MUSIC

теплота is the London-based duo of Grundik Kasyansky & Tom Wheatley. Their work interrogates the haptic, social and liberating relationships with technologies old and new; using feedback synthesizer and computer-acoustic bass, they fuse a spontaneous interplay orthogonally over cyclical structures, with techno as perpetual fulcrum. Following their debut HEAT/WORK on Cafe Oto’s TakuRoku label and the monthly ЭС research series, Skynned will be landing on Accidental Meetings. Half techno, half free jazz, the music is both hypnotic and open-ended, relentless and ephemeral.

As the resident bass player for renowned Manhattan comedy club Catch A Rising Star, Lloyd George Mair, Jr. worked alongside a host of iconic entertainers and comedians from the past 50 years inc. Robin Williams, Jerry Seinfeld, Andy Kaufman, Billy Crystal, Eddie Murphy, Larry David, Chris Rock and plenty more. This was a creatively vibrant and socially dynamic period in New York’s history marked by the unique meeting and synthesis of post-disco, post-punk and early hip-hop; shaped by a hybrid party culture in which cross-cultural music scenes (Afrika Bambaata, Anita Sarko) collided with artistic ones (Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat) as well as intellectual spheres (Sylvère Lotringer, Antonio Negri) on NYC’s dance floors (Danceteria, Mudd Club), offering unique social and sonic possibilities of interaction, openness and exchange. As the 1980s progressed, together with increasingly tough Reaganomics, the crack epidemic, real estate inflation, demographic shifts and musicians and clubs catering to increasingly segregated audiences, the synergistic elements that first set the scene apart weakened severely from 1984 onwards. However, thanks to a dedicated underground, the forward-looking sensibilities of Mair, Jr. found an audience, gripping the imaginations of a select group of collaborators and peers from the so-called ‘cassette culture’ movement. These were not simply ‘demos’, but fully realised art projects primarily traded with other like-minded artists around the world. All kinds of folk found this a simpatico space to make music, think aloud, drift in and out of focus. Mair, Jr. started recording a dizzying array of home-baked cassettes, most of which remained unreleased or traded internationally. Captivated by the promise of possibility, his sound totally embraced the plastic potential of MIDI and digital, in all their unreal perfection. The sound of placeless, dream-like environments: movie sets, photo shoots, videogame backdrops. Dense webs of flickering neon, laser-strafed minimalism and thick saw-wave synths. This expansive second volume of rarities is drawn from Mair, Jr’s ‘Selected Rhythm Tracks 1988-1994’, a hidden archive of introverted electro-minimalist songwriting culled from over 30 years of private and unreleased cassettes. There's the boogie of the opening ‘Rhythm Track’, rendered in such perfect hi-res, it approximates digi-Motown via sci-fi Library Music soundtracks. ‘The Escape’ strings the most plastic of trumpets over an avant-funk stroll that’s so laidback you feel like it must be hiding something. The Afro-tropicalia of ‘Winefride XL’ is a beatific series of polyrhythmic kalimba lines that you can imagine gathering and drifting over and over again, like tides. There’s a distinct cinematic quality in Mair, Jr’s sequencing, and most of all on the outro to the blissful sweet-sour synth spirals of ‘Winefride LIV’, which sounds like Angelo Badalamenti scoring Perry Henzell instead of David Lynch. Available for the first time on vinyl and produced in cooperation with the artist’s estate for chOOn!!, a label specialising in obscure, archival and forgotten releases.

Best Available TechnologyやAzu Tiwaline、Ghost Phoneといった実験的なアクトなども作品を残す英国のレーベル、パーティー、ポッドキャスト〈Accidental Meetings〉からは、AusschussやBruce、Rupert Clervaux、Jay Glass Dubs、FUMU、Robin Stewart (Giant Swan)など、豪華面々が参加したパキスタン洪水被害者へのチャリティー・コンピレーションCDを発表。Bruceの"Self Doubt"の冷たい音色の抽象化とグラインド、Abu Amaの踏みつけるようなアラビアン・ドラムに焦げたドローン、Jay Glass Dubsのオートチューンド・ダブ"The Creatures in Defence"まで、沈静的なアンビエント/エクスペリメンタル・クラブ・サウンドを収録。限定盤。

