MUSIC

boycalledcrow is the alias of Chester-based sound artist Carl M Knott (Wonderful Beasts, Spacelab). Knott, a former folk musician, uses his myriad acoustic influences to create unique, strange and beautiful compositions. We're excited to be able to bring you the latest wonderful album from Chester's boycalledcrow, after some superb releases for labels such as Mortality Tables, Waxing Crescent Records and Subexotic Records. Knott's music doesn't sit easily in any pre-existing genres, being at once strange and experimental, yet melodic and somehow comforting. His music is intimate and evocative, deeply personal, and manages to be both bucolic and yet totally 21st century, like Kraftwerk's robots dreaming of sheep. The songs and sounds on “eyetrees” are inspired by a rich family life and the wonderful times spent with his wife and kids, both at home and out in nature. Knott said of the album and its inspirations: “We enjoy spending time in the woods with our young children, creating stories about the "eye tree”. This tree, with thousands of eyes, watches over us and cares for us like family. We make fox medicine and cherish these blissful moments. The music reflects these times, seen through the colors of an old, fuzzy reel—orange, red, and yellow with blurred edges, like an old photo scorched by the sun. I feel a deep spiritual connection to the countryside; the hands of Arcadia cradle me when I feel sad. Some of the album was created during times of sadness when I felt death was close and the lines between worlds were blurred. This feeling—that anything can happen and that life is delicate and can be taken away in a flash—permeates the music. The song titles are stories and memories of my family, filled with hazy pinks, yellows, reds, and oranges. Wonky acoustic guitar, broken electronics, and a warm, otherworldly space."

In 2007 an Italian film festival invites Mouse on Mars to score a film of their choice. The organizers claim to be able to clear the rights for any movie the band chooses. Werner Herzog’s fictional documentary Fata Morgana, which merges footage of several desert explorations by Herzog and his team into one continuous association, has long been a band’s favorite. The film comes with a soundtrack by Mozart, Leonard Cohen, Third Ear Band and field recordings. Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner are sent a DVD to Düsseldorf and start working. The idea is to score the film in real time so instrumentation has to be readily at hand: guitar, percussion, electronics, mouth harp, pedals, software, tapes, samplers. Once the arrangement for the three-part film is sorted Mouse on Mars bring their score to stage. Herzog Sessions is performed twice: first when the band still thought the rights had been cleared, and a second time at London’s Southbank Center knowing that Herzog had never approved a new score.

Portico Quartet announce Monument, the electronic driven follow-up to their acclaimed ambient-minimalist suite Terrain, presenting the band at their most direct. It's rare that a band releases two albums within six months of each other, rarer too that while both are so different, they are both as epochal in terms of the band's output as Terrain and Monument are to Portico Quartet. The irony is that Monument, a stripped-back, intentionally direct album, was the album that the band set out to write in May 2020, before the dream like long-form Terrain came into focus. Briefly they were two halves of the same record, but the band ended up developing these two distinct bodies of work concurrently. And although they were written side-by-side and recorded at the same sessions, they are records best understood as distinct from each other, each with opposing ideas and forms. Monument is one of Portico Quartet's most accessible, direct records to date. If Terrain addressed the darker side of how Duncan Bellamy and Jack Wyllie made sense of the pandemic, then Monument resonates as an ode to better times. If not quite a dance record, it nonetheless pulses with an energy, radiance and a scalpel sharp focus. Jack Wyllie explains: "It's possibly our most direct album to date. It's melodic, structured and there's an economy to it that is very efficient. There's not much searching or wastage within the music itself, it is all finalised ideas, precisely sculpted and presented as a polished artefact." Bellamy expands "Monument sits somewhere between our albums Portico Quartet and Art in the Age of Automation. It has perhaps a more overtly electronic edge to its sound – there are more synthesisers and electronic elements than we have used before and the music is often streamlined and rhythmic". After the ethereal, stage-setting of Opening, the album kicks into overdrive with Impressions, a short energetic track that pairs a club influenced groove with hang drum and close, delicate saxophone. It's the balance between these elements that push and pull the track through a selection of melodic and rhythmic re-configurations, contrasting human touch with a machine-like focus. Ultraviolet is a kaleidoscopic, krautrock inspired track with a haunting introduction and an insistent pulse. The wistful Ever Present builds from a simple piano refrain; a nostalgic melody line floats over the top as drums and bass groove insistently underneath, before reaching a euphoric peak. The title track Monument builds around a looping vocal sample, drums and an enigmatic melody, the ending giving way to a gauzy, weaving synth line. The power here is in its economy and luminosity. AOE flips back and forth, like a dial that's been switched. Mining the tension between a pastoral inflected cello and saxophone melody, with an abrupt shift to jilted live drums, wailing delayed saxophone and a flickering synth line. Warm Data comes straight from the same Portico Quartet tradition as older tracks like Current History and Laker-Boo. It's a marriage of instrumental minimalism with drum machines and synths. Finally, the album closes with On The Light, a track that transmits a sense of suspense and freedom, driven by the twitching drums of Bellamy and evocative sax of Wyllie. It offers the perfect bitter-sweet and evocative ending to Portico Quartet's latest Monument. Mastered by John Davis at Metropolis. Artwork by Duncan Bellamy for Veils Project.

