MUSIC

これぞ、追悼と再生の音響彫刻！故Mike Huckabyが遺したモジュラー・サウンドスケープを、cv313ことStephen Hitchellが深遠なダブ・エレクトロニクスとして再構築した作品が限定プレス。Mike Huckabyが愛用していたWaldorf Waveシンセサイザーに捧げられたトリビュート作品。ディープ・テクノの核心を静かに照らし出すような時間感覚と質感が息づいており、重力から解き放たれたような空間構築、漂うアナログの残響が美しいです！

〈Sonoris〉や〈Room40〉〈Erstwhile Records〉などからの作品でも高い人気を誇るフランス出身の電子音響作家eRikmが、〈Kora〉から放つ最新作。自宅録音によるアコースティック素材、重層的なベース、内面から漏れるような声。それらが私的で緩やかな時間感覚のなかに溶け合い、静かなる祈りの音響空間を形成していく様子が大変美しい傑作アンビエント盤！憧憬、満足、そして名づけえぬ「Soft Wish」を音にした淡く深いひととき。抽象と親密さの間を漂う特別な一枚です。

〈Mille Plateaux〉や〈iDEAL Recordings〉にも作品を残すスウェーデンの電子音楽の名手Andreas Tilliander（TM404）と、ジャズ・トランペッターGoran Kajfešによるコラボレーション作品『In Cmin』が〈Kontra Musik〉からアナログ・リリース！TB-303のベースラインやアナログ／デジタルシンセによる音響彫刻と、Kajfešのトランペットやフルートが交錯し、月面や神話的な風景を想起させる音世界を構築。Terry Rileyの『In C』へのオマージュとして、Cマイナーでの即興演奏を展開しながら、ジャズとアンビエントの境界を越えた新たな地平を切り開いていく一枚です。

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.”

Originally released on tape in 2019, 'Big Room' helped establish Philly's Ulla Straus as one of the key figures in the post-"bblisss" wave of nu-ambient practitioners. Interchangeably glacial, gaseous and liquid, it's a rare downtempo tome that never shies away from sensuality and raw, messy emotionality. Gorgeous material: essential listening for anyone into Jake Muir, Perila, Shuttle358, Oval, Pendant or Space Afrika. 'Big Room' is a technically advanced record that never dangles its prowess in your face. Ulla's sound sculpting is remarkable, but the key to 'Big Room' is not her processing skill, it's her open-hearted emotional honesty. And if contemporary ambient and experimental music has been pocked by the Instagrammable nostalgia drip and hacky tacked-on PR narratives, 'Big Room' succeeds because it offers us a clear, demarcated alternative. Ulla doesn't need to shoehorn in a grandstanding press release or video footage of an elaborate modular setup to get our attention, the music does all the heavy lifting, drawing us in with clouded bathhouse textures and soft-focus dub rhythms, chiseled digital hiccups and levitational synthesizer loops. From the opening tones of 'Nana', with its sloshing pads and subtle glitches, to the dislocated wind chimes and blurry electronics of 'House', there's a resounding faded texture to Ulla's music that helps set a picture perfect mood. 'Big Room' is an album to lose yerself in - Ulla's able to dial in an aesthetic that goes beyond the surface level, piercing not just the production elements but the writing itself. Using relatively few elements, she's able to bridge the gaps between dub techno ('Net'), Mille Plateaux-esque processed glitch ('Past'), glowing Eno-influenced ambient ('Billow') and breathtaking arpeggio-led kosmische sounds ('Sister'), linking each track with her diaristic subtlety and careful choice of processes. In a forest of withered ambient mediocrity, 'Big Room' is a lonely, pristine evergreen - we just can't recommend it enough.

