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“Everything flows – nothing remains, there is only an eternal becoming and changing” is a well-known formulation of the river theory of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus, also known as panta rhei (ancient Greek: πάντα ῥεῖ, “everything flows”). This teaching states that everything in the universe is subject to constant change and that nothing stays the same forever. The metaphor of the river illustrates this: You can't step into the same river twice because both the river and you are constantly changing. The water is constantly flowing, but the river stays in one place. Thus, reality is constantly changing, even if sometimes perceived as constant.” „Same Same but Different.“ Always different – always the same. Chill-Out DJ Heraklit For the 26th time, the most consistent of all ambient compilations, in a constant flux of static change, is released on Kompakt. Joining good friends from the early days and reliable confidants are some new additions to the non-hierarchical charts of contemplative rapture culture. Leading the way is Micå, a Japanese electronic musician whose finely chiseled, graceful musical style has made it onto the new collection with two pieces. Also making his debut is Richard Ojijo, a seasoned sound engineer known, among other things, for his long-standing collaboration with the artist Marcel Odenbach and the Cologne-based label Magazine. Oskø aka Max Hytrek, a multi-talented newcomer to Kompakt and the music scene, debuts with his rapturously ecstatic piece "Ar Vag." He's followed by Sebastian Mullaert, appearing for the second time—this time teamed up with Sebastian Lilja aka Hush Forever. After his surprise return last year after a 20 year hiatus, we are delighted that Tetsuo Sakae aka Pass Into Silence is back again this year with one of his distinctive sound gems. As are Dirk Leyers (Closer Musik) and Mikkel Metal. 18 tracks are featured on this CD. "Erlösung" (Redemption) is the title of Segensklang's closing track. A kind of ambient bolero into infinity. Or at least until next year... And what would Pop Ambient be without the iconic, artistic cover design of Veronika Unland, who once again, in her unmistakable way, says through the digital flower: The eye always listens...
The most important compilation in the history of electronic music "Artificial Intelligence" will be reissued on vinyl for the first time in 30 years! ! Includes valuable early recordings from Aphex Twin, Autechre, Richie Hawtin, Alex Peterson, and more! !
Many cutting-edge artists such as Aphex Twin, Autechre, Squarepusher, Boards of Canada, Flying Lotus, and Oneohtrix Point Never have been produced. A reissue of the legendary compilation "Artificial Intelligence" released 30 years ago by
Released in 1992, this compilation features Aphex Twin's The Dice Man alias, Autecha and Richie Hawtin Up! (UP!), B12's Musicology, Alex Peterson (The Orb) and Jimmy Cauty (The KLF).
This work is the first work of the "Artificial Intelligence" series released from 1992 to 1994 by
The gatefold sleeves have been reimagined by The Designers Republic and cut in classic black wax by Beau Thomas of Ten Eight Seven Mastering.
＜Tracklist＞
01.The Dice Man - Polygon Window
02.Musicology - Telephone 529
03.Autechre - Crystal
04.I.A.O - The Clan
05.Speedy J - De-Orbit
06.Musicology - Premonition
07.UP! - Spiritual High
08.Autechre - The Egg
09.Dr Alex Paterson - Loving You Live
Twenty years ago, Jan Jelinek’s debut album Personal Rock was released by Source Records. Under the pseudonym Gramm, it brings together eight tracks that have not been available on vinyl since their original release. Faitiche is very glad to announce the re-release of the album: Personal Rock will appear as a double LP featuring the original cover artwork. What people wrote about Personal Rock two decades ago: “Situated somewhere between Jelinek’s much loved Loop-Finding Jazz Records, Farben, Move D’s Conjoint project and Atom Heart’s most immersive work for Rather Interesting, it’s a late night album full of subtle production tricks and melodic House structures that belong to the pre-millennial IDM heyday, but which transcend its overly-masculine templates.” (Boomkat) “Though many producers have pushed forward the clicks-and-cuts style of experimental ambience developed by German experimentalists Oval (among others), few have been able to match their knack for making abstract cuts into pieces of undeniable beauty. Jan Jelinek’s first LP as Gramm is one of the precious few, and it’s obvious from the opener.” (AllMusic) “Organized in organic structures and minimal movements, the tracks get into utopian states and super-desirable moods, offering superior contentedness and dependable taste of the kind seldom sustained for a whole album. (...) Subway-Escalator-Soul.” (Spex)
Musique pour 3 Femmes Enceintes (lit. 'Music for 3 Pregnant Women') is a 2005 album by Marc Leclair. The album was conceived while Leclair's wife and several of her friends were simultaneously pregnant. Over the course of the album, each track is labeled according to a point in the pregnancy ("64th Day," "205th Day,") with Leclair's attempts to convey the moods of the experience.
