MUSIC

Tulpa is the debut studio full-length LP by experimental vocalist and composer Charmaine Lee. Blending extended vocal techniques, feedback, electronics, and formal rigor, Lee constructs a world that is visceral, dreamlike, and ferociously precise. Drawing from Taoist and Tibetan cosmology, speculative fiction, and performance ritual, Tulpa meditates on embodiment, disembodiment, and sonic multiplicity. Produced by Randall Dunn, the record channels the surreal into stark, physical presence.

Unknown Mortal Orchestra present a limited 12" drawing from 70s and 80s Italian horror & Black Sabbath. "UMO’s 'CURSE' EP reflects these cursed times we find ourselves in. Taking inspiration from Italian horror films of the 1970s and 1980s, the six songs on the release are as cathartic a listen as the band has ever recorded. Featuring both abrasive, Black Sabbath inspired riffs on “BOYS WITH THE CHARACTERISTICS OF WOLVES” as well as the laid back, intricate guitar playing UMO is maybe most famous for on “DEATH COMES FROM THE SKY”, the CURSE EP is the perfect soundtrack to your next confrontation with the void."

Received an 8.1 rating from Pitchfork. Since its original release in 1977, RAGNAR GRIPPE's seminal debut album entitled Sand has been adorned with immense praise and influenced a myriad of ambient musicians and minimalist composers. Grippe’s unique approach of bonding post-modern classical composition into the tape techniques of musique concrète allowed him to be one of the leading experimental electronic musicians of the late 20th century.  Originally trained as a classical cellist, Grippe had relocated to Paris in the early 70’s to study at the famous Groupe de Recherches Musicales (more commonly known as GRM) founded by musique concrète pioneers Pierre Schaeffer, Pierre Henry and Jacques Poullin. Around the same time, Grippe had struck up a close friendship with French avant-garde minimalist Luc Ferrari. It was under Ferrari’s direction and guidance that the young Grippe started to build a shared experimental music studio, aptly named l’Atelier de la Libération Musicale (ALM), in which Ferrari shared his knowledge and instrumental supplies, thus forging Grippe’s implementation of harmonic tone within the confines of musique concrete.  After a brief stint of electronic music study at McGill University in Montreal, Grippe returned to Paris in 1976 to compose with Ferrari at the now fully-realized ALM studio. One of the visiting artists passing through the creative epicenter of the Cité Internationale des Arts during this time was the painter Viswanadhan Velu. Velu’s recent works consisted of various Sand paintings which were to be exhibited at the Galerie Shandar, the avant-garde art gallery and home to the Shandar record label which was the home to minimalist composers Terry Riley, La Monte Young, Cecil Taylor and Charlemagne Palestine.  Grippe was asked to compose a composition that was to be played during the Sand painting exhibition and was then to be released on the Shandar imprint in 1977. This release would be the first official album that would start Grippe’s career as a modern avant-garde composer and electronic musician. After a celebrated release, “Sand” has since been out-of-print on its original vinyl format for four decades and original copies fetch high prices amongst minimalist listeners and collectors.

Kraftwerk 2 is the second studio album by German electronic band Kraftwerk, entirely written and performed by founding Kraftwerk members Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in late 1971 and released in January 1972. Perhaps the least characteristic album of their output, it features no synthesizers, the instrumentation being largely electric guitar, bass guitar, flute and violin. On the second side, the more rock-oriented origins of the group still cling on, mostly without any percussion whatsoever.

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

Keroxen’s Canary Isle missives hail native guitarist Paul Pèrrim’s lyrical fingerpicking style, rent with FX in captivating, hallucinatory geometries to recall a host of greats from Leo Kottke and Steffen Basho-Junghans to Sir Richard Bishop

“Itara is the debut solo album by Paul Pèrrim—guitarist, composer, and anthropologist—featuring a set of guitar-driven compositions that blend hallucinatory acid folk, abstract blues, mutant Eastern jazz, surreal ambient, and free improvisation into a vivid and distinctive sonic tapestry.

With a background in ethnomusicology and a degree in Music Education, Pèrrim’s work bridges popular and experimental music. He contrasts the acoustic guitar’s austerity with the expansive possibilities of the electric guitar, drawing from late ’60s folk traditions, contemporary fingerstyle, sound collage, drone, psychedelia, and improvisation.