With an intrigue for a particular niche of old UK hardcore which takes cues from Sheffield bleep ambience, heady rave futurism and soft, almost new age synth pads, Blank Mind presents ‘Lost Paradise: Blissed Out Hardcore 91-94’. Though the records gathered for the compilation span a short three-year period and bridge the gap between scenes, the collection manages to find a sweet spot where the influence of Warp’s Artificial Intelligence, back room chill out sonics and the nascent jungle boom meet with elements of Italian piano house and slower breakbeat cuts. Opting to focus on atmosphere to highlight shared connections; in this case the duality of often serene and calming soundscapes with frenzied breaks and bass (see Hedgehog Affair’s ‘Parameters’ and Luxury’s ‘Twirl’ respectively); Lost Paradise is a formidable collection of tracks plucked from a thriving time for British dance music experimentation. The general themes of ascension and escapism channelled through digital samplers are also inescapably linked to a turbulent time in politics, beginning in the post-Thatcher years and culminating in the year the harshest anti-rave Criminal Justice Act came into force. Initially building the compilation around DJ Mayhem’s track ‘Inesse’, Blank Mind label founder Sam Purcell and Amsterdam based producer Tammo Hesselink began a process of swapping favourites and deep cuts to spread across this 2x12” doublepack. The compilation avoids any obvious centrepieces through masterful sequencing, allowing for moments of refrain and tempo changes in a way that helps add to their overall vision of what this music is and can be; “We wanted to frame hardcore in a different light, looking at this idea of ecstasy through the traditional meaning of the word and exploring that symbolism”. By drawing from what some might consider the softer edges of the movement, the pair offer a look into the relevance of these tracks in the contemporary era, where the past years have seen both an explosion in popularity of old ambient/new-age music and a certified jungle revival.

This compilation introduces the sound pieces created by the Latin American experimental filmmakers and

is curated by the film artist Tetsuya Maruyama.

Tetsuya Maruyama

Born in 1983 in Yokohama, Japan and currently based in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Graduated from the University at Buffalo's School of Architecture in 2007 and from the Visual Language Department of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro's School of Fine Arts in 2024. His work spans film, text, performance, sound, ideas, and installation, without prioritizing any particular medium.

Maruyama’s practice is rooted in re-contextualizing ordinary elements and textures, presenting them as ephemeral records of everyday observations. As an independent programmer and researcher, he has curated screenings of Brazilian experimental cinema across the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Japan, and Canada. He is also the founder of Megalab, an artist-run film lab based in Rio de Janeiro. His works are distributed by Light Cone, a nonprofit organization dedicated to experimental cinema in Paris.

Artist bio:

Ж

Ж (São Paulo, 198-) film-designer, programmer, educator & editor

Has a non-specialised and situated practice that explores the energetic, material,economic, political, and emotional cycles of (semio)capitalism. His work uses various strategies, materials, and media to reveal how these forces shape perception,memory, and subjectivity, especially in the context of our current ecological crisis.

His artistic propositions have taken the form of films, video installations, counter-spaces, writings, performances, and public space interventions, all aimed at reintegrating artistic practice into specific social and political contexts.

John Melo:

Visual artist, designer, and teacher of audiovisual arts. Graduated from the MAE (Master's in Technology and Aesthetics of Electronic Arts) at the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTREF), Argentina. Interested in the relationship between arts, technology, ancestry, and transdisciplinary and experimental work. Studies non-linearity in artistic creation processes, poetic thinking, magical thinking, spirituality, and political and social actions, with a deep interest in pedagogy. Their work combines creative languages such as installation, sculpture, illustration, writing, sound, and video primarily. Previously a tutor in the training program for self-taught artists at the Museum of Modern Art in Bogotá (MAMBO PFA)

In 2022, founded SEPAE (Seminar of Editing and Experimental Audiovisual Thinking). Also involved in"Colectivo Tal Cosa," a transdisciplinary project combining biology, sound

exploration, intuition, and non-linear thinking in creative processes. A member of "2 horas de diferencia coletivo," a space connecting Brazil, Argentina, and Colombia for projects that conceptually link the three territories. Part of the art collective "Blanco Conejo" in Bogotá, aiming to share, promote, and experiment with contemporary

modes of creation.

Rodrigo Faustini:

Rodrigo Faustini is a Brazilian artist and researcher, based in São Paulo/ Campinas. His practice focuses on mediation, materiality and noise in audiovisual forms. His work has been exhibited at Centro Cultural Kirchner, Images Festival, Bienal de la Imagen en Movimiento, Annecy international animation festival, Vienna Shorts, Festival de Cine de la Habana, and others.

Francisco Álvarez Ríos:

Francisco Álvarez Ríos (1991 - Ecuador) is a filmmaker, curator, archivist, and visual and sound artist. He currently serves as the director and curator of the Festival Internacional de Cine Contemporáneo Cámara Lúcida

As a filmmaker, he explores reality and its escapes, focusing on the demystification of the image beyond the literal recording of the real. His current practice delves into moving images, sound interpretation, film installation, and performance film—practices that coexist and interact within the less-defined territory of the contemporary expanded cinema.