“Portico Quartet stake claims to territory occupied by Radiohead, Cinematic Orchestra and Efterklang”. The Guardian ***** Mercury Prize-nominated Portico Quartet has always been an impossible band to pin down. Sending out echoes of jazz, electronica, ambient music and minimalism, the group created their own singular, cinematic sound over the course of three studio albums, from their 2007 breakthrough ‘Knee-Deep in the North Sea’, and 2010 John Leckie produced ‘Isla’, to the self titled record ‘Portico Quartet’ in 2012. Now rebooted as Portico Quartet after a brief spell as the three-piece Portico, the group are set to release their fourth studio album Art In The Age Of Automation this August on Manchester’s forward thinking indy jazz and electronica label Gondwana Records. It’s an eagerly anticipated return, with the band teasing both a return to their mesmeric signature sound and fresh new sonic departures in their new music. So much so that their four-night run at Archspace E8 (June 22-25) sold out in less than an hour as fans from around the world scrambled for tickets to hear the return of Portico Quartet. Recorded at Fish Factory Studios in London at the beginning of the year and mixed at Vox studios, Berlin, Art In The Age Of Automation finds the band building on the sound world they first explored with their eponymous 2012 release Portico Quartet, mixing the cinematic minimalism, that first made their name, with electronic and ambient textures alongside a welcome return for Jack’s ethereal saxophone and Duncan’s unique mixture of live and electronic drums as well of course as the band’s signature sound, the chiming other worldy tones of the hang drum. It’s hard music to define, as Jack acknowledges. “Our sound falls between many genres, jazz, electronic music even minimalism in places, but naturally it’s an amalgamation of everything we’ve listened to”. And as you would expect from a band that have evolved with each recording, this is no barren retread of the past, instead it represents another step forward sonically and musically in the band’s ongoing evolution, as Jack explains. “We’ve really gone into detail with the sounds and production, building dense layers and textures but retaining a live, organic feel to it. We wanted to use acoustic instruments but find ways in which they could interact with more modern production techniques and technologies to create something that was identifiably us but sounded fresh and exciting, futuristic even.” Its an ethos that also informs the album’s title and the distinctive artwork by Duncan Bellamy (under his Veils Project identity) that adorns the album’s cover “The artwork came about when I started to explore the idea of scanning moving images. The resulting image is exactly that - a film playing on a tablet whilst the scan is in action. So the image is something created by the scanner itself, and in this way it establishes a relationship with the title of the album”. And it’s the mix between the human and the electronic that makes the music on AITAOA so fresh and exciting as Portico Quartet one again evolve their music into the future. The album opens with insistent, catchy Endless, which references the classic Portico Quartet sound, but expands outwards into a hypnotic, blissful collage of strings, hangs, electronics, saxophones and Bellamy’s unique drumming. It’s a sound that permeates the whole record, feeling both familiarly Portico Quartet, but transformed into something bold and new, sounding somehow bigger than ever but even more detailed. Elsewhere Rushing draws on the bands love of minimalist music, a repeated piano motif merges with a contorted vocal sample that twists its way through juxtaposed spaces to reach an uplifting resolve. Meanwhile the title track offers a moment of down-tempo respite: the hang drum is joined by a full horns and string section, culminating in a orchestral outro where cellos and violins blend with saxophones and hang drum to form a densely layered blanket of sound. The sound of strings are prevalent on much of the record, and as Jack explains they add an extra layer of humanity to the music “It’s exciting working with a string section and to hear the ideas you sketch on a computer being played on acoustic instruments, then being able to direct them in a way in which is just not possible on a computer, it brings a real emotional depth and nuance to the record”. On A Luminous Beam an infectious drum grove drives the piece while synths, flutes and strings are layered with the saxophone floating freely over the top. Beyond Dialogue is classic Portico Quartet, exploiting the ethereal, otherworldly timbre of the hang drums and Jack’s saxophone to create a hypnotic track that references minimalism and ambient music to create something beautiful and new. Current History has nods towards more electronic and urban music as drum machines underpin a collage of hang drums and saxophones. The album finishes on the aptly tilted Lines Glow, the saxophone weaving its melody over an organ and string section culminating in an epic, euphoric moment of release. It’s a fittingly uplifting way to end an album that announces the return of one of the UK’s most singular, and influential bands, one that a decade from their founding are still pushing the boundaries of their music into the future and still sound like nothing you ever heard before.

ドラマーのTom Sunneyとキーボード奏者のFilip Sowaからなる西ロンドンのデュオ、Kessoncodaによる最新アルバム『Outerstate』が英国の現代ジャズの聖地〈Gondwana Records〉からアナログ・リリース。ロックやエレクトロニカ、アンビエント、ブレイクビーツ、映画のサウンドトラック、Squarepusher、Radiohead、Clarkといった様々なインスピレーションを軸としつつ、アコースティックの伝統とエレクトロニカの間に佇む彼らのサウンドは、メロディアスなオスティナートが織り込まれたピアノと揺るぎないドラムのブレンドに基づいた、心地よく、新しいヴィジョンを示すものとなっています。