"Dark Haired Girls" There Must Be Someone by Tor Lundvall Share / Embed In Wishlist view supported by Nightflyer thumbnail Nightflyer Can't wait to receive this beautiful box by one of my absolute favourite dark ambient artists ! :-) Erik A. Ingmanndsen thumbnail Somewherecoldfan thumbnail foccil thumbnail Chris Hibler thumbnail little_black_cat thumbnail nk11clouds thumbnail Leather thumbnail yukbon thumbnail Mick Zeuner thumbnail miosotide thumbnail Brian Nelson thumbnail Concrete Violin thumbnail treehandthingy thumbnail CMB thumbnail cjrfel thumbnail Jeff Irish thumbnail kholkhoz thumbnail eyespark thumbnail swensej thumbnail infiniteinalldirections thumbnail Bruce Levenstein thumbnail diespach24 thumbnail keith schuerholz thumbnail pinofalcone thumbnail selectrecs thumbnail apossession thumbnail noddyprof93 thumbnail ANTOINE LOGUILLARD thumbnail LELONG CHRISTIAN thumbnail Exbtn Records thumbnail Matthew Stradling thumbnail Forget It! 03:22 / 05:53 5-CD Box Set Compact Disc (CD) + Digital Album package image PREORDER - Out December 9th, 2022. Includes 5 albums: Passing Through Alone, A Strangeness In Motion, A Dark Place, Beautiful Illusions, and the long out-of-print Ghost Years - with art & lyrics booklet. Includes digital pre-order of There Must Be Someone. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released. digital album releases January 27, 2023 item ships out within 3 days edition of 1000 Pre-order Compact Disc $34.99 USD or more Send as Gift Digital Album Streaming + Download Pre-order of There Must Be Someone. You get 3 tracks now (streaming via the free Bandcamp app and also available as a high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more), plus the complete album the moment it’s released. releases January 27, 2023 Pre-order Digital Album $29.99 USD or more Send as Gift 1. Original One 2. Procession Day 3. The Clearing 4. The Melting Hour 5. Flight 6. Watched 7. Hidden 8. The Night Watch 9. Lessons That Kill 10. August Rain 11. Violet Bird 12. South Pacific 13. He's Falling 14. Power Failure 15. Dangerous Snakes 16. Days 17. Forget It! 05:53 video lyrics buy track 18. Where is She? 19. Pollen 20. Dark Angels 21. Ghost Years 22. Raven Eyes 23. Cloaked 24. Poison Symbols 25. Birds in Spring 26. Murder 27. The Pathway 28. Midnight Question 29. Grey Sunday 30. Pollen (4-Track Mix) 31. Dark Angels (Demo) 32. Ghost Years (Demo) 33. Raven Eyes (Demo) 34. Cloaked (4-Track Mix) 35. Murder (4-Track Mix) 36. Grey Sunday (Demo) 37. Grey Sunday (Video Version) 38. Ghost Years (Alternate Version) 39. Evening 40. Leaves 41. Winter Song (Original Version) 42. The Watchers 43. Birds Asleep 44. Tears and Rain 45. Aliénor 46. Lost At Sea (2) 47. Routine 48. My Weakness 49. The Falling Snow (Remixed Edited Version) 50. Winter Song (7-Inch Version) 51. Last Rays 52. A Room By The Sea 53. Quiet Room 54. Haunted By The Sky 55. The Moment 56. The Invisible Man 57. Negative Moon 58. The Void 59. A Dark Place 60. The Next World 61. Dark Haired Girls 04:02 video 62. Negative Moon (Early Version) 63. Their Souls 64. Forever Rain 65. Drowning 66. Blessings Counted 67. Love Song 68. Four Bluebirds 69. Lonely Boy 70. Two Windows 71. Dark Sea 06:45 about To commemorate the quarter century anniversary of Tor Lundvall’s self-released debut, 'Passing Through Alone', Lundvall and Dais have joined forces for a fresh 5-CD box set of long out-of-print titles, vinyl-only releases, and unheard bonus tracks: 'There Must Be Someone'. Spanning 33 years, the collection showcases the subtle but striking evolution of Lundvall’s sound, from brisk autumnal synth-pop to desolate dark place devotionals to fragile winter moon meditations and beyond. What remains constant is his exquisite sense of mood and movement, qualities reflected in his iconic oil paintings of willowy figures amidst luminous, liminal landscapes. The box set begins with 'Passing Through Alone', Lundvall’s first full-length, issued in 1997 on his Eternal Autumn Editions imprint. Engineered, mixed, and co-produced by his brother Kurt, and sold primarily at Lundvall’s gallery exhibitions, the album is an intriguing entryway to a world still dawning. Brooding and melancholic but distinctly more linear and melodic than later work, the songs flirt with the fringes of new romanticism, sketched in his signature palette of synth, sequencers, guitar, drum machines, and hushed, spectral voice. Next included is an expanded edition of the eclectic 2010 collection 'Ghost Years', an array of stray singles, alternate mixes, and compilation tracks dating between 1995 to 2020. It’s bracingly varied but effectively immersive, showcasing Lundvall’s sharpening gift for spatial dynamics and icy minimalism. The other three discs are inaugural CD editions of a trio of Dais vinyl titles from 2018 to 2021: 'A Strangeness In Motion (Early Pop Recordings • 1989-1999)'; 'A Dark Place'; and 'Beautiful Illusions'. The first is an archival anthology of material predating his debut, bedroom synth-pop born of solitude and the supernatural, alternately anthemic, wounded, and windswept. The latter two are shadowy recent full-lengths capturing Lundvall at the height of his powers: refined, remote, revelatory. Reflecting back on this vast body of work is “strange and bittersweet,” but Lundvall fin

