invitation to write and perform vocals on an instrumental he’d written with him in mind, ‘Let Me See You Shining’. Combining Trent’s usual spacey synths, rolling grooves and ultra-deep musical sensibilities with nods to his guest singer’s synth-heavy boogie and proto-house works of the early to mid 1980s, the track features a typically expressive and soulful lead vocal from the New York great – a genuine musical meeting of minds that’s worth the admission price on its own.

Effortlessly soulful, atmospheric, musically on-point and bursting with vivid aural colours, it offers a neat summary of the sonic delights littered throughout Lift Off – a killer collection of sophisticated and forward-thinking music for the head, heart and feet.

"Generative sonic backdrop for bus stations. Designed to enhance space and portray a mod of progressiveness, grandeur, and ethereal calm. A slowly shifting static backdrop designed to enhance modern architecture, rather than compete with it. Sounding as if the structure itself was resonanting. Hovering sound-fields that utilizes sonic phenomena proven to induce states of calm. Can be presented as a multichannel, polyrhythmic installation with different components of the composition emanating form different areas within the structure, and elements constantly shifting in relationship to other elements, creating an organic sonic-tapestry that never repeats the same way. In essence, the soundscape becoming a living organism with unpredictable behavior. Inspired by avant-garde bus station designs such as Domitianus Arquitectura's station in Rio Maior, Portugal; Bluck & Morgen's Busbahnhof Poppenbuttel in Hamburg, Germany; and Metaraum Architect's bus station in Pzorzheim, Germany." - Rod Modell

In the 90's, Rafael Toral was considered "one of the most talented and innovative guitarists" and was a favorite of the members of Sonic Youth. In 1998, he released his early masterpiece on Perdition Plastics, an experimental label run by Kurt Griesch of Illusion Of Safety (whose roster includes RLW, Kevin Drumm, MIMEO, His Name Is Alive, etc.), and now it's available for the first time in vinyl on Black Truffle, run by Australian mastermind Oren Ambarchi. Recorded at Noise Precision in Lisbon between December 1997 and April 1998, this is probably their fourth album. It is a masterpiece of drone/ambient with a unique sense of emptiness, built around minimal electronics and feedback loops with a melancholic atmosphere. Remastered by Tral himself, with a new design by Lasse Marhaug. In addition to David Toop's liner notes, which were included on the original CD release, the album also includes new liners by David himself.

Om Unit pairs with Baroque Sunburst co-capo Soreab for 'Pressure 3D', a four-track EP featuring two stellar flips from Al Wootton and Ottomani Parker.

The duo, both known for traversing varying musical landscapes and bold approaches to electronic composition, meet in fruitful common ground, spinning percussive webs and crushing grooves ripe for reinterpretation. Opener "Last Breath" is relentlessly moody and hypnotic, reimagining a dancehall-centric groove with heaving sub-bass pulses, deep into the bass bins for a late-hour pelter. "Tunnel Drift" switches lanes with its distinct tech-stepping 90's throwback style, a forward-thinking take on a nostalgic sound.

Al Wootton steps in to remix A1 into characteristically fresh and inventive dubbed-out house, adding his signature layering of atmospheric textures and a deep and groovy bassline.

A2 is reworked by dub techno-jazz outfit Ottomani Parker (comprised of BSUN’s other co-honcho Big Hands, trumpeter Abraham Parker, sax maestra Izz Karpel and pianist Hayato Takahashi). After a blissful opening, their take sees horns, keys and live hand-drumming ride the driving percussion, an uplifting finale to an EP that packs a punch from start to finish.

ドイツのミュージシャン/作曲家のDaniel Rosenfeldが変名C418にて製作した傑作！物理世界とピクセル化された世界の両方で響くサウンドを描き上げた『マインクラフト』のオリジナルサウンドトラック盤『Minecraft Volume Beta』が〈Ghostly International〉からアナログ・リプレス。前作『Alpha』には未収録の楽曲だけでなく、ゲーム内では使用されたなかった楽曲も収録したC418自身のオリジナル・アルバム的一枚！牧歌的で穏やかなサウンドスケープに仕立てられた前作と比してよりダークで内省的な側面もクローズアップされた魅惑のアンビエント/エレクトロニック・ミュージックが収められています。

Salamanda is the collaborative alias of South Korean producer/DJ duo, and close friends, Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda). Together they create avant-garde electronic music inspired by minimalist concepts, harmonious rhythms and the work of American composer Steve Reich.

Across the eight tracks of Sphere, their debut for Small Méasures, the pair conjure spherical worlds inspired by bubbles, refracting light and planet earth. Soundscapes laden with percussive elements ebb and flow as arpeggiated stanzas cede to misty synths and shimmering plates, conjuring images of solitary temples sat in vast open plateaus.