A key figure in the Canary Islands’ experimental scene, he released two albums in the 2010s under The Transistor Arkestra, a Catalan collective merging free jazz and psychedelia. As Transistor Eye, his solo project, he merges analog electronics with guitar, using vintage synths and effects.

In 2022, Pèrrim gained wider recognition through his appearance on Manos Ocultas (Philatelia Records) and the international tribute Solstice: A Tribute to Steffen Basho-Junghans (Obsolete Recordings). That same year, he founded GUITARRACO, a contemporary guitar festival in Tarragona, where he has shared the stage with Joseba Irazoki, Buck Curran, and Raphael Roginski. Recorded and produced by Pèrrim, the album features liner notes by critic Bill Meyer, who writes:

“While it’s common to call music cinematic these days, Pèrrim goes split-screen. One might say he composes econo, jamming scenes and sounds to psychedelic effect. But economy does not equate with poverty. Pèrrim draws upon a rich bank of musical notions, all of which he makes his own through the alchemy of recombination and transmutation.”

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

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

Now on the cusp of his third solo album, Norwegian saxophonist Bendik Giske knows himself well. With his new, self-titled record, he is in his prime as an artist: confident in his voice and abilities, buoyed by critical acclaim from all corners – including two Norwegian Grammy nominations – and a surge in audiences everywhere. With the intriguing choice of Beatrice Dillon as album producer – clearly the British electronic musician is a fellow traveler in the practice of original aesthetic expression – her influence is immediate and keenly felt. Together, they strip away a layer of melodicism, honing in on pattern and rhythm to bring out a different dimension of his mesmerizing sound. While again working with single-take recordings, no overdubs, only saxophone and his body, gone is the reverberant space and mellifluous glamor. Giske finds the result akin to musical full-frontal nudity – every detail, every huff and puff audible, no obscuring, no aestheticizing. People may look away when it’s not as pretty, but what’s left feels more present and potent. Confrontational, it demands greater attention, but through its physicality – you can hear and feel his body in the music – it takes you to a flow state, somewhere between ecstasy, elation, and spiritual awakening. Intensely human, there’s stark tension there, too – there always will be when fighting for existence and validity – elegantly illustrated by Florian Hetz’s striking photographs of the artist on the covers of the release. In part, Giske is inspired by Judith Halberstam’s The Queer Art of Failure. As much as he has benefitted from his training and participation in the environment of the jazz conservatory, his path took him far outside its confines. Working these new explorations with his instrument has been a ten-year process of peeling away what he knew ultimately didn’t fit, finding the sonic territory of his lived experience. What emerged were systems that allowed for studies of tempo and proportion, a starting point for an immersive improvisatory approach, mapping years of musical probing. It’s the sound of social emancipation through the meditative pulse and velocity of circular breathing and the dance of the body, especially fingers, tongue, and lips. Giske knows that music can be a powerful tool in bringing people together to find ideas, and the longevity of his project is at its utmost a call for care, togetherness, storytelling, and the ability to gather for a shared cause. In all earnestness, Bendik Giske is a proposal for truthfulness and existence, a space for one to express their most profound self.