5AM is a band, and a group effort by long time adulthood friends 5ive, Andry and Moko. 5ive is known for his ongoing contribution for music-duo Cos/Mes and other various projects, Andry is a multidisciplinary designer and Moko works as DJ and producer under her project Powder. After a long period of hanging out and sharing music to each, the band 5AM was naturally found in 2019, and soon made a small debut. 5AM plays about time, sings about observation and thinks about texture, atmosphere, and listening-space and random other stuff. Caring of subtle things for the big picture. Pre Zz is the first album by 5AM, recorded through 2020 and 2021, packaged day to day remixed feelings about that time, but not necessary just about that time. The album captures the moment of changes — Pre something — as like before a sleep after a long stay up Zz.

tarting in 2019 with ‘Life In A Shell’, the then new and upcoming Japanese producer yolabmi lay the foundation for a triptych of releases on Vaknar in the span of 3 years, all of which formed an ongoing sonic interrogation with his own past, while also consequentially reflecting on his growth as an composer and individual. The final stage of this album triptych, ‘For Wind Poetry’, once again underpins the natural world of yolabmi’s past with the technocratic eccentricity of his present self, yet rather than letting his matured proficiency over his modular synthesizer reign throughout the span of the album, yolabmi chooses to end this chapter via an introspective sonic long-form of redemptive stimulation.

When we can no longer move forward or look outward, some reflect and seek truth in themselves – some sharing, through the language of music, what might be impossible to say through words. --- Amidst the budding tempest of 2020, Jeremiah Carter, originally hailing from Tennessee, found himself embroiled in a near suffocating air of uncertainty and anxious tension, mainly brought upon by the first spikes in a soon to be world-wide pandemic. Only having recently relocated to the bustling city of New York, an unprecedented series of events took shape over the following months, isolating and alarming the city's residents in the process. It was during this time that Jeremiah fully turned his attention to music, discharging the emotional turmoil surrounding him, into newly composed work. Beginning with the album ‘Rejoice’, which was completed in the wake of 2020 and released on A Sunken Mall that same year, two more albums took shape in a quasi-self-induced creative tremor that materializing a wealth of work and formed a triptych of three unique albums, all produced within the span of only 6 months. Finally, presented here is the second part of the triptych; ‘Speak, You Also’, dedicated to Paul Celan and giving further insight into the heart of a beloved southerner, tangled in the mesh of existence, crisis and communication, far away from the prairies he once called home.

