MUSIC

Drummer-composer and multi-instrumentalist Valentina Magaletti’s explorative percussions join Afro-Portuguese artist Nídia’s singular beat-making for an exciting new collaboration in dance music. From the first beat, listeners are drawn into a world where rhythm reigns supreme and movement is inevitable. The album explores a diverse yet universal musical language through syncopated drum patterns, pulsating marimba lines, and melodic interludes.

Another massive offering from the one and only Mick Harris, continuing on in his Culvert Dubs Sessions experimentations with a new 2xlp. Once again Mick delves deep into the shadow realm of slow beat, psychedelic heavily textured, grinding dub techno. Eight tracks of absolute industrialized, delay swept, full pressure, sound system shaking murk ridden, dark water dubs. Top form work when Mick lets loose in this wild style, just the right balance of beauty, restraint and brutality. Total heavy weight music!

Suntub’ is the second full length album from ML Buch, a double record of 15 pieces by the Danish composer and producer, entering further into the realm of electric guitars and layered vocals along with exploring new instrumental expressions. With an offset in open tunings on a 7-string Stratocaster, slide and fretless tablet guitars and deep-sampled virtual guitars, the album draws up narratives and locations in a distant time. Props like puddles, well buckets, bone barrels and flesh rags live in these scenes, suspended in air, drifting about, climbing stairs and ladders, all given life through guitar sensibilities and visceral vocals.

Caterina Barbieri & Bendik Giske's At Source resounds music as wellspring, that which is essential and unknowable, and yet utterly primary. It finds two acclaimed composer-musicians building a world together in self-contained collaboration between analogue synthesis and an extended approach to the saxophone that conjures its own universe of sound. It is at once intimate and cosmic, drawing on the challenges and possibilities of their artistic exchange, tearing down technique to access all the expansive possibilities of their sonic meeting point. At Source is a document of the world of sound to be conjured when two artists strive for something together, discovering the expansions and limitations of performance by bodies and machines. It is not an exercise in assimilation, but in productive exchange and creative confrontation. It does not draw on outside energies or influences, but grapples with what there is to find in their respective playing. "It also reflects how natural the collaboration was," says Barbieri, "a meeting at the source which was spontaneous, graceful and natural". Barbieri and Giske first met and were enthralled by one another's performances at Kunsthaus Glarus in 2019, a meeting that spurred conversations on the power of transitions as a compositional force. Giske later contributed a rework of Fantas for Fantas Variations (Editions Mego, 2021), an ambitious undertaking to rescore Barbieri’s work for his saxophone and voice, a challenge Giske had started undertaking two years prior as an ongoing practice of transcription. “The request came as a proof of aligned ideas”, says Giske. Their new collaborative project then started during an artistic residency in Milan’s ICA in 2021, by invitation of swiss artist and curator Jan Vorisek, as the world was emerging from lockdown. This meeting, and the preceding closure of sites for cultural exchange, made their work together 'feel like springtime' says Barbieri. Giske, who was on the brink of releasing his sophomore album, Cracks, then joined Barbieri's light-years tour, which functioned as an inaugural incarnation of her newborn label and platform through a series of multi-artist curated shows with appearances of Lyra Pramuk, Nkisi, MFO, among other artists. Through the tour, they continued to develop material live, and this release, laid down in the studio, is true to that ever-evolving process of creation, where live feedback stays essential to the vitality of this collaborative effort. The tracks are each named with two evocative words that contain the two poles of their sound. Theirs is both abstract and cosmic, in the synth as machine undermined by Barbieri's naturalistic playing, and in Giske's continuous exploration of the symbiosis between his instrument, voice, and body. These binaries, of body and machine, posed various challenges, notably in how the stepped patterns Barbieri uses were near-impossible to translate for Giske's body to perform, and other times where mathematical resolutions were needed to sync their playing. Explains Giske: "It forced me to go to the core of what I am and what I have to offer”. Barbieri says that it "explores the liminality between the machine and the human, and the vulnerability in this process". On 'Intuition, Nimbus', the first track to be written, Giske's playing flutters and rises on Barbieri's synth, like a flock of birds lifted skywards on thermal columns, with clouds of pulsing tones fanning avian wings. 'Alignment, Orbit' settles into a steady torque, Giske's gentle percussions syncing with shifting loops, steadily building energy and conjuring solidity from breath and resistance. The extended 'Impatience, Magma' stretches glowing and languorous, honing in on and picking up a synth melody with whetted edge that cuts through the firmament, populating a broad cosmos of extended tones and replicating patterns in a piece that calls to mind Laurie Spiegel's extended works, and steps into transcendent duet with Giske's saxophone at its most keening and spiritual in tone and movement. 'Persistence, Buds' unfurls gracefully in sensuous sympatico, as saxophone caresses Barbieri's slowly twirling progressions, a tactile and meditative closer. At Source is testament to two divergent practices finding a whole cosmos in which to convene; music is crystalised and made utterly enveloping through the focused and critical work of two musicians working at their peak. The versions here are, temptingly, "just one of many versions" of this abundant source material Giske explains. Like the best collaborations, At Source is more than the sum of its parts – bringing more to the feast than the simple combination of two musicians, promising versions upon versions of the exquisite material captured here.