Faitiche presents Beispiel (German for example, also suggests playing together), a joint project by Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek. Muster is their first album. Free electronic music, the result of spontaneous improvisations. “Meaning” is a concept that is overused in connection with music. Muster does not call for the same kind of air quotes. With its title, German for patterns/exemplars, Beispiel’s album frees itself from the ballast of teleological semantics. There is no overarching theme, no preparation, no reading list, no reason for this music. Just two facts: Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek have known each other a long time and appreciate each other’s work; and they share a love of modular synthesizers and of experimental set-ups designed to capture surprise. Bretschneider and Jelinek got together for their first joint session in 2016 and the years that followed brought more such meetings at Jelinek’s studio for open-ended musical dialog – at irregular intervals and with no clear objective. The improvisations were recorded in two stereo tracks: one track for Bretschneider’s audio, one for Jelinek’s. After each session, the recordings were processed separately, the options essentially limited to cutting and altering the frequency range. The nine pieces for Muster were selected from the resulting material. This approach reflects an ideal: music is when you play your first note without knowing what the third or fourth will sound like. When your 290th note still sees you leaving the beaten track, and when curiosity grows as the piece unfolds. Duping is part of Beispiel’s practice. Improvisation is about disagreement. It’s a matter of addressing the right issues. What’s happening here? What’s mine, what’s yours? Are “why” and “where next” legitimate questions? Muster is an exemplary work. Nine suggestions for what can be. Nine ideas for possibilities of listening. Arno Raffeiner

'Imerro' is a collection of song odes to both heat and desire, closely felt. Its title literally presented itself to Diab from a random page contained in a poem by Ezra Pound found in the book ‘The Imagist Poem’. Searching for its meaning, Diab discovered that Imerro is “a Greek word for ‘desire for, I desire you’, yet nothing could substantiate its truth. “It made sense, almost like it had chosen me. An obscure word for Desire, one that might not even exist, or is so ancient that nobody really remembers it meaning anything. It's just a sound, like an album.” Imerro finds Caton at his most expressive and free-spirited. Inviting the music to find him, almost by osmosis, foregoing any preconceptions of playing any instrument he is unfamiliar with or regrets not learning during adolescence. This is music for wide screens: the result is an undeniably evocative, moving and mysterious voyage. Imerro was recorded in late July and August of 2021 at Risque Disque Studio in Cedar, BC, during the summer’s unprecedented second “heat dome”, which saw temperatures soaring to over 40 degrees. Recorded with regular collaborator and engineer Jonathan Paul Stewart, the pair journeyed by boat to the studio to a place with minimal distraction with a plan of “simple ecstatic improvisation.” Diab explains: “I wanted to place myself in a space for creation with little thematic pretence, with the belief that music ‘shows its face’ as you move along. I would pick up an instrument, whether I had experience playing it or not, and make a sound. If it wanted to be played, it would play.” ‘Ourselves At Least’, the rhythmic album opener gracefully leaps and bounds with a human-like metronome at its core, capturing a rush of elatedness felt by Diab over the course of its late night creation. ‘Lunar Barge’ bursts into life with tone-bending bow strikes that glide across Diab’s guitar towards a climatic peak before the track drops into an electronic/acoustic trance. Inspired in part by the rhythmical works of Huun-Huur-Tu and the animated cello play remindful of Arthur Russell. “Lunar Barge is a track for a dry, hot night in the forest (which it quite literally was.). I roamed around the floors of the studio picking up any instrument standing out in the moment, and tried to see if it had anything to say.” ‘The Excuse of Fiction’ sees Diab return to free-flowing guitar play, the chosen instrument of his youth. He loops layers to form an ethereal backbone before plucking further melodies from the air on top. The result is a cinematic guitar-laden expanse brimming with optimism and nostalgia. The title references a quote by Zizek: “We need the excuse of a fiction to stage what we really are.” Themes of remembrance, yearning and desire pervade the album's 9-tracks with a palpable presence as we reach ‘Quatsino Sound’, named after an inlet on Northern Vancouver Island where Diab grew up. It features hoopoe birdcalls which were sampled from a found cassette tape of African sounds before being randomized until it became rhythmic, then embellished with synth lines, bass drops, and bowed layovers. The album centres around the nocturnal ‘Crypsis’ with Diab sleepily playing notes on a switched-off Wurlitzer before dampened piano chords, bow scrapes, and noisy glitches reverberate. ‘Erratum’ erupts with untamed force from a war cry of screaming saxophone layers reminiscent of Colin Stetson. Its visceral thirst and energy seem to be a response to the heat of the night and Diab’s urge to play the instrument he loved but had yet learnt. ‘Tiny Umbrellas’, an improvised pass of banjo, bowed guitar and ethereal modular synths breathes a contemplative pause before ‘Surge Savard’ chimes in. This whirlwind closer started life as a longform jam under the influence of psychedelics; its modular synth, air organ, guitar and sax lines were initially improvised with final touches made at Watch Yer Head studio.