On April 7th the Berlin-based Peruvian musicians Alejandra Cárdenas, AKA Ale Hop, and Laura Robles present their debut album together, released via Buh records. With a foundation informed by decolonialism and organology, ‘Agua Dulce’ is a radical deconstruction of traditional rhythms of the Peruvian coast, in which the cajón instrument plays a central role. ‘Agua Dulce’ is named after the most popular beach in Lima, near where both artists lived during their childhood, houses apart, without ever meeting one another. Now, years later, the pair have joined forces, with Robles on a self-built electric cajón and Cárdenas on electric guitar and electronics. Together they explore rhythmical structures that form the backbone of the complex Afro-Peruvian music and dance traditions – a broad term used for the various musical developments that occurred in the last two centuries, at the shores of the Peruvian Pacific. The cajón originated in coastal Peru as a percussion instrument that the black slaves created from wooden fruit boxes, when foot drums were banned at the end of the Spanish colonial-era, in the 19th century. From its birth the cajón was a symbol of resistance, experimentation and transformation, so Robles and Cárdenas strive to maintain the instrument’s spirit and qualities by pushing the boundaries of its sound into the future. However, although buzzing with an intense voltage and proffering a fresh contribution to modern experimental/noise/low fi/percussive music, the duo’s mission isn’t merely capturing something sonically futuristic, but is primarily concerned with shaking off the dust: “These rhythms have become ossified nowadays, heard in Peruvian folklore shows, and on the ‘global music’ circuit, but our desire is to experiment and do something more radical with them, connecting to the instruments more radical past”, comments Cárdenas. The two musicians take the pulses of dances like Landó, Zamacueca, Festejo, Alcatraz, Lamento and Son de los diablos, electrifying and mutating them into pure textures, or reinforcing the physical character of the cajón through repetition and distortion. The LP began with recorded improvisations between the duo at Ale Hop’s studio, which she then edited, adding synths and more guitar. Following that it was performed live for the Heroines Of Sound festival, accompanied by the dancer/choreographer Liza Alpiźar Aguilar, which was described as “nothing short of amazing” by The Wire. Following the show Cárdenas added further edits and post production, resulting in the finished article. ‘Agua Dulce’ is published through Buh Records, on all digital platforms and in a vinyl edition, limited to 300 copies. Cover Art by Eduardo Yaguas. --- Ale Hop is an artist, researcher and experimental musician. Her work includes live shows, record releases, sound and video artworks, research on sound and technology, and original music for film and dance. Her live performances merge the physical qualities of music with raw emotional states. She builds layers of sounds by blending a complex repertoire of guitar techniques processed by synthesis devices, to create a music of deep physical intensity. She came up in Lima's experimental underground during the 2000s, and currently resides in Berlin, where she caught the attention of the city's electronic scene, with her visceral live guitar performances, in which she loops out layers of sound, creating densely woven atmospheres. She has recorded mixes for Crack magazine and The Wire, and performed and exhibited work at Unsound, Rewire, Boiler Room, HÖR, New York’s Museum of Arts and Design and Somerset House. Her previous album, 2021’s ‘Why Is It They Say A City Like Any City?’ featured contributions from KMRU and Concepción Huerta, amongst others. alehophop.com Laura Robles was born in Swaziland and grew up in Lima. She is a percussionist and bassist formed from a very young age in the rich Afro-Peruvian and Cuban musical traditions. Her approach to jazz, funk and free improvisation is informed by the rhythmic elements of Latin American popular music. Robles founded the socio-educational initiative Parió Paula’. She has played with theater and dance companies and renowned folk, jazz and rock musicians worldwide, as diverse as: Maria Schneider, Christian Weidner, Almut Kühne, Pablo Held, Niels Klein, Ensemble Neue Musik Zürich, WDR Big Band, Christian Steyer, Wanja Slavin and Steffen Schorn. Laura lives and works in Berlin. In 2022 she was nominated for the German Jazzpreis award in the drums/percussion category, and in 2014 she won Berlin’s Studio Prize in with her band Astrocombo. She is reputed to be one of the best cajón players in Peru.

Zero Kama was an experimental music project founded by Zoe DeWitt in 1983. The first release of Zero Kama was the title V.V.V.V.V., recorded for the Nekrophile Rekords cassette compilation The Beast 666. In 1984 followed the cassette release of the album The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H., which is commonly regarded as one of the key albums of the industrial-subgenre 'ritual'. The fact that all instruments used for this recording were exclusively made from human bones and skulls, its elusive musical style, the implied occult symbolism as well as the short-time existence of Zero Kama, whose backgrounds remained unknown for a long time, have been contributing to the cult status of this project until now.

Following an invitation of the NL-Centrum Amsterdam, Zero Kama played two live concerts in the Netherlands in 1985, and - after two more releases on the Nekrophile compilation The Archangels of Sex Rule the Destruction of the Regime - completely withdrew from the public. While The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. was recorded solely by Zoe DeWitt, the later live performances were realized with befriended musicians such as Didi Neidhart and Muki Pakesch, whom Zoe DeWitt knew from the Austrian music underground of the 1980s.

Since that time there have been a couple of re-releases of Zero Kama recordings, amongst others the 1988 Vinyl version by the French label Permis de Construire, followed by the CD release in 1991. In 2001 the French label Athanor published The Goatherd and the Beast, a 10" vinyl containing tracks from various compilations that were recorded besides The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H.. This collection was also included as a bonus CD in the Live in Armhem double CD release by Athanor in 2008. In 2014 Athanor finally published a remastered version of The Secret Eye of L.A.Y.L.A.H. as both vinyl and CD.

Infinite fog Productions presents an anthology release of Zero Kama. The first time ever, everything recorded by the project released as one set on limited CD, VINYL and CASSETE. Recordings transferred from original tapes, carefully mastered by Martin Bowes at the Cage Studios and Micro Majong at Micro Majong Studio. Designed by Cold Graves.