A split LP by two bands with truly singular musical identities: OOIOO, the Japanese experimental rock group led by YoshimiO of BOREDOMS, and Lightning Bolt, the noise‑rock duo from Rhode Island, USA.

Music From Memory returns with their penultimate release of 2016, this time bringing together a compilation of works by the Italian composer and musician Roberto Musci. While studying guitar and saxophone in his hometown of Milan, Musci developed a deep fascination for non-western music and set out to travel across India, Asia and Africa, which he would do extensively between 1974-1985. During his many journeys Roberto would become deeply embedded in each unique world of rhythms, scales and approaches to making and performing music. Throughout this period of travel he would make many field recordings as well as collect and study many traditional and indigenous instruments that he would then later combine with synthesizers and electronics on his return to Italy.

Combining personal documents of music and sounds deeply connected to the history and cultures of those lands, with his own explorations and experiments with cutting edge sound technology Roberto Musci would develop through his music a very unique and at times wholly mystical space, where ancient and modern would evolve into a new musical language.

As well as making his own music, during the 1980’s and 1990’s Roberto would also regularly broadcast radio shows of experimental and indigenous music on Italian radio stations such as Rai and Radio Popolare. Deeply connected to the arts he would also compose and perform numerous pieces of music for theatre, dance and performance art pieces as well as soundtracks for film and television.

‘Tower of Silence’ brings together a double LP of material from Roberto Musci’s solo recordings commencing with the Loa of Music sessions from 1984 up until later very recent works. The compilation also includes a number of collaborative pieces, many performed and written in collaboration with Giovanni Venosa, such as material taken from their ‘Water Messages On Desert Sand’, which as an album was Grammy-nominated in in the UK in 1987. A unique and at times intensely mesmerising musical world ‘Tower of Silence’ offers an introduction to the work of a unique and visionary artist.

Throbbing Gristle revisits TGCD1, long out of print, now available on vinyl for the first time ever via Mute. This release includes the original sleeve notes by all the members of the band, uncovering the story and ethos behind TG’s independent record label, Industrial Records. Formed in 1975, Throbbing Gristle, aka Chris Carter, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson (1955-2010), Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (1950- 2020), fully delivered on punk’s failed promise to explore extreme culture as a way of sabotaging systems of control. Their impact on music, culture, and the arts has been immeasurable and still felt today. Originally released on Mute’s imprint, The Grey Area, in 1986, TGCD1 comprises forty-two minutes of studio recordingscaptured at their own Industrial Records Studio on a TEAC 8-Track in 1979. Initially serving as an exclusive piece of unreleased material for TG’s first-ever CD release, the record’ dark and harsh droning sound stands as a significant chapter in their discography, showcasing the band during, arguably, their most formative era. TGCD1 is reissued alongside The Third Mind Movements - both vital additions for dedicated Throbbing Gristle and industrial music fans.

Previously released on May 20th 2014. Kikagaku Moyo here sound anything but lost, their child-like wonder manifested in a confident, courageous exploration of sound. Labels – psychedelic, folk, prog-rock, psychedelic-folk-mixed-with-prog-rock – do little to accurately reflect the spectrum of influences on display, let alone the more impactful realization of completeness in Kikagaku Moyo’s songs.

A pivotal 2006 work from the late Mika Vainio—renowned as one half of Pan Sonic and a towering figure in experimental and electronic sound—returns on Sähkö under his solo alias Ø. Born from the underground of Helsinki, Finland’s experimental stronghold, Aste documents a coldly precise yet exploratory approach to electronic sound that left a decisive mark on the minimal techno scene. Metallic austerity and mysterious silence coexist here, as sharpened structural beauty and ruthless reduction of sound deliver an overwhelming tension that still resonates today. A definitive statement from the outermost edge of electronic music.

The album will be released on February 13, 2026

Strut proudly presents the debut album from producer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist, Momoko Gill. Fresh from her critically acclaimed collaboration Clay recorded with cult electronic artist Matthew Herbert, Momoko steps forward in her own right for the first time with her remarkable debut solo album.

Momoko has long been one of the UK electronic and jazz scene’s best-kept secrets. A self-taught drummer, producer, songwriter, and vocalist, she has brought her unique touch to collaborations with Alabaster DePlume, Matthew Herbert, Coby Sey, Tirzah, and Nadeem Din-Gabisi (her musical foil in An Alien Called Harmony). Extensive touring behind the drum kit, at the keys and in front of the mic have honed her compositional and production instincts.