Keplar presents the first-ever vinyl edition of the 2003 album »From Tokyo to Naiagara« by Tujiko Noriko. This reissue with new artwork by Joji Koyama is an abridged version of the album as Tomlab label owner Tom Steinle and producer Aki Onda had originally intended to publish it alongside the original CD version. Written by the France-based Tujiko while she still lived in Japan, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« followed up on her two seminal Mego albums and marked a turning point in both the artist’s career and personal life: While she was preparing to leave Japan behind, she succinctly connected the dots between her experiments in pop music and her interest for more abstract sounds. Tujiko worked primarily with a Yamaha synthesizer and an MPC sampler while also incorporating contributions by other musicians such as Onda, Riow Arai and Sakana Hosomi into the pieces. Sometimes approaching an IDM and clicks’n’cuts-style production or working with trip-hop and hip-hop beats while using conventional song structures in the most unconventional of ways, the album showcases her multifaceted influences and skills as a singer and musician to full effect. Tujiko fondly remembers the time when she made the album. »I had a lot of time for myself back then and I didn’t even feel like I was very busy,« she says today. She describes producing it in close collaboration with Onda, who would relocate to New York City shortly after, as »quite Tokyo and very local.« They explored parts of the city that they hadn’t yet been to for a photography project (finding, among other things, a coin laundry called Naiagara—a transliteration of Niagara). This left its mark on a record that mixes melancholia with joy. The driving opener »Narita Made,« named after one of Tokyo’s airports, already makes this clear: Tujiko’s wistful vocals and lyrics like »I miss you terribly« emphasises the sense of bittersweetness that forms the common thread for a sonically diverse and stylistically open-ended album—this music is looking back while moving forward. It is probably no surprise that its reissue too evokes tender memories of Onda and Steinle in Tujiko, while also reminding her of what lies ahead. »I have so much more to do and not enough time for that,« she muses, before quickly adding: »But I also feel less alone having that album again.« Influenced in equal parts by the experience of strolling through previously unknown Tokyoite back alleys and thinking about the paths not (yet) taken, »From Tokyo to Naiagara« is precisely that: the perfect travel companion for a journey that leads its listeners from past to future.

Dettinger’s Intershop and Oasis have long been held, by many fans of ambient and electronic music, to be some of the finest albums in their field. Produced by the mysterious Olaf Dettinger, about whom not much is publicly known, they were some of the earliest full-lengths released by the then-nascent Kompakt, and in many ways, they both articulated and defined the sound that would come to be known as Pop Ambient, while also existing, somehow, to the leftfield of any clearly recognisable genre. Beautiful, sui generis works, it is a rare pleasure to see them being reissued on vinyl for a new generation of listeners to embrace. Originally released on CD only in 1999, Intershop was Kompakt’s first artist full-length. The music here simmers and broods, with opulent banks of tone marking out territory for rhythms that seem to be built from the clacking detritus of technology – hisses, thunks, knocks. Bass is deployed carefully, each drop a dubbed-out depth charge; drones spin and spiral, warping and weaving between the beats. Oasis, released in 2000, refined the palette that Dettinger had explored on its predecessor. A blurred crusade of ambient texturology, its unassuming patterns, and subtle, incremental dynamics, admit to real beauty, and a kind of abstract sensuality that you don’t often experience with music that is, perhaps, similarly tooled, but not as poetic. Through seemingly simple gestures – whether lushly expansive repetitions, hyper-acute tremolo tones, or ear-tickling rhythms – it builds complex emotional resonance. It’s no surprise to discover Oasis is held in high esteem by artists like Panda Bear of Animal Collective, who once said of Dettinger, “For us, he was the dude.” There is, of course, other music to know Dettinger by, too – his three excellent EPs for Kompakt, Blond (1998), Puma and Totentanz (1999), the latter of which, Michael Mayer once argued, “invented dubstep.” There is also a small, yet graceful run of compilation contributions, many of which can be found on Kompakt’s Total and Pop Ambient series. All this music has plenty to recommend it, sharing a clarity of purpose, and a rare, human warmth and depth. But Intershop and Oasis are the releases that distil Dettinger’s singular vision, and allow him, should he wish, to claim his place as a modern master of ambient and electronic music.