Second solo LP by Princ€ss member + Maria Somerville and Mel Keane collaborator Finn Carraher McDonald aka Nashpaints - via new Dublin label Mirror World.
"Nashpaints is Finn Carraher McDonald from Dublin. Following up his debut album "Blindman The Gambler”, recent activity as a member of Princ€ss and production on Maria Somerville’s “Luster” & Mel Keane’s “Airs”, Nashpaints releases his second album "Everyone Good Is Called Molly” via Dublin label MirrorWorld.
"standing so close to someone else vision becomes touch
Standing with ɘnoɘmoƨ, looking at each other in the mirror and not recognising th - htiw gnidnatS
Apparently,
Three people will lie while listening to this album..
Zzz….they will endup in the same place
Generally, this song will be played but,
here is a guy watery eyed on the train"
Nashpaint’s releases his second album
EveryonegoodiscalledMolly. NOT ALL MOLLYS, Never anything else"
Originally released in 1994, Protection is Massive Attack’s second album, refining the Bristol sound they introduced on Blue Lines and helping to define the contours of what would become known as trip‑hop.
Released in 1998 as Massive Attack’s third studio album, this work is regarded as their masterpiece. Unlike the soulful and jazzy atmosphere of their previous albums Blue Lines and Protection, it deepened the trip-hop sound while strongly incorporating influences from post-punk and industrial, resulting in a cold and heavy sonic landscape. Issued by Virgin Records as a 180-gram double LP edition.
An epoch is defined as an extended period of time typically characterized by a distinctive development or by a memorable series of events, and Scott Hansen, leader of the band Tycho, has named their new album Epoch with that in mind. The last installment in a trilogy, Epoch is the culmination of more than a decade’s work that has seen the band evolving and maturing through two sublime releases Dive (2011) and Awake (2014), and developing from featuring Hansen as a delicate solo performer into the iconic frontman of a powerful multi-layered live band performing on the world’s largest stages. “Dive was where the whole thing crystallized,” said Hansen. “I found that crossover space between what I was doing before, which was more IDM electronic stuff, and the rock music that reflected more of what I was listening to and not necessarily what I was making. Awake was a prototype of pushing it as far into the rock realm as I was comfortable with. Epoch is basically coming full circle. All the lessons of Dive and Awake were applied and then expanded upon. Epoch leverages the sonic aesthetic of Dive’s down-tempo vintage-style synthesizers and beautiful melodies while drawing on the kinetic energy of Awake’s progressive composition and organic instrumentation. “I felt like I explored a lot of open-ended unbridled, optimistic spaces with the other records. I don't know if it's a reflection of my life, but it seemed like that’s what just came out at the time.” For the new record, the themes felt a bit darker as he explored new musical territory. “My threshold for darkness is much lower. Things that seem dark to me seem happy and light to other people. I think it’s the darker sounds themselves. The timbres are a bit more aggressive.” Hansen initially attempted a more traditional recording process at Panoramic Studios in Stinson Beach, CA, but ultimately opted to do the majority of the recording in his home studio in Berkeley following a temporary relocation from his home in San Francisco. “I’ve been in the same San Francisco house the last 11 years. I made the last two records in the exact same room. I figured it was time for a change. There were a few other factors as well. I wanted to get some more space, be relaxed, and not be living in the middle of a crazy city. I wanted to have a more relaxed environment where noise or people didn’t bother me. Mostly just for the isolation.” Once complete, it was important to Hansen to release Epoch as a surprise album. “I've never been fond of handing in an album then waiting 4 months for it to be released,” he said. “I wanted to be more connected to the people consuming the music. There is a kind of visceral fulfillment you get from sharing something that you've just created with other people. That's a very satisfying feeling as an artist. “All art is in some way shaped by the current state of the world around the person creating it so there's a element of zeitgeist built into any album. We just finished mastering the album so it will be a month old when people hear it. I'm hoping people get a sense that this music is directly connected to the time they are experiencing it in.” Epoch was arranged alongside Zac Brown, a long time collaborator and partner in the Tycho project. Brown contributed bass and guitar parts to the songwriting process, while Rory O'Connor played drums. O’Connor was brought in during the Dive tour cycle. Hansen has known Brown since their Sacramento upbringing. “At the end of Dive is when we started to work together on a couple songs. I thought there should be more guitar. Zac played on a couple songs like on ‘Ascension.’ He played some bass and guitar on ‘Hours.’ I brought him on to play parts in the shows. We did Awake together. We took the same approach with this record.” Hansen sees Epoch as a multi-dimensional artistic vision at the confluence of his graphic design work via ISO50 and music with Tycho. The graphic presentation of the album artwork is as important as the music itself. The keystone is the central image of Epoch and the colour scheme red and black. This is a stark contrast to the almost rainbow palette of Awake.