With Momoko, Gill emerges into the spotlight with an album that is entirely her own. Throughout, you can hear the stylistic flavours of jazz musicians as much as singer-songwriters, experimental artists and electronic producers. Though Gill rejects imitation, sculpting her sound through feel and expression rather than tradition. Based in London and having grown up in Japan and the US, Gill channels her breadth of perspective through her musical ideas and storytelling, with a unique voice developed through instinct, collaboration and solitary study.

The album’s eleven tracks take in a wide spectrum with the jazz-infused groove of ‘No Others’ and harmony-drenched, reflective ‘Heavy’ contrasting with the dark, confrontational sound of 'Shadowboxing' leading into an eerie left-field instrumental beat, ‘Test A Small Area' and the impressive 50-person choir on ‘When Palestine Is Free’ (which includes heavyweights Shabaka Hutchings, Soweto Kinch, Alabaster DePlume, Coby Sey, Marysia Osu and more). It is a deeply personal and poetic recording and showcases the full uncompromising range of Momoko’s vison, presented in her own voice.

Momoko was produced by Momoko Gill, recorded at Total Refreshment

Centre, mixed by Matthew Herbert and mastered by Alex Gordon at Abbey Road Studios.

Hania Rani announces her new album, Ghosts, bringing her songwriting and beautiful vocals to the fore and featuring special guests Patrick Watson, Ólafur Arnalds and Duncan Bellamy (Portico Quartet). Ghosts is the sound of an ever-evolving artist and, just as the album’s title suggests she passes repeatedly and gracefully between musical worlds: as composer, singer, songwriter, and producer. This album builds on Rani’s earlier successes Esja and Home with an expanded yet still minimal setup of piano, keyboards, synths (most importantly her Prophet) and features more of her mysterious, bewitching voice. Its spirit is warm, beckoning one into an ambitious double album that unfolds at an exquisite pace, informed by her revelatory, exploratory live performances. Ghosts is also an album of collaborations as Rani is joined by Patrick Watson, who breathes unearthly life into the ethereal ‘Dancing with Ghosts’. ‘Whispering House’is written and recorded with her friend, Ólafur Arnalds and casts a peaceful, ineluctable spell; and Portico Quartet’s Duncan Bellamy contributes vital loops to ‘Don’t Break My Heart’ and ‘Thin Line’. Rani’s lyrics are partially inspired by a two-month residency in a small studio in Switzerland’s mountains, where Rani was working on the soundtrack On Giacometti for a documentary about the renowned Swiss artist. “Where I stayed was once an old sanatorium in an area which used to be very popular, but now there are huge abandoned hotels where the locals say ghosts live. I mean, it's kind of a local belief system – these ghosts even have names! – but once you're deep into nature or some abandoned place, your imagination starts working on a different level.” “The edge of life and death,” Rani summarises, “and what actually happens in between: this was what really interested me. Even singing the word ‘death’ was quite a shock. It’s such a weird word to say out loud, and people are afraid of it, which I found extremely interesting. Most of the songs probably still talk about love and things like that, but Ghosts is more me thinking about having to face some kind of end.”

On June 3rd Gondwana Records present ‘Next Time Could Be Your Last Time’ – the debut album by Forgiveness, AKA Jack Wyllie, JQ and Richard Pike. Described as “not really jazz, not really new age, not really ambient or electronica”, instead they welcome you into a synaesthesia-inducing technicolour fantasy, full of wondrous emotive beauty. This genesis began with the sharing of music, burgeoning friendships, and the mutually-inspirational benefit of the collective power of a group dynamic, with each spurring the next on to heighten their already expansive skills. Intertwining the acoustic, electric and digital, utilising instruments and tools from across the decades, their synthesized Shangri La is a place where craftsmanship meets musicianship, even including sections notated on sheet music. The mood whilst recording, however, was one of loose freedom and enjoyment, with parts displaying a light-hearted playfulness. A world where shiny electronics meet flute and sax motifs, subverting them into something new. Jack Wyllie is best known for his work with Portico Quartet, Paradise Cinema and Szun Waves as well as collaborations with artists such as Luke Abbott, Adrian Corker and Charles Hayward. Whilst JQ has released on Boxed and Lo Recordings, with his music also remixed by Loraine James, Sun Araw and Foodman. Richard Pike has had multiple records on Warp as a member of PVT, collaborated with Modeselektor and Ital Tek, recorded under his alter-ego Deep Learning, and founded the tape label Salmon Universe, all whilst composing scores for TV drama. Wide-ranging influences on the LP include 70s era ECM and Miles Davis, Spencer Clark/Star Searchers, Ansel Adams, Steve Reich, H Takahashi, Don Slepian, The Blue Nile, Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit Of Eden’, Michael Gordon’s ‘Rushes for 8 Bassoons’, Sir Simon Rattle’s documentary ‘Leaving Home’, Horoshi Yoshimura, Ulla Strauss and Disasterpeace, plus new developments in vaporwave and software experimental. Hitting the centre at the ven diagram of these interests, the record converges the trio’s individual sound worlds into something singular. Primarily purveying a sense of endorphin-flushed tranquillity, they build synthetic, bucolic, lysergic landscapes, which although imbued with processed plasticity also contain multi-stranded depths of textural field.