It Could Have Been A Beautiful by Aiko Takahashi In Wishlist view supported by Evangelos Evangelinos thumbnail joshua pearson thumbnail weichezaeune thumbnail 直之 関 thumbnail julien thumbnail Günther W. Albrecht thumbnail taphead thumbnail J. Di Fraya thumbnail Stephen Lee thumbnail hippiejohnny80 thumbnail wonung thumbnail J Glenn Taylor thumbnail Grumpy Bob thumbnail Mark Robinson thumbnail Jeffrey Capshew thumbnail sleight1217 thumbnail mahaprana thumbnail nate scheible thumbnail konejomusic thumbnail Stefan Nieuwenhuis thumbnail Scott Moore thumbnail nick0137 thumbnail Carly thumbnail Peter Duimelinks thumbnail Joe Rice thumbnail joalla thumbnail N.Shibata thumbnail 𓂀_The_Bandcamper_Whose_Name_Is_A_Symbol thumbnail Samuel McKahey thumbnail Paul King thumbnail kgkgkg thumbnail Burton Thomas thumbnail Mike Jedlicka thumbnail CaptainShwah thumbnail Dominik Böhmer thumbnail Katsuhiko Nojiri thumbnail Andy Maurer thumbnail telegrau thumbnail TheSlowMusicMovement thumbnail benoit richard thumbnail peppe trotta thumbnail Seb Chan thumbnail Headphone Commute thumbnail Sasha Frere-Jones thumbnail Juniperus Kaizuka thumbnail E-Lodie thumbnail Alex Ruder / Hush Hush Records thumbnail francis beaubois thumbnail toneshift thumbnail answer-beat thumbnail Tatti Persson thumbnail Joshua Minsoo Kim thumbnail Peter van Cooten thumbnail vouvounix thumbnail boates thumbnail wolfsdorf thumbnail luceman thumbnail Normando thumbnail spongewhale thumbnail Tim Newman thumbnail nzmn10293 thumbnail richmann thumbnail dan ichinose thumbnail scbl thumbnail t.amano thumbnail essentialyes thumbnail guillermoescudero thumbnail dbp thumbnail It Could Have Been A Beautiful Evening 00:00 / 06:31 Streaming + Download Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. €7 EUR or more Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Glass Mastered CD • Selective UV varnish • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 200 copies, first and only edition (no re-press) ---------------------------------------- Includes unlimited streaming of It Could Have Been A Beautiful via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ships out within 3 days edition of 200 €12 EUR or more Record/Vinyl + Digital Album package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Cutting lacquer • 12’’ yellow transparent vinyl • Selective UV varnish • Matt laminated outer sleeve on 300 gm paper, black inner with empty hole • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 300 copies, first and only edition (no re-press) ---------------------------------------- Includes unlimited streaming of It Could Have Been A Beautiful via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ships out within 3 days edition of 300 €21 EUR or more Book/Magazine + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD INCLUDED ---------------------------------------- MORE PHOTOS/INFOS: www.iikki-books.com/iikki-022-it-could-have-been... more ships out within 3 days edition of 500 €48 EUR or more Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- • Glass Mastered CD • Selective UV varnish • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 200 copies, first and only edition... more ships out within 3 days edition of 200 €60 EUR or more Record/Vinyl + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- • Cutting lacquer • 12’’ yellow transparent vinyl • Selective UV varnish • Matt laminated outer sleeve on 300 gm paper, black... more ships out within 3 days edition of 300 €69 EUR or more Full Digital Discography 22 releases Get all 22 IIKKI releases available on Bandcamp and save 60%. Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of It Could Have Been A Beautiful, Kurayami, Shadow's Praise, Our Recently Acquired Knowledge, Rustine, Queen Of Nowhere, In Vivo, Même Soleil, and 14 more. €61.60 EUR or more (60% OFF) 1. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Afternoon 16:30 2. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Evening 06:31 3. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Night 14:58 4. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Morning 19:46 about ___________________________________________________ • more INFOS/PHOTOS : www.iikki-books.com/iikki-022-it-could-have-been-a-beautiful • NOTE: track: "03 - It Could Have Been A Beautiful Night" is available only for the CD/Digital version. ___________________________________________________ "It Could Have Been A Beautiful" is the result of the dialogue between Aiko Takahashi (music) and the French photographer Edouard Elias initiated by IIKKI, between September 2022 and September 2023. the complete project works in two physical imprints: a book and a disc (vinyl/cd) it should be experienced in different ways : the book read alone the disc listened to alone the book and the disc read and listened to together.

It Could Have Been A Beautiful by Aiko Takahashi In Wishlist view supported by Evangelos Evangelinos thumbnail joshua pearson thumbnail weichezaeune thumbnail 直之 関 thumbnail julien thumbnail Günther W. Albrecht thumbnail taphead thumbnail J. Di Fraya thumbnail Stephen Lee thumbnail hippiejohnny80 thumbnail wonung thumbnail J Glenn Taylor thumbnail Grumpy Bob thumbnail Mark Robinson thumbnail Jeffrey Capshew thumbnail sleight1217 thumbnail mahaprana thumbnail nate scheible thumbnail konejomusic thumbnail Stefan Nieuwenhuis thumbnail Scott Moore thumbnail nick0137 thumbnail Carly thumbnail Peter Duimelinks thumbnail Joe Rice thumbnail joalla thumbnail N.Shibata thumbnail 𓂀_The_Bandcamper_Whose_Name_Is_A_Symbol thumbnail Samuel McKahey thumbnail Paul King thumbnail kgkgkg thumbnail Burton Thomas thumbnail Mike Jedlicka thumbnail CaptainShwah thumbnail Dominik Böhmer thumbnail Katsuhiko Nojiri thumbnail Andy Maurer thumbnail telegrau thumbnail TheSlowMusicMovement thumbnail benoit richard thumbnail peppe trotta thumbnail Seb Chan thumbnail Headphone Commute thumbnail Sasha Frere-Jones thumbnail Juniperus Kaizuka thumbnail E-Lodie thumbnail Alex Ruder / Hush Hush Records thumbnail francis beaubois thumbnail toneshift thumbnail answer-beat thumbnail Tatti Persson thumbnail Joshua Minsoo Kim thumbnail Peter van Cooten thumbnail vouvounix thumbnail boates thumbnail wolfsdorf thumbnail luceman thumbnail Normando thumbnail spongewhale thumbnail Tim Newman thumbnail nzmn10293 thumbnail richmann thumbnail dan ichinose thumbnail scbl thumbnail t.amano thumbnail essentialyes thumbnail guillermoescudero thumbnail dbp thumbnail It Could Have Been A Beautiful Evening 00:00 / 06:31 Streaming + Download Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. €7 EUR or more Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Glass Mastered CD • Selective UV varnish • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 200 copies, first and only edition (no re-press) ---------------------------------------- Includes unlimited streaming of It Could Have Been A Beautiful via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ships out within 3 days edition of 200 €12 EUR or more Record/Vinyl + Digital Album package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Cutting lacquer • 12’’ yellow transparent vinyl • Selective UV varnish • Matt laminated outer sleeve on 300 gm paper, black inner with empty hole • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 300 copies, first and only edition (no re-press) ---------------------------------------- Includes unlimited streaming of It Could Have Been A Beautiful via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more. ships out within 3 days edition of 300 €21 EUR or more Book/Magazine + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- - DIGITAL DOWNLOAD INCLUDED ---------------------------------------- MORE PHOTOS/INFOS: www.iikki-books.com/iikki-022-it-could-have-been... more ships out within 3 days edition of 500 €48 EUR or more Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- • Glass Mastered CD • Selective UV varnish • Hand numbered / Limited edition to 200 copies, first and only edition... more ships out within 3 days edition of 200 €60 EUR or more Record/Vinyl + Digital Album package image package image package image package image package image ---------------------------------------- • Hardcover book, 96 pages, 24 cm x 24 cm, 68 photos • Limited edition to 500 copies, first and only edition (no re-print) • Printed on Munken Print White 115g/m2 • Logo, slot and circle embossed • Selective UV varnish • Hand-numbered, hand-stamped ---------------------------------------- • Cutting lacquer • 12’’ yellow transparent vinyl • Selective UV varnish • Matt laminated outer sleeve on 300 gm paper, black... more ships out within 3 days edition of 300 €69 EUR or more Full Digital Discography 22 releases Get all 22 IIKKI releases available on Bandcamp and save 60%. Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of It Could Have Been A Beautiful, Kurayami, Shadow's Praise, Our Recently Acquired Knowledge, Rustine, Queen Of Nowhere, In Vivo, Même Soleil, and 14 more. €61.60 EUR or more (60% OFF) 1. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Afternoon 16:30 2. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Evening 06:31 3. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Night 14:58 4. It Could Have Been A Beautiful Morning 19:46 about ___________________________________________________ • more INFOS/PHOTOS : www.iikki-books.com/iikki-022-it-could-have-been-a-beautiful • NOTE: track: "03 - It Could Have Been A Beautiful Night" is available only for the CD/Digital version. ___________________________________________________ "It Could Have Been A Beautiful" is the result of the dialogue between Aiko Takahashi (music) and the French photographer Edouard Elias initiated by IIKKI, between September 2022 and September 2023. the complete project works in two physical imprints: a book and a disc (vinyl/cd) it should be experienced in different ways : the book read alone the disc listened to alone the book and the disc read and listened to together.