Martín Baus:

Multimedia artist, filmmaker, musician, researcher and teacher. My artistic practice investigates the relationships between history, materialism and perception, converging my interest in the political dimensions of listening, the reappropriation of archives, and the procedures of translation between materialities such as celluloid,sound and text. I’m a member of CEIS8, a collective for experimentation with film formats and photochemical processes based in Santiago de Chile, and co-director along with Andrés Baus, of the independent record label Radio Fome, which releases improvisation-based music and sound pieces. I’m interested in aurality as a tool for a radical pedagogy from Latin America, as well as methodology for artistic and practice-based research.

I enjoy engaging with the sonic realm from non-audible or non-sonorous approaches, therefore, I’ve done poetry books related to listening and wording, text installations that engage with opaque language translation procedures, publications around the links between salsa rhythms, migration and working-class struggles, and fictional writings that speculate on the future of sound archives and digital archeology.

Lucía Malandro:

Lucía Malandro is a renowned Uruguayan filmmaker dedicated to the preservation and restoration of cinematic and photographic heritage.

A graduate of the Escuela de Cine y Televisión de San Antonio de los Baños, Cuba, with a specialization in Documentary Directing, she continued her studies with a master’s degree at Elías Querejeta Zine Eskola at the University of the Basque Country, Spain. As the founder of the Archivistas Salvajes collective, Malandro has taken initiative to rescue a little-known legacy: Cuba’s underground cinema of the 1970s and 1980s, a clandestine movement that emerged on Havana’s rooftops in response to official restrictions.

Since 2019, she has directed several short films focused on the reuse and revaluation of cinematic and photographic archives, earning recognition at prestigious international festivals. Additionally, she has contributed as a film critic to various publications, including the official newspaper of the San Sebastián Film Festival in 2023.

Malandro has worked on the restoration of archives at the Cinemateca Portuguesa and has contributed to research and archival projects such as Piezas Cinéticas and Vanguardia Scópica, collaborating with institutions like Gordailua, the Basque Film

Ivonne Sheen Mogollón:

My projects are developed as experimental audiovisual, photographic and sound works, publications, texts, curatorial work and organization of cultural initiatives. From a personal and critical voice, I explore questions and reinterpretations about my surroundings, structures, archive images, my family history and the hegemonic learning that we assimilate. I am interested in self-management and the collective creation of spaces and experiences. I currently live in between Cologne, Germany, and Lima, Peru. My film Animal Within co-directed with Rebeca Alvan has been showcased in different platforms and festivals in Latin America, Europe and the USA. I am co founder of Taller Helios and associate collaborator of Isole_islas.

Javier Plano:

Javier Plano is an artist and university professor that works and lives in Buenos Aires. He has a college degree in Electronic Arts from UNTREF, where since 2014 he has been teaching courses about time based media and audiovisual performance arts. He’s currently doing a master’s degree in Sound Art at UNTREF. In 2007, he begins to produce video works and installations, participating in various festivals and exhibitions organized by institutions locally and abroad. He has received numerous distinctions for his works, among others an honorable mention in the MAMbA / Fundación Telefónica Award for Arts and New Technologies, the 3rd prize in the UNTREF award to the Electronics Arts, and three different honorable mentions at the National Salon of Visual Arts. On 2016, he has his first solo exhibition, titled "Test Patterns", in the MACLA (La Plata, Argentina). That same year he attends an artistic residence program on Signal Culture (NY, USA), with a scholarship granted by the Department of Cultural Affairs of Argentina. In 2019, he does his first solo exhibition in Buenos Aires at the Eduardo Sívori Museum, and wins a Scholarship of the Fondo Nacional de las Artes to develop a new project.

Pablo Mazzolo:

Pablo Mazzolo (Argentina) is a filmmaker and educator born in Buenos Aires in 1976. He works exclusively in analogue film formats exploring the optical and chemical properties of the medium, with a particular focus on human and natural landscapes. His work has tackled themes such as indigenous sovereignty, the spectre of military dictatorship, extinction and environmental catastrophe.