Marking 25 years since its original release, The Big Romance is reimagined by David Kitt as a version he fully owns. Originally released in 2001 on Blanco Y Negro, the album fused acoustic instrumentation with electronic and hip-hop influences, becoming a defining moment in Kitt’s early career. Unable to secure a reissue from Warner Music, who retain the original masters, Kitt returned to the material using period-appropriate tools — 90s samplers, synths and the same guitars and basses — to rebuild the record. Working again with producer Ken McHugh, he revisits the album’s core with decades of experience. This edition features all ten original tracks alongside additional material, including ‘Saturdays’. Recreated at his home studio in Ballinskelligs, the result stays close to the original while refining its sound.
The Boy and the Tree was composed after a visit to Yakushima Island, an outstandingly beautiful world heritage site off the southern tip of Japan, scored by a deep, lush and ancient ravine, home of the ancient 7000-year old ‘Jōmon Sugi’. Tree. Also the inspiration for Miyazaki's epic anime Princess Mononoke, a conflict between the rampant greed and destructive force of humanity, and the stoic, mysterious fragility of nature. This fleeting immersion in nature lent the album a profound introspection and mystery, and the its twelve tracks unfold in dream sequence, each drifting seamlessly into the next while still managing to steer the listener in myriad directions, from eerie butoh atmospheres, to ebullient raga, to desolate, cavernous chanson. The Boy And The Tree is definitely one of, if not the most, visually evocative and cinematic Yokota releases.
Lo Recordings are very proud to announce the release of a beautiful collaborative project. A seamless sonic journey that guides us through the filmic landscape of a bygone era. Chiming in the past and resonating in the present. Meg Morley and Haiku Salut combine their talents for the reimagining of a score for the 1930's silent film People on Sunday. Inspired by their live performance and screening of the classic at the Flatpack festival. The release was five years in the making as they set out to capture the compositions in the studio, blending Morley’s expressive piano with Haiku Salut’s textured electronics. The result has given rise to an album that belies its historic source with a fresh and clean sound and a complex ever moving series of compositions.. 'The Lost Score' is a vibrant contemporary album for our time. Haiku Salut are an instrumental trio whose music blends electronica, neo-classical and folk into richly layered, cinematic soundscapes. Known for their enigmatic performances and live scores to silent films, they create immersive experiences that merge timeless visuals with modern experimental sound. Meg Morley is a Melbourne-born London-based pianist, composer and improviser who pursues cross-cultural and interdisciplinary collaborations, focusing on storytelling. Her classically trained precision and jazz-inflected improvisations have brought her to prominence through her compositions for classical and jazz ensembles, accompaniment for dance companies (Pina Bausch, English National Ballet) and her internationally-acclaimed original scores for silent film.
Mesmerising album of Yokota’s earliest sonic explorations that demonstrates his unique vision and sublime transcendence of boundaries.
