MUSIC

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This is the long-awaited, first-ever vinyl release from the Osaka-based band goat. The five tracks are compiled from their debut album “New Games” (2013) and their second album “Rhythm & Sound” (2015). The titles of those releases provide a hint: a sense of joyful play within defined structures, and an emphasis on propulsive pulse and a prioritizing of pure percussive sound over melodic content. With guitar, bass, drums and saxophone, goat create music which is unlike most rock bands, utilizing harmonics outside standard tonality, as well as clever muting, to craft intricate, driven, forceful compositions by Koshiro Hino, aka YPY. goat is currently going through a period of new development and further exploration of intertwining patterns of rhythmic repetition; this compilation is the bedrock. Superbly recorded and mixed by Bunsho Nishikawa, mastered and cut by Rashad Becker, cover art by Tomoo Gokita, this release will be a revelation for your turntable. 

TRACKS: 
A1. New Games 
A2. std 

B1. Solid Eye 
B2. Ghosts Part 1 
B3. On Fire

FJLP-05 continues with Forest Jams recent trend of Japanese re-issues from the 90’s. This one is E.S. Island’s “Southwind from Hachijo” a deep ambient exploration that is more tribal and spiritual than prior E.S. Island releases. This was recorded on Hachijo Island featuring several traditional instruments with the bulk of the music being played by Eisuke Takahashi (R.I.P.) and Nene Sanae. Limited copies.

At the end of my armA finger, a thread, a vanishing pointWhere nothing can be seen and the air is movingAnnie A, the one-off collaborative project between Félicia Atkinson, Time is Away’s Jack Rollo and Elaine Tierney, Christina Petrie and Maxine Funke, arrives on A Colourful Storm with a profoundly inquisitive, exploratory composition evoking questions of inconstancy and reconciliation, vastness and finitude, and the sometimes cruel deception of human perception. Who will conduct our dreams if we never wake?Annie A quietly observes and attempts to compartmentalise the answers. A geographically diverse yet determinedly like-minded ensemble, its seeds were sown during a spring night in London, where time on stage was shared and cherished by Atkinson, Time is Away and Petrie after years of mutual appreciation. Atkinson had found solace in Time is Away’s Ballads, Funke’s Seance and particularly the voice of poet and performer Petrie, whose remarkable delivery, first heard on Ballads, here drifts effortlessly from a wide-eyed stream of consciousness to crystalline sensory expression: “The wind is full of creases / It is shaking the weak threads in the cliff / The coast is releasing teeth and nails into the air”. It is the perfect accompaniment to Atkinson’s hushed tones - a sometimes textural, if not spectral, presence - spoken sensitively like a mother to a resting child, reflecting upon the forces of nature, the fragility of ecology and the surrendering of self to air, rain, and earth.Devotees of Atkinson’s practice will recognise the significance of the natural world in her work, her evocative sonic landscapes formed from a toolbox of keyboard, voice and materials collected from everyday life on the dramatic rocky coast of Normandy, as well as field recordings from places far and wide. She breathes life into liminal spaces, the sound of wind, whispers and the distant clatter of rocks conjuring visions of places both beautiful and eerily familiar. Petrie wanders curiously in these places. “First the Crocus” introduces her desirous cries above a wistful electronic signal, the alternation with Atkinson’s whispers suggestive of each other’s distant presence. “The wind that had not touched land, moving with the warm gyre of the sea / Is now touching land / And is beginning to draw the dust”. What is her fate when this wind touches land? The meeting of the other, the crossing of paths. Their voices, layered and dreamlike, drift and entrance each other with gossamer intensity.Interpreting and arranging the field of sonic accoutrements is Time is Away, whose weaving, layering and sensitivity to detail is likened to the meticulous assembly of an Anni Albers textile. The spirit of Albers guides the piece’s entirety, Petrie’s recounting of her loom and thread a symbol of endurance, vitality and seeking wonder in intricacies: “Every thread needs to pass through the eye of a needle before you begin / I keep wondering, I just keep wondering what will happen”. The piece concludes with a timely appearance by Funke, whose meditation on vulnerability confronts and surrenders herself to the enchanting natural world.