He received an MFA from the University of Buenos Aires (2001). His films, including Diego La Silla (2000), Oaxaca Tohoku (2011), El Quilpo sueña cataratas (2012), Fotooxidación (2013), and Ceniza Verde (2019), have been widely exhibited at festivals, museums, and galleries internationally, including Arsenal Institute for Film and Video Art, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Melbourne International Film Festival, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, The Block Museum of Art, Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Anthology Film Archives, Mar del Plata International Film Festival, Brooklyn Museum, The Buenos Aires Museum of Modern Art, TIFF Wavelength, International Film Festival Rotterdam, New York Film Festival, Edinburgh International Film Festival, Punto de Vista Festival, Frontera Sur International Non-Fiction Festival, Museo Tamayo, Valdivia International Film Festival, FAMU International, The Latin American Museum of Art Buenos Aires, Chicago Underground Film Festival, San Francisco Cinematheque, The Friedl Kubelka School for Independent Film, (S8) Mostra de Cinema Periférico, and Cinemateca Madrid, among many others.

His film Conjectures (2013) won Grand Prize, Media City Film Festival (2013); Fish Point (2015) was awarded the Kodak Cinematic Vision Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival (2016); and Cineza Verda (2019) was awarded Grand Prize, Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (2019). Mazzolo is Professor at the National University of Quilmes, works as a freelance documentary film editor, and teaches workshops on visual perception and image creation to young people living with autism. He lives and works in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Rosana Cacciotore:

Experimental filmmaker, documentary filmmaker, photographer, teacher, and

audiovisual researcher. Graduated in social communication with a master's and a PhD degree (thesis defense) in literary theory from UFSC/BR. She has taught film and visual poetics courses, had films screened in national and international festivals, and participated as a debater, curator, judge, and reviewer in festivals, shows, and film notices. She has a book and articles published.

In experimental work, I usually make the sound myself; I think it is part of the creation process. About sound in these works, I assume sound is an image that produces meaning (or sensation) as a sign independent of the image.

Our first album we made together, "The Days After", was initially released on Three Poplars in 2003. Then, afterwards in 2007 it was re-issued with a new version of the second track, "Flaxen", on Faraway Press.

After having found the earliest version of 'The Days After' in my archives last autumn, there was an excitement that grows with the beginning of something in the creative process and the sparkle of an idea that can never be recreated. Furthermore, there was a moment when trial and error emit a spark like the striking of a flint.

I thought it was worth releasing, and Andrew agreed.

Then, we asked that our most trusted mastering engineer, Denis Blackham, bring the album to a new life. Denis' amazing mastering skills made the album what it should be: a powerful piece of work that feels fresh and full of energy.

It's been 23 years since then. We have come a long way together. It's been a long road, but we've been there for each other every step of the way. That's why the album is called 'The Years After'. Actually it's 'Twenty-three Years After', but that's my personal story.

I couldn't be happier.

Daisuke Suzuki

Tokyo March 2025

CD + text book featuring cellist Yuki Nakagawa, who has participated in the Duo project “KAKUHAN” with Koshiro Hino (goat, YPY) and the album “The Butterfly Drinks The Tears Of The Tortoise” by the Australian unit “CS+Kreme”, featuring his cello and acoustic performance with a bow (a.k.a. Bach bow) that he made himself.

The long-awaited CD version of the album includes two newly remastered bonus tracks that were only included on the cassette tape version! Japan’s KAKUHAN deliver a futureshock jolt on their incred debut album ‘Metal Zone’ - deploying drum machine syncopations around bowed cello and angular electronics that sound like the square root of Photek’s ‘Ni Ten Ichi Ryu’, Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’, Beatrice Dillon’s ‘Workaround’ and Mica Levi’s ‘Under The Skin’ - or something like T++ and Errorsmith dissecting Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home Of The Brave’, her electric violin panned and bounced relentlessly around the stereo field. It really is that good - basically all the things we love, in multiples. While "Metal Zone" might be their debut, KAKUHAN are hardly newcomers. Koshiri Hino is a member of goat (jp), releasing a run of records under the YPY moniker, and heading up the NAKID label, while Yuki Nakagawa is a well known cellist and sound artist who has worked with Eli Keszler and Joe Talia among many others. Together, they make a sound that’s considerably more than the sum of its parts - as obsessively tweaked, cybernetic and jerky as Mark Fell, frothing with the same gritted, algorithmic intensity as Autechre's total-darkness sets, stripped to the bone and carved with ritualistic symbolism. The album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when KAKUHAN follow their 'nuum inclinations, snatching grimey bursts and staccato South London shakes and matching them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place. It's not a collision we expected, but it's one that's completely melted us - welding obsessive rhythmic futurism onto bloodcurdling horror orchestration - the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era. By the album's final track, we're presented with South Asian microtonal blasts that suddenly make sense of the rest of the album; Nakagawa erupts into Arthur Russell-style clouded psychedelia, while wavering flutes guide bio-mechanical ritual musick formations. It’s the perfect closer for the album’s series of taut, viscous, and relentless gelling of meter and tone in sinuous tangles, weaving across East/West perceptions in spirals toward a distinctive conception of rhythmic euphoria with a sense of precision, dexterity and purpose that nods to classical court or chamber music as much as contemporary experimental digressions. Easily one of the most startling and deadly debuts we’ve heard in 2022; the louder we’ve played it, the more it’s realigned our perception of where experimental and club modes converge - meditative, jerky, flailing genius from the outerzone. Basically - an AOTY level Tip.