日夜音楽を通してアラビック/ダブに襲撃を繰り返し続け、あまりにも膨大な音源の数々を残してきただけでなく、未だにその未発表音源までもが掘り起こされる今は亡き英国の名手ことMuslimgauze。97年に米国のノイズ/アヴァン系大名門〈Soleilmoon Recordings〉に残したアラビック・ダブ/ノイズ名作『Farouk Enjineer』の2021年度再発盤！エクスペリメンタルとアラビア世界のトラディショナルなリズムがあちら側で溶け合う、Muslimgauzeのベスト作品のひとつ！新規アートワークを起用＆リマスタリング仕様。限定プレス。

日夜音楽を通してアラビック/ダブに襲撃を繰り返し続け、あまりにも膨大な音源の数々を残してきただけでなく、未だにその未発表音源までもが掘り起こされる今は亡き英国の名手ことMuslimgauze。97年に米国のノイズ/アヴァン系大名門〈Soleilmoon Recordings〉に残したアラビック・ダブ/ノイズ名作『Farouk Enjineer』の2021年度再発盤！エクスペリメンタルとアラビア世界のトラディショナルなリズムがあちら側で溶け合う、Muslimgauzeのベスト作品のひとつ！新規アートワークを起用＆リマスタリング仕様。限定プレス。

• Brilliantly remastered picture LP/CD with new stunning artwork! • Unique tribal dub-trance music influenced by arabic culture with a touch of post-industrial. • Hypnotic rhythms mixed with with eastern vibes. • Muslimgauze at it's best! • Released as picture LP in gimmix cover limited to 500 copies • Also available as black vinyl and CD A1 taken from VA - 110 Below - No Sleeve Notes Required (110 Below, 1995) A2 taken from VA - Assemblage Volume Two (Extreme, 1996) A3 taken from Nonplace Urban Field – Golden Star (Incoming!, 1996) B1 taken from VA - Le Sacre Du Printemps (Gonzo Circus, 1994) B2 taken from VA - X-X Section (Extreme, 1991) B3 taken from VA - Directions 2 (Direction Music, 1989)

Jacqueline Nova (Ghent, Belgium, 1935 - Bogotá, Colombia, 1975), a representative figure of Colombian avant-garde music, developed important and radical work within the field of electronic and instrumental music, as well as in interdisciplinary forms. This album, Creación de la Tierra - Ecos palpitantes de Jacqueline Nova: Música electroacústica e instrumental (1964-1974) ("Creation of the Earth - Throbbing Echoes of Jacqueline Nova: Electroacoustic and Instrumental Music (1964-1974)")¸ under the curatorship and research of the Colombian composer Ana María Romano G., recovers Nova's most important electroacoustic works: "Creación de la tierra (Creation of the Earth)" (1972), "Oposición-Fusión (Opposition-Fusion)" (1968) and "Resonancias 1 (Resonances 1)" (1968-69), as well as the music for the film Camilo el cura guerrillero (Camilo the Guerrilla Priest) (1974), composed during her stay at the Centro Latinoamericano de Altos Estudios Musicales (CLAEM) , of the Torcuato Di Tella Institute, in Buenos Aires, as well as in the Study of Phonology of the University of Buenos Aires. The compilation also includes the instrumental works "Omaggio a Catullus" (1972-1974), "Transiciones (Transitions)" (1964-1965), and "Asuimetrías (Asymmetries)" (1967), in which she explores randomness, timbre possibilities or the encounter between acoustic and electronic media. The interest in experimenting with the human voice, and interdisciplinary work involving visual arts, were some of the aspects that have defined Jacqueline Nova's work. Ana María Romano has written: "Nova lived in an environment hostile to change, to debate and discussion, hostile to her being an autonomous and lesbian woman. She undertook feats that make her a pioneer, even though she did not set out to be taken as one, but only as a result of the commitment, dedication and passion of a creator with her society. Jacqueline Nova died in Bogotá of bone cancer. Her tragic and early death not only cut short a career in full creative force, but also directly affected the development of electroacoustic music in the country. After her death there was a great silence -- close to 15 years -- in musical creation with electronic means. Nova challenged a conservative milieu and survived alone, working in a field thought to be exclusively masculine. But it was a woman who strengthened the use of technology in Colombian music. A risky bet that sadly represented a high cost: Nova was relegated during her lifetime, but her noises managed to shake and question the comfort zones of the Colombian musical establishment." Includes a booklet with extensive information written by Ana María Romano G.; edition of 300.