Al Wootton samples a museum-worthy haul of vintage drum machines on this sick Library Record for his Trule label - big one for anyone into his work in Holy Tongue, or curios from Tolerance, Freedom To Spend, R.N.A. Organism. Tip!

Wootton was invited to Melbourne's Electronic Sound Studio where he got to work sampling their collection of rare vintage drum machines. And it's those boxes that laid the groundwork to 'Rhythm Archives', the prolific producer's most satisfying full-length to date. Wootton's been at this long enough to realise that restraint is the key, and playing with Holy Tongue has no doubt sharpened his skills. There's not much going on here, but that's what makes it so enticing - Wootton lets the machines set the pace for each track, and adds only the sparsest additional instrumentation for colour. On 'March', the plasticky beatbox pattern is fascinating because it's so weedy compared to the sounds of more modern machines - the kicks are like fingers on wet cardboard, and Wootton shadows them with bone-rattling rim shots, filling in the silence with cinematic piano twangs, white noise and a snake-charming flute.

In the wrong hands, this material would creep towards cringe - there's more than enough artists making canned library music or hauntological slop. But Wootton vaults over the pitfalls, staying on the right side of kitsch. The dissociated voices on 'Slow Rock' that shiver next to his new wave-patented Roland CR-78 take us to the seedy world of 'Liquid Sky', not the postmodern sampledelia that followed, and the footwork-inspired 150bpm whirr of 'Shuffle' is sneakily anachronistic, only echoing the Chicago genre's polyrhythmic patterns, not repeating them to the letter. Wootton does a good job staying away from very obvious genre signifiers; there's the character of each machine that's present, of course, but he sounds like he's trying to subvert the application, wondering how these decaying rhythms might react to his various processes.

If there's any real reverence here, it's for dub, and the genre's influence on everything that followed: post-punk, bleep techno, industrial music, whatever - Wootton sounds right at home threading tape echo trails thru his stuttering cycles. It's a love letter to the drum machine, and it doesn't lag for a moment.

The artist sometimes known as Huerco S. ushers a phase shift of sound to the shoegazing harmonic gauze of Make Me Know You Sweet, his immersive debut proper as Pendant. In this horizontal mode, Brian Leeds relays abstract stories from a headspace beyond the dance, placing his interests in the Romantic landscapes of JMW Turner, Robert Ashley's avant-garde enigmas, and Indigenous North American philosophy at the service of a more expressive, oneiric sound that sub/consciously avoids the trap falls of "chillout" ambient cliché. Across seven amorphous, texturally detailed tracks he establishes far reaching coordinates for both Pendant and the West Mineral Ltd. label, which aims to release everything except the commonly accepted, traditional forms of late 20th/early 21st century dance music, while also representing the work of his inner circle of friends, producers, artists. In that that sense there's a definite feeling of "no place like home" to his new work, but that home appears altered, much in the same way The Caretaker/Leyland Kirby deals with themes of memory and nostalgia. It's best described as mid-ground music, as opposed to the putative background purpose of ambient styles, or the upfront physicality of dance music. Rather, the sound billows and unfurls with a paradoxically static chaos, occupying and lurking a space between the eyes and ears in a way that's not necessarily comforting, and feels to question the nature and relevance of ubiquitous pastoral, new age tropes in the modern era of uncertainty and disingenuity. The results ponder an impressionistic, romantically ambiguous simulacrum of real life worries and anxiety, feeling at once dense and impending yet without center. From the keening, 11-minute swell of "VVQ-SSJ" at the album's prow, to the similar scope of its closer, Pendant presents an absorbing vessel for introspection, modulating the listener's depth perception and moderating our intimacy with an elemental push and pull between the curdling, bittersweet froth of "BBN-UWZ", the dusky obfuscation of "IBX-BZC" and, in the supremely evocative play of phosphorescing light and seductive darkness in the mottled depths of "KVL-LWQ", which also benefits from additional production by Pontiac Streator. Make Me Know You Sweet taps into a latent, esoteric vein of American spirituality that's always been there, yet is only divined by those who remain open-minded to its effect. Master and lacquer cut by Matt Colton.