The collaborative project of Northern Electronics' founders, Anthony Linell and Jonas Rönnberg, has never ceased to confront with their coupling of industrious delirium and pensive austerity. By now we know that only adrenaline can make sense of the toxic ensemble of purposes at the heart of Ulwhednar. Meditating on higher flights of thrill and disorder than their previous record, and with an acknowledgement of their Stockholm roots, 'Area 08' induces fever and anticipation with every gesture. The opening tracks make a raucous yet resolute introduction to proceedings, eventually issuing one of the album's most exquisite moments of reprieve with 'Akalla/Broken Swords'. However, it is the second half of 'Area 08' that formally admits their latest work has crossed a threshold yet unexplored by the pair. A suite of villainously propulsive tracks spit embers of caustic balms as they careen out of reach with the engorged march of 'Commuter Madness'. Cunning in as many ways as it is earnest and audacious, 'Area 08' is a welcome alarm from the nucleus of the mission.

Operating in the farthest margins of L.A.'s cutthroat music business from 1961-1991, Mel Alexander's Consolidated Productions was among the longest running Black-owned independent record conglomerates of the 20th century. Caught up in a confusing web of imprints—including Ajax, Angel Town, Car-A-Mel, Emanuel, and Kris-this first volume gathers 28 smoldering R&B cuts by the likes of Lee Harvey, B.B. Carter, Marilyn Calloway, Del Reys, Deb Tones, De Velles, Gene Russell's Trio, Jimmy "Preacher" Ellis, and Ty Karim. Remastered from the original 1/4" tapes, Consolidated Productions Vol. I includes carefully researched annotation, discography, and photographs from a vital producer.

WRWTFWW Records is so happy to announce Shower, the brand-new album by New York born, Los Angeles based ambient / jazz / downtempo musician Danny Scott Lane, following the recently released and very well-received cozy soundscape, Home Decor. The limited edition LP (500 copies worldwide) is available on biovinyl housed in a heavy 350gsm sleeve featuring an illustration by Gabrielle Rul and design by Jazlyn Fung. The album is also available digitally. Continuing to gently push (caress?) the boundaries of chill out music, smooth jazz, and comfy electronica, Shower draws inspiration from “the feeling of a steamy shower shared with a stranger after a night on the dance floor”, a warm immersive affair for the mind and the body. This latest funky auditory experience once again invites Matt Elliot Gooden’s soothing saxophone, and this time also welcomes the vibrant beats of drummer David Ruiz. Organic, discreet in the most relaxing and elegant ways, and just the right amount of sexy – Lane’s new creation offers the finest in audio cocooning. As you tilt your head back and close your eyes, let the hot and dripping sounds of Shower transport you to a world of sonic serenity. Feel the rich textures and appeasing harmonies wash over you, enveloping your senses in pure musical bliss. Shower is the first new release by WRWTFWW Records made with biovinyl, a sustainable alternative to traditional vinyl. Biovinyl replaces petroleum in S-PVC by recycling used cooking oil or industrial waste gases, resulting in 100% CO₂ savings in bio-based S-PVC production. Furthermore, it is 100% recyclable and reusable, embracing the circular economy ideology.