First official reissue, remastered from master tapes. VINYL ONLY, NO DIGITAL. Recorded in 1981, Dance by Earthling is a cornerstone seminal album of Nippon new wave and synth-pop. The group called their first album DANCE to express the fullest flowers of rhythmic movement, attending to both physical and spiritual needs. Earthling consisted of the couple: lead vocalist/guitarist John, bass guitarist Yoko Fujiwara, plus keyboard/sythesizer player Jin Haijama. The group was formed in Tokyo in 1979 when John and Yoko, who had been fashion and textile designers, felt the desire to give the music they'd written a more permanent environment. The sound of Earthling reinforces the subtle and sensitive connections which link modern music to dance to, with hints of synth-pop, top notch new wave and heavy punkish vocals. Fun fact: "You go on Natural" became a well-known banger in the late 80s in La Ruta Destroy in Valencia, championed by local djs back then. Please note that the artwork was produced at a local Madrid-based printing house to maintain the same aesthetics as the original copies, maintaining the die-cut with the iconic six holes, displaying the blue color from the inner sleeve.

Flowing water is an essential element of Earthly existence, a living force, a process of nature, a path-making which combines infinite sources mixing imperceptibly into a singular energy. It’s also a potent metaphor. A childlike wonder at flowing water’s presence and power, all the impressions it makes and creative neurons that it fires, happens to be a personality trait shared by Evan Shornstein (aka Photay) and Carlos Niño. The two producers/musical connectors may have grown up and reside a continent and daily realities apart — Photay in the forest serenity of New York’s Hudson Valley, Niño on Los Angeles’s ocean-adjacent west side — yet this magnetic power of fluidity, its sound, its meaning, what it can teach us about art and circulation, mesmerizes them both. Water is the spiritual center of their first album-length collaboration, the vast and deep An Offering — from the visual on the cover, to the first sound you hear on the opening “Prelude,” to the underlying themes and images espoused by the poet-philosopher Iasos on the closing “Existence.” More importantly, the image of water-like flow is a continuous reflection of how these two musicians have come to work together and apart, of the way they made An Offering, and how they’re continuing to create, without a beginning and (hopefully) with no end in sight. An infinite flow of sound, from and to every direction. Some of this work directly reflects the relationship between the two men, and of where/how Photay’s electronic, often-dancefloor-oriented tracks found Niño’s far-reaching world of ambient spirituality and improvised soundscaping. The meeting point is precise: Laraaji, the new age zither legend with whom Niño regularly collaborates, including at a June 2016 show in New York City which Niño played and Shornstein attended. The connection initiated immediately after that performance did not simply find the pair participating in each other’s recording projects — Photay remixing a Niño-produced Laraaji track and involved in Niño & Friends sessions; Carlos showing up on multiple songs of Photay’s 2020 album, Waking Hours, some of which was recorded at Niño’s studio—but in a broad exchange of ideas. Niño long ago established himself as one of Los Angeles’ great musical conduits, constructing environments that facilitate partnerships between far-flung artists, perpetuating the freedom of working in the present, outside expectations, trusting the work’s destination. When the younger Shornstein met Niño, his own creative process was ”almost too precious, and it was always my goal to break out of that.” Adapting Carlos’ pacing and free-flowing strategies — scenarios such as sharing recorded stems, bringing in old recordings to serendipitously fit new tracks, or mixing organic improvisations with stylized, post-produced rhythms — transformed Evan’s perspective. It made him rethink ideas like “finished,” shedding pressurized over-analysis for a process he calls “fluid” and “healthy.” It also made Shornstein reconsider some music they’d recorded but originally left off Waking Hours, “microscopic moments that were more expansive in my mind — there was so much honesty there.” What may not have made sense within the composed, hyper-stylized beauty of Hours, “felt really good” outside that context. Niño, who describes himself as “very album-oriented,” agreed, suggesting they create a unified body of work to match those moments — but not overthink it, make it quick, easy, productive, present. Which is how the re-imagining of pieces of music that became “Change” and “Exist,” sprung Photay and Carlos Niño into collaborating even more closely, and brought An Offering to the world. The sounds they gathered into an intentional, meditative whole, were made together and apart, and sourced from all over. The two producers made connections between new music and recordings they already had: Shornstein found hours of tape featuring solo playing by Upstate New York harpist Mikaela Davis, which became a central adornment on multiple tracks. Niño sent Shornstein a quartet improvisation he made with tenor saxophonist Aaron Shaw, keyboardist Diego Gaeta and synth-guitarist Nate Mercereau, which became the basis of “Honor.” They brought in trusted partners. The atmospheric blowing of LA-based tenor saxophonist Randal Fisher is a focal point throughout, at times processed by Photay’s machines. Photay’s trombone player Nathaneal Ranson, and Niño’s long-standing LA-based collaborator, vocalist Mia Doi Todd, float in-and-out of the mix. When Niño makes a record, another original “new age” legend, Iasos, is bound to be around, and his strong summation on “Existence” are the only words An Offering submits. The healing energy of Peterskill, a short rocky State Park waterway that ebbs through New York’s Ulster County (and across from Shornstein’s home — “a real environmental inspiration”), flows throughout. “Creating with no constructs,” is how Shornstein describes the process of bringing these elements together. “It was just a feeling, which maybe is what music or creating should always be.” Peterskill was also the source for a long extra track/outro when An Offering debuted as a Bandcamp-exclusive cassette in October 2021 — and quickly sold out. (A gorgeous Shornstein-directed film accompanied the release as well.) The notion of this music as “offering” came to life in its immediacy (the tape was released only a month and half after the idea for it was seeded) and in its gift-like nature (you can still get the digital version at a price of your own choosing). Scott McNiece of International Anthem found it, and instantly connected with its natural essence, a sound that accompanies one’s movements through difficult moments, the motion of instinctive change, a way to mark the radical period of our time with incremental alterations. Like flowing water affecting an ancient landscape. International Anthem offered to give An Offering a full vinyl release, which is why you are reading this one-sheet right now. And like any current, the interconnectedness between Photay and Carlos Niño, their symbiotic way of informing and influencing each other’s sounds, continues to naturally move forward and shapeshift. They are working on multiple projects together at the moment, and have already completed More Offerings. Flow on! - Piotr Orlov, August 2022