Delicate glitches drifting like particles, ambient textures rising like mist—West Mineral, the seminal imprint founded by Huerco S. and a defining force in the post-2010s “Dubient” movement, returns with another essential release. Sleepdial is the solo project of Denver-based experimental musician Luke Thinnes, known for his releases as Dubharp on 100% Silk and as French Kettle Station on Slagwerk. This debut LP offers a soundworld where blurred drones and error-like noise artifacts linger with echoes of nameless, half-remembered emotions. Navigating the liminal zones between loop and non-loop, structure and collapse, it gently scatters fragments of memory into Dubient silence. A crystalline document of dreamlike introspection—one that glows quietly within the contemporary experimental continuum. Mastered by Rashad Becker.

The latest title released by the prestigious DDS label, run by Demdike Stare, the flagship unit of Modern Love, is a physical-only, limited edition of 175 copies. It is a mixtape by Dolo Percussion, a drum project by Max D, the boss of Future Times, who has also released works under different names from L.I.E.S. and The Trilogy Tapes! Minimal and percussive, the left-field development that pursues the pleasure and groove of drums to the fullest, lightly jumps between celebration and experiment, street and art. A killer physical release with a completely underground feel.

This is a new intersection of field ambient and improvised sound. ARBORE, a collaborative project by French-born, Berlin-based sound artists Diane Barbé and Laure Boer, will be released by Somewhere Press, an underground sound venue in Glasgow! Rough field recordings and improvised noise/sound sculptures interweave the spiritual and the animal. The faint footsteps deep in the forest, the noise of creaking metal, and the rippling breathing can all be considered sensory reorganization devices that awaken non-human senses.

Originally released in the early ’80s on the obscure German imprint Giraffe Rec, this elusive one-off LP by shadowy Düsseldorf-based unit Mentocome now sees an official analog reissue via Amok Age! A document of impersonal silence and machine-born noise, buried deep in the cassette underground and post-wave detritus of the time. Rust-laden echoes in the vein of Werkbund or Peter Rehberg, brooding industrial drones, and sinking minimal rhythms conjure a cold, mechanical poetry. At times evoking the empty claustrophobia of a U-boat’s inner hull, elsewhere revealing moments of rain-drenched piano reminiscent of early Robert Haigh. Less a record than a phantom cartography of unseen urban heartbeats, linking directly to the spectral soundworlds of the Creel Pone lineage.

Occasionally, you find music outside the commercial mainstream, outside of everything – the music of visionaries, eccentrics, inventors, loners, the keepers of secrets, the path-finders. Moondog, Daphne Oram, Harry Partch are from this mould. And so too is Lori Vambe. New on Strut, the first ever reissue of Vambe’s privately pressed original albums from 1982, Drumland Dreamland and Drumgita Solo. A self-taught drummer, inventor, and sonic experimentalist, Lori Vambe is a unique figure in British music. Creator of his own instrument, the drumgita (pronounced ‘drum-guitar’) or string-drum, Vambe intended to create a kind of music that had never been made in order to pursue access to the fourth dimension. Vambe was born in Harare, Zimbabwe and his father, Lawrence Vambe, was a noted Zimbabwean journalist and author. Moving to London in 1959, Vambe immersed himself in the Brixton squat movement of the early 1970s, teaching himself to drum and creating a short-lived performance group, The Healing Drums of Brixton (Vambe, the sculptor Alexander Sokolov and outsider musician Michael O’Shea). Vambe later had a dream-vision involving a feeling of ecstasy while playing an unknown instrument that extended from his own umbilical cord; the instrument would manifest itself as the drumgita. In 1982, he privately produced a pair of home recordings, the diptych set Drumgita Solo and Drumland Dreamland, releasing them on his own label Drumony. On these records, he rejected any commercial aesthetic and employed tape effects, temporal shifts, reversed sound and overdubbing to investigate space-time and access the fourth dimension. Combining layered drums with the rhythmic throb of the drumgita and, on Drumland Dreamland, an improvised piano performance by Brazilian concert pianist Rafael Dos Santos, the albums are both hypnotic and perturbing. Both albums were cut at Portland Studios by Chas Chandler and stand as a concealed monument of Black British experimental music. 500 copies of each record were originally pressed, and both were released together. The albums were never performed live. For this first ever reissue of Drumland Drumland and Drumgita Solo, Strut presents the two albums in their original artwork, housed in a deluxe slipcase including an additional 8-page 12”-sized booklet featuring unseen photos, liner notes and an interview with Lori Vambe by The Wire magazine writer Francis Gooding. Both albums are fully remastered by The Carvery.