‘Image 1983-1998’ is a collection of short miniatures, composed in two different time periods. Tracks 1-5 were recorded with guitar and organ between 1983-4 and tracks 6-12 were composed through 97-98, being inspired by the earlier material.
A musical scrapbook, or sonic design board. The sleeve notes give an insight into Yokota’s belief in a close connection between music, memory and his active imagination: ‘Encountering Acid House made me visualise music – I could clearly see the sounds sparkling… this experience led me to create electronic music.’
Anushka Chkheidze + Robert Lippok’s »Uncontrollable Thoughts« on Morr Music is the duo’s debut joint release. The Netherlands-based Georgian composer and the German sound artist from Berlin first met in 2019 in the context of a workshop programme that took place in Tbilisi, and later worked with Eto Gelashvili, Hayk Karoyi, and Lillevan on the massive »Glacier Music II« music and book project, released in 2021. This led them to engage in a less conceptually driven form of musicking and real-time composition that corresponds with their respective environments. They draw on traditions such as minimal music or late 1990s and early 2000s electronica to integrate subtle beats with elegiac organ drones, playful melodies with lush textures. The first document of an ever-shifting intergenerational dialogue, »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is a product of mutual listening outside time.Though Chkheidze and Lippok had access to professional studios, they chose to rent a simple rehearsal space, equipped with only the bare essentials—bass and guitar amps as well as a small PA—to maintain immediacy in their working process. The music they made together corresponded to and drew on the respective possibilities and shortcomings of this studio, much like their collaboration in general is characterised by the care with which they approach each other's talents and ideas. While both had loosely defined roles—Chkheidze was responsible for the free-flowing beat programming and the evocative distortion came courtesy of Lippok, for example—they individually contributed in different ways to their joint process, which is as free of hierarchies as it is limitless. Hence, the duo’s focus on spontaneity and out-of-the-moment emergence makes them organically move beyond tried and tested conventions, resulting in music that seems to suspend time altogether.When the first chimes on »Bird Song« announce a piece that sets rattling kickdrums against a backdrop of layered drones and rhizomatically entangled melodic elements, it becomes clear why »Uncontrollable Thoughts« carries this title: The album follows the constant detours of the subconscious of its makers, letting them explore moments of ecstasy such as on »Rainbow,« melancholy with »Field,« and the interplay of suspense and release through the ten-minute-long title track. But the different pieces also tie into one aother in various ways. The dirge-like organ drones on which »Rainbow Road« ends reappear in the beginning of »Uncontrollable Thoughts,« much like Chkheidze’s gentle yet emphatic piano chords on »Field« seem to provide the starting point from which the artist develops the striking motifs of the final piece »Opening«, whose title itself suggests that the record as a whole can and should be enjoyed as a loop. All this creates a unique, idiosyncratic temporal logic.While there is much that sets Chkheidze and Lippok apart as solo artists, the major shared leitmotif in their respective bodies of work is the sonic engagement with space. »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is hence best understood as an extension of this practice; as an album that maps the geographies of their minds in motion, tracing musical movements as they melt into each other.