2025 restock. Space Elements Vol. II is the fourth release in Rafael Toral's ongoing project, the Space Program. Following the first Elements release, this volume features a new set of collaborators: Evan Parker (soprano sax), Manuel Mota (guitar), Afonso Simões (drums), Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone), João Paulo Feliciano (Rhodes piano), and Ruben Costa (digital synthesizer), as well as returning guests Sei Miguel (trumpet), César Burago (percussion), Fala Mariam (trombone), and Rute Praça (cello). Space Elements Vol. II displays a melodic quality that, along with a refined management of silence, marks a new area and consolidates the Space Program's complex network. Its spaciousness is explained in Toral's liner notes: "While finding ways to make decisions on sound emission, it became evident to me that such sounds should have a reason to exist, they should be essential and necessary." Dan Warburton's writing in The Wire about Space fits Space Elements Vol. II perfectly: "The melodic logic that drives certain instruments within Space also recalls birdsong, with dense, convoluted runs of twittering melody ending in single piping notes, as spontaneous as Messiaen's birdsong transcriptions were painstaking and meticulous." Toral's music is a jazz-inspired re-evaluation of live electronics: "Despite working in a sound world that is cosmetically closer to R2D2's vocabulary than Louis Armstrong's or John Coltrane's, Toral has claimed a kinship to jazz because it models instant music making within a disciplined framework." (Bill Meyer, Dusted); "Toral is looking for nothing less than a totally fresh language to work in" (The Wire). Space Elements Vol. II was mastered direct to metal from 24-bit files and pressed on clear 200 gram virgin-vinyl. With design by Helder Luis at NOTYPE, the LP features a collage by João Paulo Feliciano. Presented in a limited edition of 500. CD version available on Staubgold.

Space Elements Vol. II is the fourth release in Rafael Toral's ongoing project, the Space Program. Following the first Elements release, this volume features a new set of collaborators: Evan Parker (soprano sax), Manuel Mota (guitar), Afonso Simões (drums), Stefano Tedesco (vibraphone), João Paulo Feliciano (Rhodes piano), and Ruben Costa (digital synthesizer), as well as returning guests Sei Miguel (trumpet), César Burago (percussion), Fala Mariam (trombone), and Rute Praça (cello). Space Elements Vol. II displays a melodic quality that, along with a refined management of silence, marks a new area and consolidates the Space Program's complex network. Its spaciousness is explained in Toral's liner notes: "While finding ways to make decisions on sound emission, it became evident to me that such sounds should have a reason to exist, they should be essential and necessary." Dan Warburton's writing in The Wire about Space fits Space Elements Vol. II perfectly: "The melodic logic that drives certain instruments within Space also recalls birdsong, with dense, convoluted runs of twittering melody ending in single piping notes, as spontaneous as Messiaen's birdsong transcriptions were painstaking and meticulous." Toral's music is a jazz-inspired re-evaluation of live electronics: "Despite working in a sound world that is cosmetically closer to R2D2's vocabulary than Louis Armstrong's or John Coltrane's, Toral has claimed a kinship to jazz because it models instant music making within a disciplined framework." (Bill Meyer, Dusted); "Toral is looking for nothing less than a totally fresh language to work in" (The Wire). Space Elements Vol. II was mastered direct to metal from 24-bit files and pressed on clear 200 gram virgin-vinyl. With design by Helder Luis at NOTYPE, the LP features a collage by João Paulo Feliciano. Presented in a limited edition of 500. CD version available on Staubgold.