Last year's collaboration album with Ulla, a popular female experimental writer in the United States, was very good, by Perila, a Berlin-based DJ/producer who is also known as the co-founder of The latest album is released in vinyl from . A masterpiece of a gloomy electroacoustic/drone ambient that unfolds surrealism with a cool and vast soundscape reminiscent of the polar environment, deep introspection and sadness! Mastering specification by master craftsman Rashad Becker.

‘Halos of Perception’ releases on November 3, 2023 with a hyperreal film in collaboration with Chinese-Malaysian Australian video artist Tristan Jalleh. Drawing from Lerkenfeldt's field work and electroacoustic practices, piano, cello and tape loop arrangements light up lost chambers and underground histories in a patchwork of reflective musique concrète, instrumental composition and surreal cinema. The artist's sophomore LP on Shelter Press spotlights underground networks opening questions of reality, virtuality and perception through oral traditions, experimental AV composition and diary-like vignettes.

Ever-evolving the mythologies and magic of Dialect’s sonic sphere, Andrew PM Hunt returns with Atlas of Green, elegantly molding unexacting details of memory and mistranslation into the framework of the British musician and composer’s creative pursuit. The album imagines a young musician named Green working in a future dawning era where lost signals and enduring impulses are unearthed from the sediments of technology and time. Across twelve compositions, Atlas of Green is a patchwork of scavenged relics and bygone hues, cast through the iridescent shimmers of a mid-future in flux. Audiophile quality vinyl pressed at RTI and mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Phase Shifting Index is a time capsule record of Jeremy Shaw’s vast original artwork that includes audio excerpts, voiceover passages and music composed by There in Spirit and Konrad Black. Shaw’s seven-channel video, sound and light installation–that premiered at Centre Pompidou in 2020–uses science fiction, documentary, visual effects and synchronisation to induce an ecstatic experience in narrative temporality. Each video details the belief systems of one of seven fictional subcultural groups spread across time that aspire to induce parallel realities that could redirect the evolution of the human species through embodied forms of ritual, ideology and movement. The vinyl release serves as a gathering of the piece’s key audio elements, focussing on their importance to the engineering of the artwork and their stand-alone listening qualities. Side A of the record follows the dramaturgy of the artwork in full-swing, including audio segments from four of its five distinct chapters. Written by long time collaborators Konrad Black and Jeremy Shaw together as There in Spirit, “Cross-Temporal Sync” soundtracks the strobing peak of the installation at the moment when all seven disparate videos fall into a unified choreography in which every person on every screen performs the same ecstatic series of slow-motion movements. The pulsing, hypnotic dirge aligns with the locked choreography in mood and action, caught somewhere between ecstatic trance and somatic takeover. A steady sub line, clipped stabs and a swooping choral gasp harmonise with the dancers movements onscreen while restrained filters open slowly to reveal a submerged melody that builds in intensity towards the chaotic rupture of Black’s “Mosh”. Here the score breaks into digital shards as heard through analog bodies colliding and pixelating into each other. The dancers eventual dissolution into “Particles” sounds like the field recording of a disembodied neural cosmos. The B-side of the record contains a narrative outline edit of the artwork comprised of music, excerpts and pieces of narration from each video. Listeners can follow along in an accompanying thirty-six page booklet of full-bleed film stills documenting each of the seven groups as they move through the five chapter dramaturgy. Composer Konrad Black’s authentically backwards-glancing production and sound design is as disparate as the groups represented on screen. From the bespoke-16mm-tribal-techno of “The Cyclical Culture” and retro-cyber-funk of the “Zero-Ones,” to the VHS-dark-wave of “The Violet Lux” and skewed vocal/piano minimalism of the “Quantum Modern,” each group exists in its own custom-made world out-of-time. The record ends where it began, with the full sequence of “Ramping” playing out as each subcultural world begins to lose control, galvanise, sync, rupture, atomise and scatter throughout the universe, only to loop back into another inevitable beginning.