When Carlos Niño is performing with his friends, he is embedded in the present. And from there, it seems like he can see anything: every possible place a song might go, how a sound might evolve, whether or not it will make his listeners and collaborators feel seen and appreciated. He is a maestro of arranging time and space into supportive containers, somehow completely in sync with the moment and beyond all chronology. And over the past couple of years, when the concepts of space and time have dilated and gone sideways for so many of us, Carlos’ attempts to crystallize the moments he and his friends produce and present us with songs ripe with possibility, chance, and the care that radiates naturally among musicians who love and trust one another has felt like an act of profound kindness. In 2020, when the world entered into lockdown, Carlos engaged in his studio in Woodland Hills, CA, where he pored over tapes from past improv sessions. One in particular stuck out, a February 2019 Just Jazz gig with Devin Daniels, Jamael Dean, Miguel Atwood-Ferguson, and Randy Gloss. On stage that night, he’d been confused and uncomfortable, he didn’t understand his relationship with an audience. “I had a revelation that night,” he says. “What I present in concert is sonic journeying—not a set of songs, or a program, or a performative energy.” Using the Just Jazz tapes as a guide, he mixed and remixed, overdubbed synthesizer and pulled from his extensive battery of percussion instruments. He invited his collaborators—his friends, though we should all be so lucky to have friends as talented as these—to add their own overdubs, then, working the controls, he turned out a collection of songs that seem to have entire worlds encased within them. He worked with a sense of necessity. “The urgency was to share a message,” he says, “that we would get through this.” It’s a feeling that was made manifest across Actual Presence, and is extended in this new version, entitled EXTRA PRESENCE. When I first heard these songs in 2020, I was astounded by how expertly Carlos was able to guide his listeners through a three-dimensional soundscape. It felt miraculous, as if we were getting a new view of free jazz and new age and hip-hop, being brought into the cells of the music to see how all its constituent parts fit together. The implication seemed to be that every moment of every song—not just these songs, but any song—was ripe with possibility, that decisions were being made at every moment, and that because of that, other decisions might be made. Free jazz and free improv are both predicated on this very idea, of course, but where that sense of freedom often yields dissonance and confusion, Actual Presence seemed to suggest that something like spiritual harmony could be reached on the fly, that it was hidden in everything if you were willing to try and find it. What I didn’t hear then, but hear now, is that this sense of harmony wasn’t just coming from Carlos’ remarkable studio skills. It was inherent in the playing itself, and in the way the players relate to one another. There is an emotional coherence to this music, a collective ache at its core that starts with the majesty of Jamael Dean’s piano and runs through even the smallest of instruments. No matter who’s playing on any given track—or when they were playing it—everyone is watching one another, patiently waiting, not moving forward until everyone is ready. That could feel ponderous, but here it feels generous. You expect “Youwillgetthroughthis” to move out its foyer, but the kalimba finds an interesting groove there, so they all gather around to explore it, which gives a deeply tender organ space to open the song in a completely new direction. It’s music as a series of cleansing exhales, as re-grounding, slowing down to move at a speed that allows it to examine itself. As its title suggests, EXTRA PRESENCE gives us another hour of these explorations. The new tracks were all recorded around the time Carlos was working on Actual Presence and its followup, More Energy Fields, Current, and they show that the sense of possibility that first suggested itself in these songs wasn’t a mirage. Rather than simply remixing old tunes, Carlos opens new doors that reveal new rooms. “Youwillgetthroughthis with Koto” isn’t just augmented by a koto; it’s wound up in a new tension that was barely suggested in the original track. “Luis’ Special Shells,” an Actual Presence highlight, dips us into an subaquatic world painted in inky blues and forest greens, the shells themselves the only clear element that remains from the original. Most strikingly, it’s capped by the 23-minute ambient piece “Recurrent Reiki Dreams,” a dramatic extension of the album’s “Mushroomeclipse.” The track’s length, and the lightly undulating silkiness of its textures, makes it feel as though the entire album has been sliding into this primordial space, as if the whole of EXTRA PRESENCE is something like a symphony. Or maybe like all of those views Carlos and his friends have offered have all been different ways of saying this, variations on a way of articulating a feeling that exists here in its purest form. It’s like staring into the object with which this music has been abiding. What I didn’t hear in 2020 but hear now, as the world has changed and continues to, is that the sound of EXTRA PRESENCE is the sound of being ready to face yourself. Or, more precisely, it’s the sound of what happens when everyone pauses what they’re doing and rallies to support a wounded friend. Yes, these songs are technically dazzling, constantly surprising, and expertly constructed. But at its core, EXTRA PRESENCE is about sitting down, being with, trying to draw from a sensation or a mass that’s much bigger than we can understand. Yes, this is mystical language, but this is mystical music. “It is a way of describing the awareness of Eternal Now,” Carlos says.” “It is a way of expressing the consciousness of Being.”