This is the third volume of the Space Program's Space Elements series. In this series, each volume features guests and is focused on a compositional function. The Space Program is a long-term project launched in 2004, for performing music with a post-free jazz mind-set but using strange sounds from electronic instruments. Playing physically, the body is involved in making decisions. The Space Program is about articulating silence and sound, structuring musical flow on experimental instruments with a simple and clear sonic identity.

All these instruments are different but have a few things in common. The first is that they don't have a conventional interface, which means that for all of them i have to find out what they do and develop technique to play them. The second is that none of them respond accurately to performing action. So there's always a live tension between an accurate decision and its somewhat unpredictable outcome. I meant to play music technically free from any school and teachings, but beyond that i also wanted the music somehow to escape my own self, playing instruments with a sort of life of their own, never allowing complete control and making any repetition virtually impossible. Space Elements Vol. III by Rafael Toral

In October 1987, four months after the release of their critically acclaimed Sister LP, Sonic Youth showcased their latest work in a blistering set at Cabaret Metro, Chicago. The concert was introduced by Big Black's Steve Albini (who at the time was banned from the venue) and subsequently released as a semi-official bootleg under the title Hold That Tiger on writer/provocateur Byron Coley's impishly Geffen-baiting label Goofin' (years later the band would use this nom de guerre for their own imprint). Hold That Tiger's sterling reputation among the Sonic Youth faithful is well deserved. In fact, it isn't a stretch to suggest that the album is to the first handful of SY releases what It's Alive is to the first three Ramones LPs – a feral and liberatory public snapshot of a band's blossoming imperial phase. Indeed, HTT is the sound of a group at the peak of their powers, presenting new songs alongside a handful of older ones with the kind of wild, cathartic enthusiasm common to rock 'n' roll's most revered live albums. Taking nothing away from Sister – inarguably one of indie rock's first true masterpieces – it is reasonable that many fans prefer the live versions heard on Hold That Tiger to their studio counterparts. On HTT, Sonic Youth is a spiky, pummeling and confident force, alternately mammoth and meditative. Sister and its predecessor EVOL notably added an airy, dreamlike reverie to the band's turbulent doom-lurch, a stylistic evolution that seems to crystallize on HTT. Throughout, Kim Gordon's sinewy, sumptuous bass and Steve Shelley's propulsive, tom-heavy percussion provide the bedrock groove for Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's ferocious barrages of noise-guitar crunch. By 1987, the band was confidently articulating their dual lexicon of punk-noir dissonance and supernal, psychedelic sonic calligraphy – bending their jagged, streetwise gnarl into balloon animals of dazzling and beautiful songs. This collision of splendor and chaos would become a hallmark of the group's singular alchemy as well as provide a blueprint for the post-SST American underground they would help invent and ultimately nurture. Hold That Tiger's encore – four songs by the band's beloved Ramones, which Thurston would later astutely compare to "the perfect pudding after a hearty meal" – serves as a reminder that, like any true punks, Sonic Youth never could resist a good, rousing anthem to send the kids home with their ears ringing, their hearts hot-wired. This first-time reissue comes with gatefold jacket. Mastered by Bob Weston from the orginal tapes. Recorded by Aadam Jacobs. Audio repair/editing by Aaron Mullan.