Uncle Reed In The Purple Mine is the debut record by a new duo, Amkarahoi. Uncle Reed In The Purple Mine conjures ghosts of 90s chill out tents, aqueous ambient, exploratory turn of the century IDM and echoes of jammy dub. Amkarahoi is named for a remote region of Eastern Siberia an intimidating car and boat journey from the nearest city - several songs are named after rivers - and the record was borne from a largely improvised show in Saint Petersburg, later overdubbed and mixed down in the studio. The combination of heady, melancholic synthscapes, unexpected samples and the loose, spontaneous nature of it’s genesis make for a unique, compelling proposition. Kirenga alternately swells and submerges ravey pads and shifting kicks, coming up midway for air before plunging again, and Cutima peppers the stereo field with foreboding stabs, collapsing drums and faintly nightmarish ambience before emerging from the darkness with gently plucked erhu. Handa’s simple four note piano loop and cuckoo vocal sample lament blooms into an engulfing E rush, before Mogoul threatens serotonin syndrome with it’s loved up lead and stuttering morning after nostalgia. Chininga ekes out a gentle groove over which is laid a hazy, head nodding shimmer, and on Djegda they finally submit and throw down a speedy breakbeat for some more classically vintage fire twirling shapes. Amkarahoi is Nikita Chepurnoi and Sergey Dmitriev. Chepurnoi has released records as Minereed on his own Echotourist imprint, and as part of The Patience and Copacabana on Hair Del. Dmitriev has made music as Purple Uncle for Echotourist, Hair Del and Nazlo. They’re currently based in Armenia (Dmitriev) and Europe (Chepurnoi). RIYL - Vladislav Delay, The Orb, GAS, Global Communication, Biosphere, Seefeel.

Originally conceived as a tour only exclusive, Bright Sparkling Light was recorded alongside, 2023's expansive beguiling long-player An Ever Changing View and draws on the same trademark blend of jazz, electronica, global and spiritual jazz influences. The original pressing sold-out on Matthew’s EU and UK tour last October and November and so many people got in touch with us here at Gondwana asking how they could get a copy that we decided to make a further 2000 copies available. The title track is a hypnotic meditation built on one of the lushest loops Halsall has ever created and featuring stellar work from Halsall and flautist Matt Cliffe. Newborough Forest is a brisk, uplifting composition celebrating one of Halsall’s favourite landscapes and the wonderous Tide and the Moon paints a sonic picture of late-night waters and deep mindfulness and features some of Matt Cliffe’s most beautiful tenor playing. Like An Ever Changing View, Bright Sparkling Light comes in a package as striking as the music, with handmade fonts designed by Ian Anderson and a beautifully realised embossed artwork that offers a perfect compliment to the LP. Strictly limited and featuring a download code, Bright Sparkling Light will not be re-pressed.

Brooklyn-based DJ and producer Ben Bondy follows releases on Good Morning Tapes, West Mineral, 3XL and Quiet Time Tapes with Por, the second release from his k2dj alias. It arrives on Montreal label NAFF with six tracks of pristine, crystalline electronica with the notable presence of processed vocals which create a sort of metallic, shimmering futuristic alien pop music.

Downtempo, Experimental, IDM … Knopha steps out on Mood Hut Records with ‘Kwong’. Ranging in tone from downtempo drum and bass to Herbert-like cut up house tunes, from esoteric pop to digital abstractions.

Mix Mup & Kassem Mosse mark a decade since their rudely offbeat debut with a 19-track, 1hr+ payload of woodcut drums and groggy samples tessellated in beatdown mode for fans of Theo Parrish, STL, Actress Back in 2012, MM/KM’s s/t maiden voyage was a staple round our ways, beloved for its odd bag of skewed grooves. After leaving us with only a 3-track EP ‘Have You Seen Them’ in the interim, the German duo return with ‘Ich sehe Vasen’, or ‘I See Vases’, making up for the big pause in duo production with a heavy satisfying session of loping, peg-legged rhythms, off-the-cuff keyboard lines and hiccuping ambient wobbles that feel right back at home amid the screwballs on TTT. The expanded run time of ‘Ich sehe Vasan’ allows for a far mazier and demonstration of their intuitive, lo-fi style, peppered with numerous beatless nuts and bolts that join the up the club workouts like a game of snakes and ladders on K. Roll the dice and expect to encounter the haziest, Theo Parrish-like Detroit house one minute, then trip down wormholes of lush ambient, or whirling percussive derives the next, popping out along the line at wheezing Actress-like grog, all primed for slinging on at the afters to regular calls of “what the fuck is playing, man?” until the sun goes down again.

What have we here? 16 pieces of hard-to-classify music, created during the period 1994-2008, a cornucopia of playful, intelligent, questing and eminently listenable electronic music from Osaka-born artist Hyu, who released two albums on Nobukazu Takemura’s Childisc label, in 1999 and 2002. Although a member of the turn-of-the-century generation of artists subsumed under the rather vague term “electronica”, his work stands apart in many ways, particularly in his unique exploration of microtonality, his ability to humanize music technology, and his distinctive trait of combining a light touch and sense of fun with conceptual rigor. This collection is an intriguing mix of previously unreleased tracks and re-edited versions of previously released pieces. There is a wide range of music here, many of the pieces truly unique: wiggy and wiggly robo-pop, fractured funk, swinging sample assemblages of subtle sensory overload, dynamo-drones, overtone explorations. All of it distinctive, much of it prescient, all of it rising above the strictures of genre. Hyu’s music is appealing and fun, but driven by a desire to not only create music, but to create ways of creating music. This desire, this quest, is clearly audible in all of these tracks, and in the overall excellence of his music. Available on CD or 2LP with DL. The 2LP features a bonus cover of “Kaze wo atsumete” by Happy End. A notable feature is the entertaining and enlightening notes, written by Hyu himself.