Anushka Chkheidze + Robert Lippok’s »Uncontrollable Thoughts« on Morr Music is the duo’s debut joint release. The Netherlands-based Georgian composer and the German sound artist from Berlin first met in 2019 in the context of a workshop programme that took place in Tbilisi, and later worked with Eto Gelashvili, Hayk Karoyi, and Lillevan on the massive »Glacier Music II« music and book project, released in 2021. This led them to engage in a less conceptually driven form of musicking and real-time composition that corresponds with their respective environments. They draw on traditions such as minimal music or late 1990s and early 2000s electronica to integrate subtle beats with elegiac organ drones, playful melodies with lush textures. The first document of an ever-shifting intergenerational dialogue, »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is a product of mutual listening outside time.Though Chkheidze and Lippok had access to professional studios, they chose to rent a simple rehearsal space, equipped with only the bare essentials—bass and guitar amps as well as a small PA—to maintain immediacy in their working process. The music they made together corresponded to and drew on the respective possibilities and shortcomings of this studio, much like their collaboration in general is characterised by the care with which they approach each other's talents and ideas. While both had loosely defined roles—Chkheidze was responsible for the free-flowing beat programming and the evocative distortion came courtesy of Lippok, for example—they individually contributed in different ways to their joint process, which is as free of hierarchies as it is limitless. Hence, the duo’s focus on spontaneity and out-of-the-moment emergence makes them organically move beyond tried and tested conventions, resulting in music that seems to suspend time altogether.When the first chimes on »Bird Song« announce a piece that sets rattling kickdrums against a backdrop of layered drones and rhizomatically entangled melodic elements, it becomes clear why »Uncontrollable Thoughts« carries this title: The album follows the constant detours of the subconscious of its makers, letting them explore moments of ecstasy such as on »Rainbow,« melancholy with »Field,« and the interplay of suspense and release through the ten-minute-long title track. But the different pieces also tie into one aother in various ways. The dirge-like organ drones on which »Rainbow Road« ends reappear in the beginning of »Uncontrollable Thoughts,« much like Chkheidze’s gentle yet emphatic piano chords on »Field« seem to provide the starting point from which the artist develops the striking motifs of the final piece »Opening«, whose title itself suggests that the record as a whole can and should be enjoyed as a loop. All this creates a unique, idiosyncratic temporal logic.While there is much that sets Chkheidze and Lippok apart as solo artists, the major shared leitmotif in their respective bodies of work is the sonic engagement with space. »Uncontrollable Thoughts« is hence best understood as an extension of this practice; as an album that maps the geographies of their minds in motion, tracing musical movements as they melt into each other.
Millions Now Living Will Never Die is the second full-length offering from Tortoise. The majority of the material was first conceived during an idyllic 10-day retreat in Northern Vermont, where the group were able to explore their ideas in a setting that fostered introspection and inspiration: the results are clearly evident in the washes of Klangfärben (tone color) and rhythm that permeate the album. The sounds and ideas contained therein can be viewed as a logical extension of those found their first (eponymous) LP on Thrill Jockey where the group outlined an agenda exploring texture, space, and mood. MNLWND, however, offers not only an expansion of those ideas but also the introduction of several new elements into the musical equation. New instrumental textures (marimbas and other mallet percussion on "Djed" (pronounced "jed"); conventional electric guitar on "Glass Museum"; analog synthesis/sequencing and found sound on "Dear Grandma and Grandpa") and structural ideas (the extended formal procedures of "Djed"; the non-narrative song "Along the Banks of Rivers") represent clear developments and redefinition's of the group's sound.Recording commenced immediately upon returning to Chicago, though due to a variety of reasons, the entire recording and mixing process became elongated. This less hurried approach to album making allowed the group to explore more of the possibilities inherent in the material; the 21-minute "Djed" is ample proof of this. The final version of the track went through approximately 15 different stages of mixing and editing. Like their debut, MNLWND was recorded and mixed by John McEntire (also at that time had produced material by Stereolab, Run On, The Sea and Cake, Trans Am, and Come). The majority of the album was recorded and mixed at Idful Music Corporation in Chicago, with the remainder being realized at the newly established SOMA Electronic Music Studios. MNLWND is the first studio recording to feature the talents of David Pajo, who joined to fill the position vacated by Bundy K. Brown in late 1994.