XKatedral Anthology I is the first in a series of archival releases dedicated to presenting music by XKatedral affiliated composers working within the realm of slowly evolving harmonic and timbral music. This double-vinyl set contains an array of pieces dating from 2010 - 2020. Four of the works included here were originally released on cassette early on in the label's history, while the two remaining pieces are presented by the label for the first time.

A major work in François Bayle’s repertoire, Jeîta ou murmure des eaux provides a journey and an immersion into a world of unleashed energies, with the Jeîta cave serving both as a backdrop and a particle accelerator. Here, the cave indeed stands for the concrete source of the composer’s inspiration as much as the mind space where metamorphoses occur. By combining such figurative spaces and immaterial sound projections, François Bayle evokes another subject, an inhabitant of the multiple and symbolic cave: the listening subject, who always reveals himself, implicitly, at the heart of François Bayle’s musical concerns and the path he has always defended: the acousmatic approach. — Œuvre majeure du répertoire de François Bayle, Jeîta ou murmure des eaux propose un voyage et une plongée dans un monde d’énergies libérées, et dont la grotte de Jeîta sert à la fois d’écrin et d’accélérateur de particules. La grotte, ici, est en effet à la fois la source concrète où le compositeur puise son inspiration mais également l’espace mental par lesquelles les métamorphoses adviennent. En mêlant ainsi des espaces figuraux et des projections sonores immatérielles, François Bayle convoque un autre sujet, un habitant de la grotte multiple et symbolique : le sujet écoutant qui se révèle toujours, en filigrane, au centre des enjeux musicaux de François Bayle et de la démarche qu’il a toujours défendue : l’approche acousmatique. François J. Bonnet, Paris, 2025

One of the most innovative and ambitious albums ever made, Genioh Yamashirogumi’s Ecophony Rinne is a sonic masterpiece featuring over 200 musicians that expanded the limits of what music and sound could do.

Before Akira there was Ecophony Rinne. Originally released in 1986, Ecophony Rinne is a four-part symphony of “ecological music” by Geinoh Yamashirogumi that married ancient tradition with technological innovation, and changed the way we listen to music in the process.

Half-speed mastered at Abbey Road by Miles Showell, Time Capsule’s high-tech analogue reissue is the first to reproduce composer Ōhashi’s ground-breaking “Hypersonic Effect” theory on vinyl, cutting frequencies beyond the realm of human hearing into wax to capture the full spectrum emotional impact of this extraordinary work.

Founded by genius polymath Tsutomu Ōhashi aka Shoji Yamashiro, Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a shapeshifting collective of over a hundred members from across disciplines. Rejecting professional musicianship, Ōhashi cultivated an ethos where neuroscientists, psychologists, doctors, journalists, engineers and students could critique society through artistic expression and pursue their research in ethnomusicological performances that spanned global traditions, Eastern spirituality and Western classical form.

Ecophony Rinne represents the pinnacle of this vision - an expansive orchestral suite made with over 200 musicians that channeled Ōhashi’s thinking about mankind’s relationship with nature, and fundamental questions of life, death and rebirth.

Here pipe organ synths made from sampled Tibetan horns sit alongside field recordings from Central African forests, Buddhist mantras circle dummy head microphones, Javanese Jegog percussion ensembles pulse like verdant ecosystems, and the acoustics of temples, caves and landscapes are conveyed in the mix. Weaving together culture, nature and technology, it is a record that vibrates with the polyphony of life on Earth.

But Ecophony Rinne was not only musically innovative. Noticing the difference between vinyl and CD versions of the album where digital reproduction limited the sound, Ōhashi developed a theory of “Hypersonic Effect”, determining that ultra-high frequencies above 20khz can impact human perception even if they are inaudible. At once a physical and a psychological experience, to listen to Ecophony Rinne is to feel music differently.

The rest is history. After its release, Ōhashi was approached by director Katsuhiro Ōtomo to produce the soundtrack for Akira, the work for which Geinoh Yamashirogumi is best known. Emerging from the shadows at last, Ecophony Rinne was its transcendental blueprint, reissued in its most complete hypersonic form on vinyl for the first time.

Rather than describe nature, Ecophony Rinne embodied it. Rather than reflect culture, Ecophony Rinne defined it. Rather than explore technology, Ecophony Rinne changed it. As a work of art, it is more relevant than ever. You won’t have heard anything like it.