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

‘i,i’ is Bon Iver’s most expansive, joyful and generous album to date. If 'For Emma, Forever Ago’ was the crisp, heart-strung isolation of a northern Winter; ‘Bon Iver’ the rise and whirr of burgeoning Spring; and '22, A Million', a blistering, "crazy energy" Summer record, ‘i,i’ completes the cycle: a fall record; Autumn-colored, ruminative, steeped. The autumn of Bon Iver is a celebration of self acceptance and gratitude, bolstered by community and delivering the bounty of an infinite American music.The sales and accolades are well-known - multiple Gold albums, multiple Grammys, chart-topping collaborations and festival headlines. But even more significantly, with each release Bon Iver quietly shifts the state of modern music. From the boundaries of folk, to the rules of autotune, to production work for others, Bon Iver’s fingerprint finds its way across the mainstream every time. Vernon has always been a master collaborator, and on ‘i,i’ that desire becomes maximal, with guests ranging from Moses Sumney and Bruce Hornsby to Wye Oak’s Jenn Wasner and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. Here, the music - and band, and themes, and creative space - are bigger than ever.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce For McCoy, a new work by Eiko Ishibashi dedicated to the widely loved character of Jack McCoy, portrayed by Sam Waterston in Law & Order. Following on from Hyakki Yagyō (BT064), For McCoy finds Ishibashi further exploring the unique space she has carved out in recent years, bringing together musique concrète techniques, ECM-inspired jazz, lush layers of synths and hints of pop into immersive and affecting structures crafted in her home studio, aided by a group of close collaborators. Beginning with overlapping layers of descending flute lines, the expansive ‘I Can Feel Guilty About Anything’ (whose two parts stretch out over more than thirty minutes) unfolds with a free-associative logic, embracing dreamlike transitions and unexpected cinematic cuts. As a hovering cloud of synthetic tones and multi-tracked voices fans out from the spare opening moments, Joe Talia’s skittering cymbals settle into a gently propulsive groove, soon joined by melodic fragments performed by Daisuke Fujiwara on multi-tracked saxophone. As the drums cede to field recordings and ominous synth figures, the uncommon meeting of saxophone and electroacoustic techniques call to mind the more spacious moments of Michel Redolfi and André Jaume’s Synclavier-propelled oddity Hardscore or the early work of Gilbert Artman’s Urban Sax. As the piece continues on the LP’s second side, distant dialogue rumbles beneath a surface of processed flutes, blurring into a cavernously reverberant backdrop for stark ascending lines performed by MIO.O on violin. Eventually, the piece settles into a gorgeous passage of abstracted dream pop, where Ishibashi’s multitracked vocal harmonies glide atop synth chords, errant pings and snatches of outdoor sound. Fragments of melodic material reappear throughout the spacious opening piece, finally stepping to the forefront on the closing track, ‘Ask Me How I Sleep at Night’. Here, over a shuffling groove supplied by Jim O’Rourke on double bass and Tatsuhisa Yamamoto on drums, layers of flutes, saxophones and guitars sound out melodies whose combination of twisting irregularity and soulful immediacy calls up prime Keith Jarrett, while their closely voiced harmonies suggest Kenny Wheeler or even Wayne Shorter’s Atlantis. In a classical gesture of closure, the web of melodic lines eventually leads back to the descending flute figures with which the record began. Presented in an immersive, impeccably detailed mix by Jim O’Rourke and arriving in a sleeve featuring Ishibashi’s beautiful drawings of Jack McCoy, For McCoy is an essential release for anyone following the enchanted and unique path being forged by Eiko Ishibashi.

For the exhibition “Flowers in 20th and 21st Century Art“, Eiko Ishibashi and Jim O‘Rourke had created the installation ”Lifetime of a Flower“ in which they set parameters but allowed the process itself to grow uncontrollably. Literally: in the garden of their Japanese house, they planted seeds and filmed the plant growing and thriving throughout the duration of the exhibition. Visitors were able to watch the stream in real time - and they heard a composition in which Ishibashi and O‘Rourke reflected the organic process in sound. The eponymous composition now available on LP, is an enigmatic and sophisticated layering of sounds, melodies and rhythms, noises from everyday life, all of which are repositories of associations, memories and expectations.