“For Sphere, we came up with an abstract concept and image to explore more diversity and encourage imagination. Each track is related to different kinds of sphere we found or imagined. From the big round planet embracing every creature to dancing little bubbles underwater, fragments of ideas floating around, exploding tomatoes, and movement of lights flashing and tickling the eyes…

Or the tracks can be about completely different types of spheres in other people's perspective. We hope Sphere can unleash the imagination and take you on a delightful journey of music.’’

'When the Distance is Blue' is Macie Stewart’s International Anthem debut. The Chicago-based multi-instrumentalist, composer, and improviser describes the collection as “a love letter to the moments we spend in-between”—a letter realized via an intentional return to piano, her first instrument and the origin of her creative expression. Here Stewart creates a striking and cinematic work through collages of prepared piano, field recordings, and string quartet compositions, one that gives shape to a transient universe all its own while tracing the line of her musical past, full circle.

Long-heralded in musician circles for her versatility, Stewart stands as a distinguished, go-to collaborator across genre and style, with a collaborative CV that reads like a dream year-end list—performing strings for Makaya McCraven or Japanese Breakfast; singing harmonies with Tweedy; arranging for Alabaster DePlume, Resavoir, Mannequin Pussy, or SZA; co-leading the jagged art-rock experimentation of Finom, her duo with songwriter Sima Cunningham. This varied-yet-distinct sound has led to a name recognition that goes beyond the devoted liner note enthusiast.

“Macie Stewart has had a hand in making some of the best
tracks of the past five years transcendent.” (Pitchfork)

'When the Distance is Blue' finds her gathering those threads and focusing those sensibilities into an 8-piece song cycle. The first sessions were recorded with IARC house engineer Dave Vettraino at Chicago’s Palisade Studios in early 2023. The piano was prepared with coins and contact mics, creating harmonically and texturally rich sounds to explore and improvise alongside.

Those improvisations eventually became nestled within a growing collection of Stewart’s field recordings. 2023 was a year marked with extensive touring, during which she collected dozens of aural snapshots from airports, stairwells, and crowded markets, effectively compiling an audio journal of her travels. Weaving their way throughout the record, those recordings form a collage of sound, movement, and memory.

“I wanted to recontextualize these recordings and evoke a nostalgia for something I wasn’t able to name,” says Stewart. That recontextualization was deepened by further performances and improvisations by Lia Kohl, Whitney Johnson (Matchesse), and Zach Moore, all recorded at Comfort Station in Chicago. It’s fitting for such a fervent collaborator that these collaborations began to bring the musical scope of 'When The Distance is Blue' into focus.

“Spring Becomes You, Spring Becomes New” begins with a series of unmetered and searching prepared piano repetitions before blooming into a rhythmically pulsing waltz of ennui à la Margaret Leng Tan’s approach to the material of Cage or Crumb. Electronically enhanced sustaining notes merge with droning violins in a dense teapot upper register, then are slowly paired away to reveal the inner layer of consonance and comfort, as the metallic rhythms of the prepared piano are co-opted by pizzicato plucked strings. When the sound of the piano re-enters it’s in its natural, unprepared state and in service of a simple melody—a slow-moving earworm, the final repetition, carrying the dynamic piece to its end. “This piece reminds me of a cross country train ride through different sceneries and landscapes,” says Stewart. It’s the feeling when you’re witnessing everything pass outside your window, knowing you may never set foot there.”

What’s more, this conceptual train ride is one that touches on many of the themes throughout the record—traveling through pieces like “Tsukiji”, which consists of field recordings taken during a walk through the crowded Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo, or “Stairwell (Before and After)”, a serendipitous collage of piano improvisations overlaid with vocal improvisations recorded in a beautifully reverberant stairwell in Paris, France.

In the album’s final piece, “Disintegration,” Stewart’s through-composed quartet arrangement bends and contorts in a microtonal descent. Raw harmonics scrape and pull, whistling flute-like across desolate valleys, as strings spiral into an unknown beyond. From this stripped, warped place, we face the inevitability of transformation, and embrace the possibilities of change.

'When The Distance is Blue' is a companion piece for moving through life. A source of solace when we are unsure where we will land. The album draws its title from Rebecca Solnit’s book of essays, 'A Field Guide to Getting Lost'. Stewart, too, contends with the longing for all that lies out of reach, and gives shape to that longing throughout this contemplative collection with a musical lexicon which lands somewhere between Alvin Curran’s 'Songs and Views from the Magnetic Garden' and Claire Rousay’s 'A Softer Focus'. 

California-based keyboardist and composer Nico Georis, known for his ambient works created with biofeedback devices and intended “for plants,” returns with a luminous new album via Leaving Records, the spiritual heart of the West Coast’s independent scene. Delving deep into celestial realms of modern classical and new age, this album radiates with grace and compassion. Gently resonant piano tones, softly undulating synth layers, and reverberations that dissolve into space—each sound arrives as a prayer, a blessing, or the ripple of a memory devoted to someone unseen. A profound sense of calm and care pervades throughout, as if tending to the quiet growth of plants or listening closely to the cosmic order itself. A radiant and healing work of meditative beauty.