There’s no mistaking the sultry lilt of Eliana Glass—alternating between an offbeat, searching quality and her poignant, awe-inspiring range. Her piano playing also possesses this stirring push and pull between the otherworldly and painfully human—each melody its own unique, aching realm. Glass’ sparse, meditative music often captures, in her words, the “condensation of everyday life,” an image that suits the bittersweet, ephemeral, and abstract nature of her work. Glass’ debut album, E, arrives via Shelter Press, and not only is it a tender portrait of her lifelong relationship with the piano, it’s also a distillation of entire lifetimes into song.

The Australia-born, Seattle-bred, and New York-based singer-songwriter and pianist learned to sing and play piano by ear as a child. Glass took an immediate liking to her parents’ piano, frequently hiding underneath it and letting her imagination run wild. “I felt protected under the wooden beams, and I remember looking up at the legs, wires, and foot pedals and seeing the instrument in a new way—everything suddenly everted,” Glass recalls. “I like to think about E as recalling this memory in sound.”

Glass spent years learning jazz standards, and she also learned to sing in Portuguese after falling in love with Brazilian music. Glass studied jazz voice at The New School under teachers Andrew Cyrille, Ben Street, Jay Clayton, and Kris Davis, and she began singing in piano/bass/drums quartets around New York City. In the latter half of her studies, she started writing her own songs inspired by boundary-pushing artists like Ornette Coleman, Asha Puthli, and Jeanne Lee. During the height of the pandemic, she lived with her brother Costa (who now records as ifiwereme) and felt drawn to the piano again, and they wrote songs together for the first time. Then, over a four-year span, Glass teamed up with Public Records co-founder and producer Francis Harris (Frank & Tony, Adultnapper) and engineer Bill Skibbe (Shellac, Jack White) to record what became E in various studios in Nashville, Brooklyn, Memphis, and Benton Harbor, Michigan.

Glass’ experimental, improvisational works evoke the sensual minimalism of Annette Peacock, the joyful mysteriousness of Carla Bley, and the wistful intimacy of Sibylle Baier. Her reverence for leftfield jazz and free improv greats is evident, but it’s always filtered through her signature nascent, naturalistic sound. “Dreams” is a majestic take on Peacock’s spine-tingling 1971 track of the same name, “Sing Me Softly the Blues” is a minimal, arresting reimagination of Bley’s jazz standard with lyrics adapted by Norwegian vocalist Karin Krog, and “Emahoy” is a languorous tribute to Ethiopian pianist, composer, and nun Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou and her 2006 compilation Éthiopiques. Glass’ music rests on a tactile, mercurial sound and her vocal brawn and versatility. E’s slippery stabs of double bass and drums tickle the ear canal and accentuate the percussiveness of her distinctive low voice, which blends sonorous, androgynous poise with fluttering delicacy.

E also has an enigmatic electronic bent that heightens the blurry emotions of Glass’ songwriting. From background hiss and windy vocals to kaleidoscopic synths, these subtle, tasteful adornments often came from specialized analog equipment: a 1960s underground echo chamber, a Cooper Time Cube (essentially, the hardware equivalent of processing audio through a garden hose), and a 1940s AEA ribbon microphone. But that doesn’t mean E sounds dated—Glass’ songs bloom with a forward-thinking spirit and ultimately function as vehicles for her heady emotions and fragmented memories and dreams.

For E, Glass challenged herself to channel full lifetimes within each track. Astonishingly, the seductive opening song “All My Life” manages this feat with just its three-word title. Songs like this one, the breathy ballad “Shrine,” and the spare, folky “On the Way Down” brood over past lives and reflect on memories as if disembodied and viewed from above. From missed connections to retired nicknames (“Good Friends Call Me E”), there’s a pervasive sense of disintegration and a fear of lost time. Other tracks like solo piano-and-voice numbers “Flood” and “Solid Stone” engage in more elusive storytelling, marked by brutal imagery and timeless characters. Then there’s “Human Dust,” a tranquil, rhythm-driven rendition of conceptual artist Agnes Denes’ 1969 text—a quite literal summary of a life.

Eliana Glass has come a long way since daydreaming beneath a towering keyboard. Glass’ peculiar vocal alchemy and vivid piano saunters are masterful and wholly her own, and her forthcoming debut full-length is a gift of resonant beauty and rewarding ambiguity. She now performs around New York City with bandmates Walter Stinson (bass) and Mike Gebhart (drums), in addition to solo shows perched in front of a 1979 Moog Opus organ. Also an accomplished visual artist in her own right, Glass is firmly in control of her inspired visions, even if E is spiritually adrift—though that’s kind of the point. As a musician and an improviser, Glass is enamored by and an adept wielder of the search—for meaning, for sounds, for newness, for connection. And just like Krog crooned on “Sing Me Softly the Blues” in 1975: “Life’s so thrilling / if you search.” 