Black Truffle is thrilled to announce Spilla, the second album from Nantes-based Ensemble Nist-Nah, 48 minutes of music for Gamelan, drum kits, wood and metal percussion instruments, and plucked strings that will surely count as one of the most electrifying records you hear this year. Founded by the Australian drummer/percussionist Will Guthrie in 2019, continuing the explorations begun in solo form on Nist-Nah (Black Truffle, 2020), the ensemble (eight or nine core members with occasional guests) has been consistently active in the half-decade since: composing, rehearsing, recording and touring Europe (with a mass of equipment in tow) to great acclaim. Spilla tracks the continuing evolution of the project since the recording of their first album, Elders (Black Truffle, 2022). The two sides of this record document two different iterations of the group, and the members' compositional input has increased: each side contains one piece by a member other than Guthrie. It has become clearer than ever that Ensemble Nist-Nah is not an attempt at a European Gamelan ensemble but rather a hybrid percussion ensemble that uses instruments from a Javanese Gamelan alongside other percussion to perform original music informed by a variety of South East Asian music but also by everything from free jazz to contemporary hip-hop: while Nist-Nah and Elders both featured traditional Javanese pieces, on Spilla the only tune not generated by a member of the group is by Guthrie’s long-time musical hero and occasional collaborator Roscoe Mitchell.The two short pieces that open the record could almost be the two sides of a wild 7” selected to show off what the Ensemble can do. On opener ‘Gerak Maju’, intricately skittering open-snare patterns bounce over clanging metal, chiming bell-like tones and deep gong hits, adapting the rhythm-register connections heard in traditional Gamelan musics—where the lowest pitched sounds are heard least frequently—to a cut-up breakbeat straight off Feed Me Weird Things. ‘Strollabout’ then moves into an entirely different realm of meditative repeating patterns, performed entirely on Chinese, Javanese and Vietnamese gongs. The remaining seven pieces, ranging from three to twelve minutes, offer up a wealth of different percussive, compositional and arrangement possibilities. On ‘Ghostly Klang’, two drumkits mirror each other’s moves, bouncing hats and snares across the stereo field in a way that recalls On the Corner and the jittering hi hat patterns of trap, while slow moving melodies on the tuned instruments add a sense of majesty contrasted by scurrying details in resonant wood. The epic closing track presents a take on Roscoe Mitchell’s ‘Uncle’, performed by the Art Ensemble of Chicago on their classic Urban Bushmen live album. Where the Art Ensemble used Mitchell’s dirge-like melody as a jumping off point for virtuosic improvisational flights, Ensemble Nist-Nah rethink the piece as a near-static dialogue between the monumental, slow-moving sequence of unison tuned percussion notes and a textural cloud that grows in richness and intensity from whispering cymbal rolls into a mass of gong overtones and bowed metal.Beautifully recorded and mixed, Spilla arrives in a sleeve decorated with core member Charles Dubois’ drawings of cymbals and gongs. Against the backdrop of a wider musical landscape dominated by over-produced electronic slop and bland harmonic wallpaper, Ensemble Nist-Nah stands out as a reminder, vital and unpretentious, of the joys and possibilities of human beings playing instruments together.

Black Truffle is pleased to announce the first LP documenting master Khaen player Sombat Simla, the label’s first collaboration with Japanese sound artist, field recordist, and researcher Yasuhiro Morinaga. Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’. Aided by a group of Thai friends, in 2018 Morinaga travelled to the Maha Sarakham province in the Isan region, arranging to meet Simla in a remote spot surrounded by rice fields. Then and there, Morinaga recorded the solo performances heard on the LP’s first side. At Morinaga’s request, Simla began with a rendition of the train song ‘Lot Fay Tay Lang’. Beginning with long tones that seem to mimic a train horn, the performance soon moves into a rapid chugging rhythm, interrupted at points by vocal exclamations and the remarkable timbre Simla produces by singing through the khene. To listeners unfamiliar with Thai music, the pentatonic scales and rhythmic chug of many of the pieces can have surprising echoes of the rawest American blues. The range of Simla’s performance is astonishing, moving from compulsive rhythmic workouts on single chords and rapid-fire runs of single notes to gentle sing-song melodies, and using a fascinating array of techniques, including a rapid tremolo that sometimes sounds almost electronic. Later the same day, Morinaga followed Simla to a cattle shed where he met percussionist Mali Moodsansee to play some molam (folk songs found in Isan and neighbouring Laos), with Pattardon Ekchatree joining in on cymbal. At times, these molam songs have a wistful, romantic character quite different from the solo pieces. Backed up by the propulsive hand drums, Simla again dazzles with his melodic fluidity, rhythmic drive, and wild displays of unorthodox technique. As Morinaga writes, ‘It felt like they had been playing together so long that their breathing was perfectly in sync, and it was like listening to the precision of James Brown’s funk’. Accompanied by extensive liner notes by Morinaga detailing the day of recording, this is a stunning document of a master musician, seamlessly integrating tradition and innovation.

Pianeti Sintetici presents AI-37, entitled ‘Space Opera’. Conceived by Italian artist Davide Perrone, the Pianeti Sintetici (“Synthetic Planets”) project hypothesises the creation of future synthetic worlds as told through sound. Although split across two parts, the album is a singular organism that narrates a journey of boundless cosmic exploration. A sonic tapestry woven of intergalactic atmospheres, Space Opera’s imaginative sound design contributes to a richly spatial and haptic experience. Taking place in the dimly lit crevices of deepest space, a swirling pool of chemical abstractions and extraterrestrial transmissions spumes out from the darkness. Elements weave through broad washes of drones and scintillating textures, contrasting a sparse backdrop with dense and multilayered passages. Composed with the use of modular synthesisers and intense audio manipulations, ‘Space Opera’ comes to life as an entity that transports the listener on an immersive journey into the mysteries of alien worlds.