In October 1987, four months after the release of their critically acclaimed Sister LP, Sonic Youth showcased their latest work in a blistering set at Cabaret Metro, Chicago. The concert was introduced by Big Black's Steve Albini (who at the time was banned from the venue) and subsequently released as a semi-official bootleg under the title Hold That Tiger on writer/provocateur Byron Coley's impishly Geffen-baiting label Goofin' (years later the band would use this nom de guerre for their own imprint). Hold That Tiger's sterling reputation among the Sonic Youth faithful is well deserved. In fact, it isn't a stretch to suggest that the album is to the first handful of SY releases what It's Alive is to the first three Ramones LPs – a feral and liberatory public snapshot of a band's blossoming imperial phase. Indeed, HTT is the sound of a group at the peak of their powers, presenting new songs alongside a handful of older ones with the kind of wild, cathartic enthusiasm common to rock 'n' roll's most revered live albums. Taking nothing away from Sister – inarguably one of indie rock's first true masterpieces – it is reasonable that many fans prefer the live versions heard on Hold That Tiger to their studio counterparts. On HTT, Sonic Youth is a spiky, pummeling and confident force, alternately mammoth and meditative. Sister and its predecessor EVOL notably added an airy, dreamlike reverie to the band's turbulent doom-lurch, a stylistic evolution that seems to crystallize on HTT. Throughout, Kim Gordon's sinewy, sumptuous bass and Steve Shelley's propulsive, tom-heavy percussion provide the bedrock groove for Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's ferocious barrages of noise-guitar crunch. By 1987, the band was confidently articulating their dual lexicon of punk-noir dissonance and supernal, psychedelic sonic calligraphy – bending their jagged, streetwise gnarl into balloon animals of dazzling and beautiful songs. This collision of splendor and chaos would become a hallmark of the group's singular alchemy as well as provide a blueprint for the post-SST American underground they would help invent and ultimately nurture. Hold That Tiger's encore – four songs by the band's beloved Ramones, which Thurston would later astutely compare to "the perfect pudding after a hearty meal" – serves as a reminder that, like any true punks, Sonic Youth never could resist a good, rousing anthem to send the kids home with their ears ringing, their hearts hot-wired. This first-time reissue comes with gatefold jacket. Mastered by Bob Weston from the orginal tapes. Recorded by Aadam Jacobs. Audio repair/editing by Aaron Mullan.

Artwork by Nicola Tirabasso and Alison Fielding
Thanks to Jack Colleran, Henry Earnest, Finn Carraher Mc Donald, Margie Jean Lewis, Róisin Berkley, Luka Seifert, Diego Herrera, and Olan Monk
Recorded in Conamara and Dublin between 2021 and 2023.

O'Rourke does Ishibashi! This Imitiation is her western bow, plus also a progressive sci-fi pop album featuring the best playing on any albums released in Japan in 2012. New music, no matter in what year you hear it!

Reinvigorated by months of shutdown woodshedding, David developed new works for guitar, as well as a piano piece and an exceptionally eerie bit of musique concrète. Inspired by the deep dive into Gastr del Sol’s duo magic that facilitated last year’s compilation box, David opened his deeply personal solo pieces for engaging conversational gambits with modern masters Rhodri Davies, Andrea Belfi, Nikos Veliotis, Nate Wooley, and Cleek Schrey.<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 406px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1317089149/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://davidgrubbs.bandcamp.com/album/whistle-from-above">Whistle from Above by David Grubbs</a></iframe>

 

Roberto Musci, born in Milan in 1956, studied guitar, music and electronic instruments. From 1974 to 1985 he traveled the world studying African, Indian, Arab and Oriental music recording ethnic music “in the field,” studying and collecting ethnic musical instruments from all parts of the world. His self-produced debut album, “The Loa of Music,” is a seminal work of staggering originality and extraordinary beauty in which field recordings, musique concrète, electronics, synthesis and instrumentation are interwoven, drawing on the countless musics from all over the World that he recorded. The subsequent “Water messages on desert sand,” composed with Giovanni Venosta, was nominated for a Grammy in the UK in 1987. In the 1980s 'and 90s' he broadcast ethnic and electronic-experimental music from Rai and Radio Popolare radio stations. He has also composed and played music for videos, commercials, dance, poetry, theater, composed soundtracks and accompanied silent films live. From 1980 to the present, he has played with many Italian and European musicians: Giovanni Venosta, Claudio Gabbiani, Walter Prati, Giorgio Magnanensi, Massimo Cavallaro, Massimo Mariani, Moni Ovadia, Roberto Zorzi, Chris Cutler, Jon Rose David Moss, Steve Piccolo, Elliott Sharp, Keith Tippett and the Third Ear Band. The theme of travel, ethnicities and mysticism are a pivotal point in this new album of his as well, demonstrating once again how music needs absolutely no sharp lines of demarcation. The music is one. It goes from the search for deep meanings in a time spent in a Hindu monastery (Ashram) listening to mantras and studying Buddhist philosophy to space explorations and human settlements on the Moon or Mars wondering how man will live and what he will bring to the new worlds imagining that Sufism, an Islamic mystical religion, will accompany him in the discovery of new worlds. An inspired Roberto Musci is increasingly aware of his hypnotic and visionary language.