Underneath his mysterious metal mask, MF DOOM hides the cachet underground legends are made of. After his first group KMD’s sophomore album Black Bastards was shelved by Elektra in 1994, and his blood brother Subroc — one half of the sibling rap duo — passed away, surviving frontman Zev Love X slowly mutated into the supervillain MC known as MF DOOM, and the rap world is better for it.The 1999 release of Operation: Doomsday marked MF DOOM’s official debut, reintroducing a mysterious figure who would soon become one of underground rap’s greatest voices. Within its 19 tracks, Operation: Doomsday reveals the confluence of DOOM’s tragic past, personal interests and daring creativity. His clever rhymes and remarkable schemes stood out against the landscape, and every sound he touched — from cartoon theme songs, to ‘80s soul, to rap classics and more — got reinterpreted into something brand new and surreal.Decades later, MF DOOM is still celebrated for all facets of his work and influence. In the face of tragedy, DOOM re-infiltrated the rap game on his own terms, and crafted an instant cult classic. Operation: Doomsday stands as a testament to the power of betting on yourself against all odds.

There is a certain solace to be found in minimal music—a contemplative joy that emerges through sustained repetition and subtle variation. Solo Three, the slyly absorbing new album from Michigan-based composer and multi-instrumentalist Erik Hall, embodies that hypnotic charge while boldly reimagining a distinct selection of contemporary classical works.

Hall’s affinity for minimalism began decades ago, when as a jazz-studies drummer at the University of Michigan he first encountered Steve Reich’s Music for 18 Musicians. The piece altered his trajectory completely. Years later, amid a creative lull, he revisited that formative work by attempting a solo reconstruction. Working alone in his home studio, Hall painstakingly recreated Reich’s intricate, interlocking architecture—supplanting the piece’s orchestral palette with his own keyboards, guitars, and synths—and performing every part himself without loops, programming, or sequencers.

That recording, released on Western Vinyl in 2020, arrived during the fraught early months of lockdown and resonated deeply with listeners. Pitchfork praised it for making “a minimalist standard freshly thrilling to revisit,” and it won the 2021 Libera Award for Best Classical Record. Even Reich himself wrote to congratulate Hall, saying he had “reinvented the piece.”

Heartened, Hall next turned to Simeon ten Holt’s Canto Ostinato, a sprawling work of Dutch minimalism built on repetition and euphoric harmony. His 2023 interpretation was hailed by Bandcamp Daily as “mesmerizing as patterns emerge, coalesce, and retreat,” and the New York Times highlighted Hall in a feature on ten Holt’s growing influence. The project led to a years-long collaboration with New York’s Metropolis Ensemble and Sandbox Percussion, confirming Hall’s place as an inventive new voice bridging classical and contemporary practice.

With Solo Three, Hall brings this trilogy to a sweeping close. Instead of focusing on a single composition, he weaves together multiple works by several visionary composers: Glenn Branca, Charlemagne Palestine, Laurie Spiegel, and a return to Steve Reich. The result is a rich, varied homage to American minimalism—at once reverent and exploratory. Branca’s “The Temple of Venus Pt. 1” unfolds in oscillating organ and prepared piano; Palestine’s “Strumming Music” becomes a meditative blur of felted piano and guitar; Spiegel’s “A Folk Study” is recast with acoustic warmth in lieu of electronics; and Reich’s “Music for a Large Ensemble” closes the album with a 16-minute, kaleidoscopic rush of overlapping melodies and jubilant rhythmic patterns.

True to his method, Hall performs and records every part himself, layering instruments one by one like sonic bricks. The approach is deeply human and quietly defiant in an age of faceless automation. “It’s just so much more compelling to actually play every note,” Hall says. “Those micro-differences between takes create a sort of living, breathing magic.”

That living, breathing magic fills every corner of Solo Three. It’s both a reverent ode to the composers who shaped Hall’s musical identity and a vivid reminder that minimalism’s hypnotic beauty—its patience, precision, and quiet emotional power—still speaks urgently to the present moment.