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

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

AI-34 arrives from Toki Fuko. Known previously for hiscontributions of deep and hypnotic techno, he presents onAstral Industries further development of his sound in thislong-form work. A two-part sojourn into vibrant organicsoundscapes and liminal sonic archaeologies, ‘SpiritMedicine’ is an ethereal yet human-centric venture into therealms of consciousness. Soft chimes mark the opening, making way for expansivepads and the emergence of a bristling jungle panorama.Solitary flute melodies call out to the valley, riding over abed of drones and earthy rhythms. Later juxtaposed withbroadcasted voice samples, the natural fabric ruptures withexposed layers spilling through, only to fade back into theether. Perhaps a memory, or the momentary glimpse of aparallel reality... Part Two adopts an equally atmospheric flavour,substituting fauna and flora for deconstructed, psycho-somatic mysteria. Overall darker in tone, broken beatscombine with avant garde adornments, underpinned by asubtle existential narrative. Wading through a wilderness ofeerie remembrances, their starkness is counterbalancedwith a peaceful return - a form of clarity and reconciliationthat the listener is offered in the final act

Berlin based sound artist Sa Pa delivers AI-33, titled ‘Atmospheric Fragments’. Originally intended as a soundtrack to accompany ten short experimental films as part of a physical exhibition in 2020 curated by Manon Bernard, featuring the videography of Antoine Ronin, Atmospheric Fragments was alternatively premiered online as a digital showroom - with its music performed and recorded both live and independently in 2021. Atmospheric Fragments was conceived as a collaborative audio-visual project, positing the viewer inside a sonic boom of introspective parenthesis and offering a place for internal dialogues under the circumstances of a largely unknown and rapidly changing modern world. Sa Pa’s work presents a fresh sonic reinterpretation of urban landscapes, skylines and modern environments, procuring from its source material a whole new kaleidoscopic world of its own. The record consists of two mixes - ‘Studio’ and ‘Live’ - which demonstrate a deep explorational study of our everyday surroundings, plunging the listener into a realm of heightened sense experience and microscopic detail. Where the ‘Studio’ mix embodies the precision and management of the studio workspace and is more ambient in nature, such intricacies are exchanged for a larger, livelier sound stage and alternative sonic material in the ‘Live’ mix. A nebulous ocean of shifting spaces and effervescent textures, Sa Pa augments and modulates field recordings into a fluid and ever-evolving narrative. Seen through a viewfinder of deep and immersive observation, new transients, momentary artefacts and poetry in motion begin to reveal itself. In a world caught in momentary stasis, Atmospheric Fragments is a forensic inquiry into our perceptive environment, with its augmented lens placing us on the cusp of the ungraspable.

AI-32 signals the arrival of ‘The Fifth World Recordings’, by Son of Chi (Hanyo van Oosterom) and long-term collaborator Arthur Flink. A tribute to the late Jon Hassell, who passed away in 2021, the album connects a deep running thread that goes back to the source of Chi project. Carrying on from where Hassell left off, the album takes inspiration and references from his Fourth World music concept and the ancient Hopi tradition of Native America. Illuminating the subliminal space of the arising Fifth World, Son of Chi pays respects to an inimitable force in contemporary music. Hassell’s ‘Dream Theory in Malaya’ forms a touchstone to Hanyo van Oosterom’s musical journey, which soundtracked long, deep and reflective periods living in the cave of the Kallikatsou (Patmos, Greece) back in the early 80s. This period resulted in Hanyo’s track as Chi - ‘Hopi’ - in 1984. Hanyo met Hassell shortly after in 1987 at his “The Surgeon in the Nightsky” concert in Rotterdam - it wasn’t until twenty years later that Hanyo invited him for two magic nights of “Instant Composing Sessions” with the Numoonlab Orchestra (with a host of other artists) at the LantarenVenster, the very same stage where Hassell had performed in 1987 and also where Chi did their first live performance. Dreamful, mysterious, prophetic, the Fifth World Recordings features the quiet yet elaborate sound of Chi awash with rich instrumentation, field recordings, and old stories by the firelight. Sketches were created with drones, loops, and soundscapes, with which Arthur Flink (also a member of the Numoonlab Orchestra) jammed on trumpet. Channelling Hassell’s idiosyncratic style, floating melodies and lyrical improvisations are parsed into the mix, where Hanyo has processed and manipulated the recordings, also referencing Hassell’s exotic scales and unique harmonics. Additionally, the wah Bamboo flute at the closing piece is an homage to the works of Chi co-founder Jacobus Derwort (1952-2019). For this piece Hanyo used his first bamboo flute he made at the cave of the Kallikatsou in 1984. Arthur Flink answers in counterpoint with the wah trumpet, almost like the intuitive communication of the nightbirds...