Newdubhall, a Newdubhall organized by Undefined, releases left-field modern electronic dub artists from Japan and abroad, including Kazufumi Kodama, Deadbeat, Janka, etc. The 7th Newdubhall will feature Babe Roots, an icon of electronic modern dub after 5 years. Babe Roots, an icon of electronic modern dub.

As fitting for Takuro Okada’s first collection to be released outside of his home country of Japan, the title evokes the vastness of an unknown world that lies just beyond the periphery of the senses. For Okada, growing up in Fussa, Tokyo–home to the Yokota U.S. Air Force base and the clash of customs and traditions that come with it–meant navigating through the familiar and the unfamiliar, observing and absorbing the uniquely hybrid culture that would play a large role in shaping his musical identity as a guitarist, producer, and band leader. While Okada honed his skills playing to American military members inside clubs along Fussa’s infamous “Bar Row,” at home he would experiment with home recording techniques and develop his skills as a producer.

This album contains selections from the expansive archive of recorded material Okada has amassed over the past decade. While his past releases have included notable collaborators such as Haruomi Hosono, Nels Cline, Sam Gendel, and Carlos Niño, among others who have contributed to his band and ensemble recordings, this collection showcases Okada mainly as a solo musician, focusing mostly on his main instrument, the guitar. These tracks demonstrate his mastery in bringing out strange and beautiful tones from the instrument, from ambient and Americana, to psychedelic and other-worldly harmonics. This multiplicity of sounds serves as testament to Okada’s versatility as a musician, while his singular approach to the act of recording keeps it all cohesive as the unmistakable work of Takuro Okada.

Thoughts of You, as a phrase, might immediately associate one with feelings of love, endearment, fantasy or even obsession. These are the very sentiments that lay as cornerstones in Salvator Dragatto’s debut LP for Colemine Records. The allure and drama of black & white photography have always played a vital role in how Salvator (aka Joseph Reina) not only views the world but how he hears music. Parallels in film processing to his own recording methods started becoming more and more apparent as the record was being formed; Limitations in exposures rivaling limitations in tracks. Film grain and dust sediments rivaling tape hiss and dirty EQ pots. What most would consider to be imperfections, Dragatto leaned into and found inspiration. This record is an homage to the likes of André Kertész, Robert Frank, Jean-Luc Godard and René Groebli, who’s works have impacted Dragatto’s world so greatly both visually and sonically. Thoughts of You is an unabashed reflection of the noir. From the powerful thematic horn lines to the gentlest string passages, this record is a collection of themes and vignettes that explore the emotions set upon by black and white imagery.

On the outskirts of the Parisian sprawl, we drift through the evening hush, our steps tracing the edges of a world half-lit. The air crackles—charged, restless. Somewhere, we hear the city hums, a distant, roaring tide. And there is this stranger, curious, starry-eyed, looking at us. We stop, tilt our heads together, a faint smile : « I scream, you scream ! Everyday is a new *silence* It was all paradoxical Fullness in the crisis Silence is priceless »

Volume 6 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" intensifies the avant-garde auditory experience pioneered by its predecessors through Merzbow’s masterful exploration of noise. This edition features three meticulously crafted tracks—"Ripples On The Water," "In Solitude," and "Deep In The Heart"—that unveil a rich tapestry of tonal complexity and dynamic interplay. The intricate soundscapes fuse avant-garde noise techniques with contemporary artistic vision, drawing listeners into profound auditory realms where every tone and nuance captivates. This remarkable voyage unfolds with unexpected twists, pushing the limits of musical conventions and embracing noise as a transformative and expressive force in art.

This limited release is elegantly presented in a finely crafted birch box, and each hand-numbered copy bestows a unique sense of ownership and value. Every aspect has been painstakingly curated to augment and elevate the auditory experience, from the exquisite exterior finish to the thoughtfully organized interior, ensuring an impeccable presentation. The CD is housed within a mini-LP replica featuring an inner sleeve that amplifies the overall aesthetic.

Additionally, two inserts printed on 300g white Fedrigoni paper contribute to the luxurious allure of the packaging. Together, the auditory pieces and their exquisite packaging create a multisensory masterpiece destined to resonate in memo