On The Sport of Love, seasoned collaborators Asma Maroof, Patrick Belaga and Tapiwa Svosve consider the language, competition and contradiction of modern romance: its yearning, incomprehensible vastness and the inevitable darkness and fleeting fragility. For the trio, love is the emotion that propels all of us whether we acknowledge it or not, and its expression can be realized in many forms.

This work consists of sound and a collection of AI-generated images. The image collection compiles the AI-generated images used for projection during the Merzbow Free Noise concert held at WWW in Shibuya, Tokyo on January 6, 2025. The use of such visuals is rare for Merzbow in recent years, and the use of AI-generated images in a live performance is a first attempt.

The concert was structured in two parts, and one of the rehearsal recordings of a track performed in the first part is the first track on the

CD, “Peacock Analogy.” It features a live mix of computer sounds recorded on CD with Sonicware’s Texture Lab, Oscillator etc. The

second track, “Tenbyo Caterpillar 1,” is one of Merzbow’s most recent studio recordings. It overdubs multiple layers of noise electronics,

computers, and more.

“Peacock Analogy”

The title “Peacock Analogy” is based on the fact that when a peacock painting was used as a reference image to generate a dilapidated cityscape, buildings and metal structures in the shape of peacocks were created. This phenomenon seems to have occurred due to a combination of several factors in AI image generation. From the peacock image, the AI learned the peacock’s unique shapes (e.g., the spread of its feathers, the shape of its neck, the overall silhouette, etc.). When generating the cityscape, the AI may have attempted to apply the learned peacock shape patterns to the city’s buildings and metal structures. In this case, because the prompts were vague expressions such as “dilapidated city” and “metal structures,” the AI was likely strongly influenced by the reference image of the peacock.

“Analogy” is the process by which AI recognizes similarities between different concepts and transfers patterns from one concept to another. In this case, the AI may have recognized similarities between the shapes of peacocks and the shapes of buildings and metal structures and applied the peacock shapes to the buildings and metal structures. In this way, AI image generation can produce unexpected results.

“Mimesis”

Mimesis is an art theory proposed by the ancient Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle, the concept that works of art imitate the real world or nature. Traditional art has emphasized faithfully reproducing reality or expressing an idealized reality. AI art generates images by learning from vast amounts of image data and recognizing patterns within it. In this point, AI can be seen as “imitating” existing images.

Furthermore, mimesis in AI art can be considered part of a creative process. By generating new images based on learned data, AI can expand human creativity and open up possibilities for new artistic expressions.

“Imitation” also carries negative connotations such as “copycat” or “fake” Because AI learns from existing data to generate images, there are various opinions, such as that its originality is low, or that because AI can generate a large number of images in a short time, its scarcity is low, or that because AI has no emotions, its artistry is low.

Is AI art like mass-produced “junk art”? Is AI art something that “resembles art but is not”?