- Zach Schonfeld

Félicia Atkinson’s Ni envers ni endroit que cette roche brûlante (Pour Georgia O’Keeffe) is approached as a meditation, not as meditative music, but as a reflection on the art of creation: how to inhabit one’s creation, how to convey it, domesticate it and live with it. Drawing inspiration from the artist Georgia O’ Keeffe, both in her work as a painter and in the houses in which she lived in New Mexico, and even in the landscapes that surround them, Félicia Atkinson has composed a piece that evokes and celebrates, in a poetic and holistic way, the mystery of art, the somnambulic oscillation that accompanies the act of creating. Blending fragmentary voices, islands of piano, electronic textures and patterns, and field recordings, Félicia Atkinson’s music is sincere and inspired, a meditation, then, but also a lesson we sometimes forget: being an artist is not an activity, even less a profession, it’s a singular way of approaching the world and, in so doing, densifying it. « Ni envers ni endroit que cette roche brûlante (Pour Georgia O’Keeffe) », de Félicia Atkinson, s’aborde comme une méditation, non pas comme une musique méditative, mais bien comme une réflexion autour de l’art de créer ; comment habiter sa création, comment la porter, la domestiquer et vivre avec. En puisant son inspiration chez l’artiste Georgia O’ Keeffe, à la fois dans son travail de peintre, mais également dans les maisons dans lesquelles elle a vécu, au Nouveau-Mexique, ou même dans les paysages qui les environnent, Félicia Atkinson compose ici une pièce qui évoque et célèbre, de manière poétique et holistique, le mystère de l’art, le balancement somnambulique qui accompagne l’acte de créer. Mêlant voix fragmentaire, îlots de piano, textures et trames électroniques ou encore enregistrements de terrain, la musique que nous offre Félicia Atkinson est une musique sincère et inspirée, une méditation, donc, mais aussi une leçon qu’on oublie parfois : être artiste, ce n’est pas une activité, encore moins une profession, c’est une façon singulière d’aborder le monde et, par là même, de le densifier. — Richard Chartier’s music takes up residence at the frontiers of the audible, on the edge where sound diffracts into an inter-dimensionality where sounds, space, listening and silence recombine in an arborescence of becomings that present themselves to us and then disappear. The space-time in which Richard Chartier’s music unfolds is a stretched space-time, barely emerging in the world of sound. The delicacy, precision and accuracy of the composition Recurrence.Expansion lies precisely in this dialogue between a shape that is exposed and developed in an inspired and masterful way, and the sonic biotope in which this shape develops. It is from such an encounter that the singularity of Richard Chartier’s music emerges, music of attentive listening, but also sensitive, inhabited music, a music of discreet metamorphosis. La musique de Richard Chartier se loge aux frontières de l’audible, dans cette lisière où le son se diffracte dans une inter-dimensionalité où les sons, l’espace sonores, l’écoute et le silence se recombinent en une arborescence de devenirs qui se présentent à nous et disparaissent. L’espace-temps dans lequel se déploie la musique de Richard Chartier est un espace-temps étiré, affleurant à peine dans le monde sonore. La délicatesse, la précision et la justesse de la composition Recurrence.Expansion réside précisément dans ce dialogue entre une forme exposée, déclinée, de manière inspirée et maitrisée, et le biotope sonore dans lequel cette forme se développe. C’est d’une telle rencontre qu’émerge la singularité de la musique de Richard Chartier, musique d’écoute attentive, mais également musique sensible, habitée, une musique des métamorphoses discrètes. —Francois J. Bonnet, Paris, March 2023

MINOS CIRCUIT Minos Circuit is the resonance of a double exploration, that of an instrument, the bassoon - an instrument dear to Dafne Vicente-Sandoval - and that of a listening, of a gaze, almost. The first exploration deconstructs the instrument, tearing it apart, reducing it to an archipelago of sound bodies stimulated by an electro-acoustic device that generates feedback and infiltrates each part of the bassoon, in order to carry out a methodical, systematic examination. The second exploration is the inner one of attention and listening, the one that measures, at each moment, the necessity or not of an intervention in the very act of the musical work, of this subtle balance that is established between composition and observation, between action and contemplation. Minos Circuit est la mise en résonance d’une exploration double, celle d’un instrument, le basson — instrument cher à Dafne Vicente-Sandoval — et celle d’une écoute, d’un regard, presque. La première exploration déconstruit l’instrument, le met en pièce, le réduisant en un archipel de corps sonores stimulés par un dispositif électroacoustique générateurs de larsens qui vont s’infiltrer dans chacune des parties du basson, pour en faire l’examen méthodique, systématique. La seconde exploration, c’est celle, intérieure, de l’attention et de l’écoute, celle qui mesure, à chaque instant, la nécessité ou non d’une intervention dans l’agir même de l’œuvre, de cette bascule subtile qui s’établit entre composition et observation, entre action et contemplation. — TRANSFIGURATION 4 Both a “meditation on musical ruins” and “a study of the material of Richard Strauss’s Metamorfosen”, Transfiguration 4 works on the musical fragment as an expressive and poetic possibility that can be deployed below or beyond simple musical syntax, a syntax that is still too often equated with music itself. What Lars Petter Hagen highlights in this remarkable work is that the power of music lies at its fringes, that is, at the edge of its own disappearance. Transfiguration 4 floats in a particularly moving way in these troubled lands, where nothing is ever resolved, and where everything, however, is suspended, like a stream of blurred memories that memory would summon to form an intuition. A musical intuition. A la fois « méditation sur les ruines musicales » et « étude du matériau de Metamorfosen de Richard Strauss », Transfiguration 4 travaille le fragment musical comme possibilité expressive, poétique, pouvant se déployer en-deçà ou au-delà de la simple syntaxe musicale, syntaxe encore trop souvent assimilée à la musique même. Ce que met en lumière Lars Petter Hagen dans cette œuvre remarquable, c’est que la puissance de la musique se situe à ses franges, c’est-à-dire aux lisières de sa propre disparition. Transfiguration 4 flotte de manière particulièrement émouvante dans ces contrées troubles, où rien jamais ne se résout, et où tout, pourtant, se suspend, comme un flux de souvenirs flous que la mémoire convoquerait pour former une intuition. Une intuition musicale.