What have we here? 16 pieces of hard-to-classify music, created during the period 1994-2008, a cornucopia of playful, intelligent, questing and eminently listenable electronic music from Osaka-born artist Hyu, who released two albums on Nobukazu Takemura’s Childisc label, in 1999 and 2002. Although a member of the turn-of-the-century generation of artists subsumed under the rather vague term “electronica”, his work stands apart in many ways, particularly in his unique exploration of microtonality, his ability to humanize music technology, and his distinctive trait of combining a light touch and sense of fun with conceptual rigor. This collection is an intriguing mix of previously unreleased tracks and re-edited versions of previously released pieces. There is a wide range of music here, many of the pieces truly unique: wiggy and wiggly robo-pop, fractured funk, swinging sample assemblages of subtle sensory overload, dynamo-drones, overtone explorations. All of it distinctive, much of it prescient, all of it rising above the strictures of genre. Hyu’s music is appealing and fun, but driven by a desire to not only create music, but to create ways of creating music. This desire, this quest, is clearly audible in all of these tracks, and in the overall excellence of his music. Available on CD or 2LP with DL. The 2LP features a bonus cover of “Kaze wo atsumete” by Happy End. A notable feature is the entertaining and enlightening notes, written by Hyu himself.

Ulla returns with ‘Foam’, a surprise new album unlocking variants of ambient pop and looped jazz/dub styles coiled inside a glitched matrix that reminds us of Huerco S’ ‘Plonk’ as well as Ekkehard Ehlers fractal treatments and those incredible, smudged and disneyfied edits of Celine Dion released earlier this year by elusive outfit Romance. It’s an absorbing, quietly significant album for 3XL, on its most substantial release to date. Responsible for one of contemporary ambient’s finest breadcrumb trails in recent years, Ulla leads on from an acclaimed run of albums toward a more filigree style on ‘Foam’. Deploying fragmented morsels resembling glass-cast confectionary with a burbling vernacular, these ephemeral new works dissolve into a supine, shoe-gauzy and jazzed bliss that’s best compared with Jan Jelinek’s efforts in this dream-staged arena, the subs x piano minimalism of Alva Noto & Ryuichi Sakamoto’s revered collabs, as well as the memory-frothed echo of claire rousay and Co La’s fractal baubles. Aye, it’s a sound close to our hearts and one weft with a certain sort of magic that sparkles on the nerves and imagination with delicacy. Intending it to “feel like a keychain”, the album follows a logic that’s almost algorithmic with its haphazard mutations, but which ultimately displays a more human pulse on pieces like ‘foam angel’, weaving forlorn brass around jazz samples and Ulla’s disjointed voice murmuring unintelligibly like some cyborg liz frazer speaking into the sublime. Effusive solo keys and strings cascade like petals on ‘song’, where familiar leitmotifs become wind-dispersed like seeds. We’re snagged on the bittersweet tang of ‘popping out’, and the unexpected dance between marina’s jazz guitar lilt and the aerosoul thizz on ‘sad face’, while the tongue-tip sensitivities of ‘blush’, and ‘for your love’ sound like Rihanna produced by a Systemisch-era Oval. As tangled and complex as it is filled with improbable ohrwurms, ‘Foam’ is unlike anything we’ve heard from Ulla before, and it just might be the weirdest ambient/pop dislocation of the year so far.

Boundary caught our ears when he was just a 19-year-old, a true genius, he's been making music since he was 13 with a maturity and depth well beyond his years. We're absolutely gassed to get him onto the label with a transcendent LP that hits you right in the feels. Hailing from the Dominican Republic, Boundary leans heavily on all the good stuff from early Detroit techno, UK & Japanese ambient, and leftfield techno, stitching things together with immaculate drum programming, wandering basslines, and ethereal pads. Sometimes brilliantly raw and gritty, at other times delicate and refined, this is an LP that ranges from deep, glassy ambient through to 140 bpm (and beyond!) pumpers. It's classy techno from start to finish, think Aphex Twin meets PLO Man with an early Detroit twist. Limited cassette run and digi, don't miss out!

Ship to Shore PhonoCo., in conjunction with Sony Music Entertainment, is proud to present Hirokazu Tanaka & Keiichi Suzuki’s original soundtrack to the 1994 Super Famicom classic MOTHER 2: ギーグの逆襲 (MOTHER 2: Gyiyg Strikes Back!). MOTHER 2, released as EarthBound in the West, is revered as one of the most offbeat and memorable RPGs. Citing influence from artists such as Brian Wilson, Frank Zappa and John Lennon, Suzuki and Tanaka created a diverse soundscape quite unlike anything that came before it. Remastered specifically for vinyl and released outside of Japan for the first time ever, MOTHER 2 is a must have for video game music and soundtrack fans.