Discussions continue on how AI art will change the traditional concept of art, how it will expand human creativity, and whether AI-generated images are art in the first place, who the creator is, and where the copyright lies.

MASAMI AKITA

*A Part of Text by AI-assisted with Gemini (Google).

Volume 9 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" presents a captivating exploration of sound through three evocative tracks: “Quiet Night,” “Spring Breeze,” and “Star’s Shine.” The album opens with “Quiet Night,” where synths engage in a calm struggle, creating an atmospheric tension that invites deep contemplation. As the piece unfolds, it balances tranquility with subtle shifts, drawing the listener deeper into its soundscape. Next, “Spring Breeze” transitions from a rhythmic pulse to a thrilling eruption of frenetic noise reflecting the chaotic energy of nature awakening in spring. Finally, “Star’s Shine” delivers a harsh yet beautiful sonic experience that glimmers like a bright star against the backdrop of silence, leaving a lingering impression. Housed in an elegantly crafted birchwood box, this limited edition is individually numbered, emphasizing its rarity and artistic value. The thoughtful attention to detail, including a mini-LP format and beautifully designed inserts, ensures that Volume 9 is not only a remarkable auditory experience but also a cherished item for collectors and enthusiasts alike.

Volume 8 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" invites listeners to delve into a vibrant and eclectic auditory landscape through four richly textured tracks: “Coolness,” “White Dew,” “Grass Leaves,” and “Monkey's Voice.” The album opens with “Coolness,” where a gently plucked electric piano gradually disintegrates into increasingly synthetic sounds, culminating in a refreshing wall of noise that invigorates the senses. Following this, “White Dew” and “Grass Leaves” continue to explore the realm of noise, weaving intricate layers that challenge and engage the listener. Finally, “Monkey's Voice” introduces a pulsating heart at its core, featuring splashes of bleeping sounds that shift from calm reflections to frenetic bursts of energy. Beautifully presented in a finely crafted birchwood box, this limited edition is individually numbered, enhancing its sense of rarity and value. With meticulous attention to detail, including a mini-LP format and elegantly designed inserts, Volume 8 stands as not only a significant artistic endeavor but also a treasured collectible for sound enthusiasts.

Volume 7 of "Nine Studies of Ephemeral Resonance" invites listeners into a mesmerizing auditory experience composed of three intricate tracks: “Night Rain,” “In The Darkness,” and “Such Stillness.” The album opens with “Night Rain,” starting with a gentle and meditative atmosphere that gradually unfolds into a realm of electronic experimentation. This track oscillates intriguingly between serene sounds and moments of sonic turbulence, immersing the listener in a dynamic landscape filled with both beauty and noise. Following this is “In The Darkness,” which continues this avant-garde exploration; delicate crackling textures seamlessly transition into sharp, erratic bursts of feedback, showcasing Merzbow's talent for manipulating sound with both precision and creativity. Finally, “Such Stillness” delivers a decisive and intense conclusion, presenting a sublime journey of noise that captivates and challenges the listener. Housed in a beautifully crafted birchwood box, each limited edition copy is individually numbered, enhancing its appeal as a sought-after collector’s item. The meticulous attention to detail extends beyond the auditory experience, as the packaging features a mini-LP replica and elegantly designed inserts, ensuring that this volume is not only a significant artistic endeavor but also a sensory treasure for audiophiles and collectors alike.

Merzbow, aka Masami Akita, and Seyfried A. Hatter, aka licht-ung, based in Cologne, Germany, have collaborated on a 10-inch limited edition release titled Merzlicht. A psychedelic and minimalist noise excursion. licht-ung's abstract silence contrasts with Merzbow's intense noise explosions, yet they seamlessly blend together. The dramatic transition from licht-ung's delicate layered construction of violin and noise to Merzbow's explosive noise, as if revealing his true nature, is particularly striking. An intriguing collaboration that harmonizes the textures of both artists. Limited to 100 copies—don't miss out!