Forma by Lucy Railton, is a work that burrows deep inside. It disorientates and teases, without malice. Its beauty lies in gentle projections, which, though subtle, leave deep impressions, like the wings of a nocturnal moth reflecting dark light. Its path, too, is unpredictable, but such disorientation is not a reflection of chaos. Instead, a mysterious intention appears through an imperious unfolding - its logic escapes us, but nevertheless captivates us. It is the story of a becoming of forms, as well as of their fading away and their appearance as a disappearance . Metabolist Meter (Foster, Cottin, Caetani and a Fly), by Max Eilbacher is a teeming piece, a matrix where textures and structures merge together, where the polyrhythmic instances become timbre, where the formal abstraction of the harmonic volutes coagulates around a vibrating form that is actualized in the dramatic reality of a dying fly. And this formal mastery is not disembodied in Max Eilbacher’s work and the kaleidoscopic forms of the sound spectra that he has deployed know how to resonate in the sensations and experiences of each one. These works, each with their own agenda, evolve with grace and inspiration in their exploration of vast sound worlds, and it is with great pride that we present them in the new collection. Released in association with Editions Mego. Coordination GRM: François Bonnet, Jules Négrier 
Executive Production: Peter Rehberg

Where Ben Vida’s music has previously explored the sound of text at the outer register of electronic composition, here, in collaboration with the Yarn/Wire quartet and the vocalist Nina Dante, the voice and the words it works to inhabit are placed back at the time-scale of a song. There is a familiarity to this music’s combination of restrained melody and heightened atmosphere. It feels, softly, like it’s made by a band: piano, percussion, voice. A composition kept aloft and even by its four stewards through a simultaneity of effort. The pace, across five pieces, hurries and relaxes but never outruns or distends language. You could find a story in the words being sung, if that’s what you need. But there are unfamiliar dimensions too. So many threads, so many timelines. A story or a thousand, or a litany of scraps: language complete but raw, language that can or cannot be translated. Singers fused at the breath. Oppositions or dualities—a question and an answer, two sides of a conflict, the sense of being here or over there—are drawn together into a single sentiment, plural with feeling. Voices negotiating in unison how to articulate a stance. Musical cues doling out tension as needed. The five pieces that make up The beat my head hit were developed with Yarn/Wire over the last four years, with roots in Vida’s 2018 performance for four voices and electronics “And So Now” at BAM in Brooklyn. The Yarn/Wire ensemble, founded in 2005, has been collaborating with a broad range of experimental composers and sound artists since its inception: most recently, they have performed work by the likes of Sarah Hennies, Annea Lockwood, Catherine Lamb, and Alvin Lucier. Vida, meanwhile, has maintained a practice as both a musician and a visual artist, which has included drone-leaning solo work for electronics as well as improvisatory collaborations with musicians including Martina Rosenfeld and Lea Bertucci. Working with Yarn/Wire, for Vida, was something like joining a band. Following a few early live performances, the material was worked through in the studio across many permutations, a process during which Vida, Dante, Russell Greenberg, Laura Barger created what Vida calls “a meta-voice out of the blending of our four voices.” Sustained presence—language bringing a group to the place of breathing in unison—becomes the backbone of the piece. That presence is an engine, but it's still full of negative spaces and exhales. It's thrilling, for example, to find oneself disarmed by the subtle harmonies introduced by the inevitable but infinitesimal distance between Vida and Dante’s voices. Or the introduction of subterranean bass on “Drawn Evening”: breath trapped? When ambient stillness steps in out of nowhere to replace fast talk on the title track, the evacuation of language is some other form of breath, too. The beat my head hit finds not just truth or reality in what happens at the periphery, but a kind of peace.

A discreet but essential figure in the field of musical creation, Horacio Vaggione has been crafting an ambitious, precise and highly significant body of work for over the last fifty years, coupled with a demanding research activity. This disc offers four purely electroacoustic pieces which illustrate, each in their own way, this singular and fascinating grammar developed by Horacio Vaggione, a complex but fertile grammar which establishes a very special relationship between structure and texture, between matter and formula, to create a fascinating musical space, made up of polyphonies and metamorphoses.

In the 1970s, Robert Cahen turned to the burgeoning field of video art, where he became a pioneering artist. He was originally trained in musique concrète, his creative background, and joined the Groupe de Recherches Musicales in 1972. The pieces on this record were composed in the GRM studios between 1971 and 1974. They testify to a lively inspiration and imagination combined with a precocious formal mastery that already carries the seeds of later developments, which the artist cleverly and inventively deployed in the field of visual arts.