‘ИМА (Ima)’ is a work by KiMiMi, the solo project of a musician Shin-ya Ohno, which captures the layers of time and the presence of people inhabiting ‘Arimasuton Building’—a self-built structure created over 20 years by architect Keisuke Oka, located in Mita, Tokyo, and reconstructs them into music. A multi-instrumentalist who masterfully handles a diverse range of instruments, with the gaida (an ancestor of the bagpipes) – which he studied in Bulgaria – at the core of his sound, KiMiMi has previously brought traces of daily life and folk melodies recorded during his travels back to the scale of home recording, weaving fantastical folk soundscapes through cassette tape works and stage music. Alongside his musical activities, he has participated in the construction work for ‘Arimasuton Building’, recording the sounds of hammers and steel beams echoing on site, lunchtime chatter, the melodies of instruments played by others, and the sound of cars passing by. From the end of 2022, a zine titled ‘Monthly Arimasuton Building Urimasu’, based on this construction project, was launched. KiMiMi incorporates these recordings into the musical works he contributes to each issue, layering sounds from live instruments—including the gaida, accordion, guitar, flute, ukulele, piano, foot-pump organ, melodica and xylophone—alongside a few synthesiser tones, to shape a soundscape imbued with the humidity and breath of the site. KiMiMi’s creative process is characterised not by planned construction, but by an attitude of entrusting the work to chance, intuition and the passage of time. Fragmented recordings are layered, set aside for a time, and then unearthed again. Through this repetition, the music naturally takes shape. This resonates perfectly with the process of ‘Arimasuton Building’, which was built up improvisationally, layer by layer, without any pre-prepared blueprints. ‘ИМА (Ima)’ marks the current stage of KiMiMi’s sonic journey and represents an attempt to gracefully transcend the boundaries between architecture and music, documentation and creation, and the individual and the community. The clamour of the city, the tranquillity of manual labour, laughter, and every sound resonating at the Arimasuton Building site blend with KiMiMi’s music, reflecting the very passage of time in which people live.
*100 copies limited edition* "Music, like love, surprises you, makes your heart race, gives you new eyes with which to look at yourself in the mirror..." - Gigi Masin With an exclusive presentation by Gigi Masin, Up To 23 release their second album, now with an expanded three-member lineup following the permanent addition of Enrico Coniglio alongside founder members Marco Buffetti and Francesco Fincato. The album draws inspiration from the 1980s, evoking atmospheres reminiscent of sci-fi soundtracks. Partly romantic, partly doom ambient, the work unfolds as a requiem for our planet. Liquid and enveloping atmospheres drift between ambient territories with a distinctly melodic character - explored through treated guitars and synthesizers - and subtly electronic paths traced to the rhythm of patterns built through sequencers and programmed structures. Dramatic and evocative moments emerge throughout this succession of varied yet perfectly integrated and fluid soundscapes, where sounds and progressions combine with ever-shifting solutions, following a descriptive thread that remains consistent as it continuously unravels through encompassing and emotionally engaging textures. "Gigi Masin Presents: An Apple A Day You Die Anyway" is the perfect soundtrack to these dark times that Up To 23 want to color in order to continue to hope, to live without having to survive.
The second compilation of FORM@ RECORDS. Although this work hasn't decided on a particular direction, it's a wonderful album that naturally gathers pure things and far surpasses the previous work.
Gak Sato & Tadahiko Yokogawa — RENGA. Inspired by the Japanese poetic form of linked verses, this 10-track journey spans ambient, jazz, breakbeats, electronica, environmental music, techno, cinematic, library music, musique concrète and somewhere in between, with artwork by Aoi Huber Kono. Limited Edition.
Across a remarkable run of releases in barely half a decade, London’s Loraine James has established her identity through a blend of refined composition, gritty experimentation, and unpredictable, intricate electronic programming. While titles released under her given name on the esteemed label Hyperdub tend toward IDM-influenced, vocal-heavy collaborations, James reserves her alias, Whatever The Weather, for a more impressionistic, inward gaze. On Whatever The Weather II, rich worlds of layered textures flow seamlessly from hypnotic ambience, to mottled rhythms, to cut-up collages of diaristic field recordings. The result is a uniquely fractured beauty, born from a compelling union of organic and human elements, processed through a variety of digital and analogue methods.
James titled Whatever The Weather pieces based on an innate sense of their “emotional temperature” at the time of recording, but she notes that often, upon revisiting them, they will feel somewhere else entirely on the thermometer; such are the whims of the environment. Compared to the album’s predecessor and its Antarctic imagery, though, Whatever The Weather II is a warmer outing, as signaled by the desert clime of its cover photo which is once again shot by Collin Hughes, and the package designed by Justin Hunt Sloane. Also common to both albums is the mastering work of friend and collaborator Josh Eustis (aka Telefon Tel Aviv), who lends his keen ear to James’ complexities, to craft a strikingly three-dimensional sonic experience.