O’Rourke’s process – sourcing resonant sounds to enmesh together into a music that supersedes their resident parts – makes a fitting soundtrack for Kyle Armstrong’s “prairie gothic” tale of down-on-the-farm horror way up north in Canada. His minimalist score inhabits the wide open, big sky landscape, flowing into suddenly-deep (and opaque) emotional waters, then panning out to a chilly omniscient remove.

German independent label Frei zum Abriss Kollektiv (FZAK) presents Merzbow (aka Masami Akita)'s 9-inch lathe-cut record Magpie. This release is both an example of Merzbow's new sonic explorations and a collector's item, with only 20 copies of the clear vinyl available in this artistic lathe-cut format. Despite being a 2024 recording, this latest work inherits Merzbow's traditional profound noise aesthetics while also capturing the warmth and physical presence of a handmade recording, having been recorded and mixed at Akita's home studio, “Munemihouse.”

Nobody feels the sound fracturing as Masami Akita, nobody understands noise better than Merzbow. This Japanese artist is for more than forty years the maximum exponent of a style that has been catalogued and denominated with perhaps, the most descriptive word of modern music. Noise can have very diverse connotations, however, when we transfer this term to the pleasure and enjoyment that a piece of music generates in the listener, when we treat non-music as music, we understand that sound expressions can be endless, and that noise is a sound tool with the same recreational functionality as any other musical genre.

Blod, together with Heathens, is a Swedish platform that operates as a single entity and divides its activity between experimental music (Blod) and music created expressly for the dancefloor (Heathens). Blod allies with the Spanish label Industrial Complexx to release Hatonal, a work that shows the evolution, style and strength of Merzbow to generate an extreme sound, based on chaos, in the sum of frequencies, in its subsequent distortion and in a continuous and controlled feedback. The release is divided into two pieces of absolute psychological cut, with electric impulses, metallic scratches, pumping feedbacks and expansive dissonances.

Marionette is pleased to present dessus oben alto up, the first collaborative recording by Andrea Belfi and Jules Reidy. Hailing from different ends of the globe (Australia and Italy) but both longtime residents of Berlin, Reidy and Belfi’s approaches have much in common, bringing together compositional precision and electroacoustic rigour with improvisation freedom, the immediate gratifications of rhythmic pulse, and an overtly lyrical sensibility. Working together during a residency at the sound studio of Berlin’s Callie’s, an arts institution housed in a 19th century machine factory, the pair (with Marco Anulli manning the desk) have conjured up four expansive pieces where the beautifully recorded percussive clarity of Belfi’s drums threads through a sparkling haze of guitars and electronics.

Opener ‘dessus’ begins with Reidy’s distinctive just-intoned guitar figures, shimmering over a delicate substratum of Befli’s brushwork and bass drum accents. As in all of Reidy’s recent work, the guitar is twisted out of cliché by the unfamiliar tuning and electronic processing. Hanging almost inaudibly in the background for much of the piece, a rush of synthetic tones surges into the foreground to end it. ‘oben’ is built from kinetic patterns of picked guitar arpeggios, locking into irregular grooves with Belfi’s drums, which move from elegant rolls and cymbal patter to driving closed hi-hats and explosive rock interjections. Around the traditional instruments and across the stereo field, electronic sounds swarm and swirl, fizzing and popping in a sun-drenched soundscape that at points suggests both vintage analogue synth destruction and glitching harmonies. ‘alto’ begins in similar territory but turned up a notch, eventually settling into a propulsive 6/8 groove of shifting drum accents, manically strummed 12 string acoustic, and burbling synth chords.

The B side is dedicated to the fifteen-minute ‘up’, where the strategies adopted on the other pieces are put in the service of a more relaxed, slowly unfolding epic. Anchored by a steady pulse throughout, the piece combines chiming guitars, dubbed-out bass lines and constantly adjusted percussive details into a complex flux of sound. Change is at once so subtle and so ever-present that, at any given moment, the listener can never be entirely sure quite how they got there.
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