AI-31 sees the debut release from a new collaboration between Samuel van Dijk (Netherlands) and Rasmus Hedlund (Finland). Both key proponents to the scene in Northern Europe, they come together with mutual understanding and a common vision to sound. Dialog acts as a conversational exchange that sees the interplay of dynamic frequencies, evocative imagery and contemporary sonic art. Spread across four sides, the album as a whole exists as a kind of metaphysical process, eternally growing and contracting — change is the only constant, marked by a continuous progression of sound and space.

Emerging from a thick spiraling haze, is the debut album from Mystic AM – a new project from Rod Modell and label founder Ario Farahani. Conceived as an immersive fictional soundtrack piece, the release tells the story of a traveller, some centuries ago, and the rather intense metaphysical experience he unexpectedly stumbles into whilst taking shelter on a hot desert night at Zein-o-Din Caravanserai, near Yazd in Persia. Dusk envelopes the vast barren landscape as the protagonist enters the ribat, treasures of woven silks, ornaments and exotic spices glint under the flickering oil lamps, swirls of perfumed vapour dance mesmerisingly in the darkness. As the music unfolds the events of the passing day quickly melt away, and the unsuspecting traveller is plunged into an otherworldly dimension. Utilizing an extensive collection of old Iranian records as source material, the album is an intoxicating mise-en-scéne of whispering melodies, undulating rhythms, and atmospheric sound details. Ario began the process, extracting and editing samples from old records acquired during frequent trips to Iran over recent years – during which the mood and flavour of the project began to crystallize. Once handed over to Rod for further processing and arrangement, the album took its final shape – an endless tapestry of sights, sounds, and memories that fade mysteriously into the night’s reverie. Textures seep into one another in washes of colour, and hallmarks of classical Persian sounds filter through – the slow stroll of the daf, scintillating runs of santoor, and solitary lines drifting out of the kamancheh. Bridging the realms of the real and the imaginary, the collaboration signals the first contribution to Mystic AM’s enigmatic concept.

Following the arrival of their debut album ‘Alterazione’, LF58 (F.Scorcucchi and G.Tillieci) are back on Astral Industries with a special trove of outer-space explorations. Recorded one evening back in April 2019 as a live performance at Rome’s Brancaleone, the eponymously titled album offers a sprawling journey across the pan-dimensional ether. Spread across six sides of vinyl, the performance includes fully improvised material as well as choice selections from Simone Giudice, Jonas Kopp, Nuel, Birds of Prey, Rapoon, Steve Roach and Adham Shaikh. There is no doubt that the unique energy and circumstances of the evening contribute to a certain atmosphere present in the music. With seemingly no beginning nor end, the session emerges in suspension; an electric ocean of infinite deepness. Gleaming across the patter of galaxies on a wide black backdrop, its myriad vistas are projected like transitioning scenes of an unending story. The gentle tide brings with it specks of cosmic debris and mysterious signals. Soon, quiet drones are overtaken by ripples of solar flare and percussive clamours. Forms melt like liquid, a ball of amorphous plasma pulsating with ecstatic radiance. Prying open universe within universe, ‘Live at Brancaleone’ has a vastness that cannot really be contained.

Merzbow is a Japanese noise legend who advocates and practices ahimsa and continues to experiment with alternative expressions that go beyond the boundaries of "noise". This is a rare cassette album released in 2010 by Gift Tapes, a prestigious American drone label that also produces works by Panabrite and Pulse Emitter.