“1°C” opens the album with James speaking through thick static, idly pining, “Bit chilly, innit… Can’t wait for it to be summer,” as a bed of granular tones and scattered vocal samples emerges. This ineffable mood carries through “3°C”, where high-frequency oscillations flutter across the stereo field, a vigorous, minimal kick rattles through a broken speaker cone, and spacious synth harmonies burst and fade into mist. “20°C”, the longest entry in the collection, daydreams through a din of conversation and minor-key chords, before blossoming into a series of glitchy, staccato percussion patterns. “8°C” rides a sole, wandering keyboard line adorned with minimal counterpoint. In these moments, James effortlessly draws order from a diffusion of ideas, and an air of playful spontaneity creates the common thread.
In discussing this project, James notes that the first Whatever The Weather LP (Ghostly, 2022) was created concurrently with Reflection (Hyperdub, 2021), and that there was some degree of stylistic cross-pollination between her two musical frames of mind. At the time, she shared her feelings on genre with Pitchfork’s Philip Sherburne, noting, “Yeah, I might look different from most people who make IDM, and I’m from a different time period, but I don’t really care about the term being negative or positive. I feel my music is IDM and I do my own spin on it, being inspired by other stuff and fusing it all together.” This go around, she dedicated several months of focused energy to the alias, and to the development of its distinctions: no collaborators, fewer beats, and a process based primarily on instinct and improvisation.
The album’s singular sound arises from James’ favoring of hardware over software, as her battery of synths is modulated, transformed, and reassembled through an array of pedals with few or no overdubs, effectively anchoring each arrangement to its precise moment of creation. The greatest effort in post-production was given to sequencing, on which the artist places the utmost importance; taken as a whole, the suite ebbs and flows with a fitting sense of seasonal flux and naturalistic grace.
The final act of Whatever The Weather II offers some of its most affecting moments, beginning with “9°C”, where the haunting echoes of children on a Tokyo playground break through intermittent bursts of static, steeped in a bath of off-kilter, bubbling tones. Here, James displays one of her many strengths: a fearless approach to sonic collage, elevated by ambitious experimentation and pacing that manages plenty of surprises. Never content to remain in the same sonic space for too long, “15°C” follows with soft pads and glistening countermelodies, abruptly joined by a jarring, cyclical rhythm that mimics a loose part inside a whirring machine. Like much of James’ work, it bears an internal logic that only makes sense in her hands.
Closing track, “12°C”, drifts from bustling human spaces into a concrete groove, weaving melody and texture into a truly unusual, soul-stirring fullness. In its final moments we hear, for the first time, a languid acoustic guitar and gentle, finger-tapped beat over her pitch-shifted voice, a callback that ends the album with wry ambiguity, and a hint of more to be found beyond the horizon. Whatever The Weather II is full of such passages, where formal composition appears like a film in negative, and conventions are upturned with wit, intelligence, and skill.
KILN return with an opulent new display of hue and swing on Lemon Borealis, a sumptuous gallery of dazzling motifs that display a finely hewn concoction of visual tones and vital pulse.
Across its 12 cuts, this collection utilizes a fresh process of condensing immersive sprawl into compact, punchy and colorful sound. Using aspects of live performance, beatmaking and waveform sculpting, the troika of Kevin Hayes, Kirk Marrison and Clark Rehberg III create evocative and invigorating dioramas, continuing to surprise and enchant listeners after over thirty years into their collaboration.
Deep in waves of Hi-meets-Lo Fi, KILN delivers a panchromatic daymark arranged to biochemically align and stimulate your personal syntax, forging a tapestry of sonic reveries ranging from the aquarium-on-fire radiance of DrnkGrlfrnd, a garden groove of field-recorded percussion in Maplefunk Diptych, to the sizzling guit-noise whiteout of Deacon Rayhand.
Their eighth album, and first for A Strangely Isolated Place, on Lemon Borealis, KILN expands upon the long-explored themes of mosaic texture, subtle melancholy, eroded consonance, and vivid cadence to reveal yet another aperture to their unique magnetic universe.
Lemon Borealis will be available on 12” Transparent Yellow/Ochre Smoke vinyl and digital on July 18th. Lacquer cut by Andreas Lupo Lubich, and featuring artwork by KILN.
22nd anniversary reissue of what is for us one of the greatest albums of the late 20th century, originally released on Rephlex in 1998, now painstakingly remastered by Rashad Becker after being unavailable on any format for more or less two decades. If you’re into anything from Prince to A Guy Called Gerald, Tirzah to Jai Paul, Autechre to Rick Rubin - this really is an all-time great.
When you make a record that doesn’t conform, expect to divide opinion. ‘Like Weather’ was released in 1998, on Rephlex - run by Grant Wilson Claridge and Richard D James - an often great label that had a following that couldn't quite deal with electronic music made by a girl - let alone one that used vocals. Everything those lads couldn’t fathom about ‘Like Weather’ is essentially what makes it untouchable; one of the greatest, most effortlessly esoteric pop albums ever made, not in the lineage of IDM or Trip Hop, genres it has so often been awkwardly lumped in with, but something else that cant quite be categorised - even two decades later.
‘Like Weather’ echoes the world-building energy of Prince’s ‘Sign O The Times’ - every track is a self contained universe all its own, there are no rules or conventions - it’s full of hooks, but also insular as fuck, the production is all over the place and it still sounds like nothing else (although if you’re into the Mica Levi-produced Tirzah album, know that this here is the aesthetic, spiritual blueprint). It feels analog, then digital - it’s R&B, but also baroque music box, drone pop, experimental, electronic, junglist - attempting to define it is like trying to cup mercury in the palm of your hands; it’ll just find something else to slide into.
In 2020 we reckon it’s time to re-appraise ‘Like Weather’ as one of the great overlooked albums of our age, made by a female auteur operating in an overwhelmingly male-dominated scene at the turn of the century. Now newly remastered by Rashad Becker (a long, 6 month process - trust that a lot of work has gone into it) - it sounds fucking amazing, one of only a handful of records that have never left our side since we opened our doors in 1998.
So yeah, we could write a long thing here about Leila’s background playing keyboard for Bjork, her meeting with the Rephlex lads, the Aphex connection etc etc, but ‘Like Weather is a record that needs no hype - for real - listen to it and you’ll know.
Like an ambient house comet, Local Artist Ian Wyatt’s Slow Riffs return to Mood Hut 13 years since their debut LP with a bevy of weightless, subtly pendulous levitations.
The projected dream sequence of ’Simulacra’ connotes an out of body experience with a poetic grasp of ambient, deep house and their roots in jazz, fourth world and new age urges. With subtle holographic dub diffusions the record achieves a pleasant sense of treading air/water and being gently buffeted by cosmic breezes. Take the title tune for example, whose rippling congas and bleary sax motifs feels like passages of earliest Terre Thaemlitz meets Jon Hassell, while elsewhere they touch a subtly ruggeder vein like Rezzett’s ambient jungle thizzers in its depth charged subs and aerial interplay of drums and pads, giving way to Romance-like sensations with the tousled choral pads of ‘Cosmic Joke’, while ‘Mutual Dreaming’ harks back to early vaporwave templates of 0PN via James Ferraro.
Dave Huismans (ex_libris, A Made Up Sound) presents In Transit, a self-titled LP of arresting downtempo vignettes, with origins dating back to over a decade ago.
Renowned for some of this century’s most notorious rhythmic advances, the work of Dave Huismans (fka A Made Up Sound and 2562) continues to provide a blueprint for new generations of innovation-obsessives. After a long hiatus from releasing original material, he returned in 2025 with two beloved EP’s as ex_libris. Now he returns to FELT as In Transit, following up on his remix of Civilistjävel! from 2023.
Borrowing its name from the closing dialogue of a novel by Dutch author Hella S. Haasse, In Transit was written in just two weeks in the summer of 2013 on a Korg ESX sampler. Since then, he has patiently refined its constituent parts.
Over the course of 38 minutes across six tracks, In Transit maps out an absorbing vista. The music shimmers with a celestial quality, underpinned by rhythmic stamina and creeping intensity. Tangential to Huismans’ previous work, the beats here are decentred and further scattered, acting as buoys to the constantly evolving and intricate narratives of layered textures.
In Transit marks a fascinating new addition to Huismans’ sprawling catalogue, a truly remarkable racket to be crafted with such humble means, finding a suitable context within FELT’s continued venture into parallel sounds.