Composer, clarinetist, singer and educator Angel Bat Dawid announces the release of a new work, Requiem For Jazz. A 12-movement suite composed, arranged, and inspired in part by dialogue from Edward O. Bland’s 1959 film The Cry of Jazz, the album is a wide-ranging treatise on the African American story from one of its most astute narrators. Itself an incisive critique of racial politics in the USA, The Cry of Jazz draws formal comparisons between the structure of jazz music and the African American experience - as one of freedom and restraint, of joy and suffering - that manifests in the triumph of spirit over the crushing prejudice of daily life. Cutting together archive reels from Black neighborhoods in Chicago with live performance footage from Sun Ra and his Arkestra among others, the film remains a radical and prescient evocation of Black pride and its roots in the history of jazz, from spirituals to blues and beyond. As South African writer Nombuso Mathibela captures in the album’s liner notes: [Music is our weapon of struggle] that radiantly holds our positive aspiration, group pride and determination as Black people. Sonics! our beautiful fire that gave light to the world. And a world that gave us blues. The blues that gave us Black in jazz Drawing a through line to today’s vibrant avant-garde, Angel Bat Dawid’s Requiem For Jazz picks up the liberation work laid out by Bland’s film, taking the message of joy and suffering within the Black classical tradition into a contemporary setting. Music from the project was originally premiered at the Hyde Park Jazz Festival in Chicago in 2019, where Angel conducted a multigenerational fifteen-piece instrumental ensemble of Black musicians from across Chicago’s creative community, alongside a four-person choir (featuring singers from Black Monument Ensemble) as well as dancers and visual artists. Recordings from the performance were then mixed and post-produced by Angel, who added interludes, vocals and additional sounds. As well as transcribing a piece from the film, Requiem For Jazz also alludes to The Cry of Jazz through contributions from the Sun Ra Arkestra’s Marshall Allen and Knoel Scott on the album’s final movement, which were recorded remotely at the historic Arkestral Institute of Sun Ra in Philadelphia in late 2020. “I want us to have this very wonderful conversation that Ed Bland started over 50 years ago and I want to continue the conversation; because this is a loving conversation that we need to have with each other” - Angel Bat Dawid, Feb 2023

The endlessly prolific and unpredictable Richard Youngs returns to Black Truffle with Modern Sorrow. As any Youngs fan knows, one of the great pleasures of following his career comes from not being able to predict what the next entry in his inexhaustible string of releases will bring: Unaccompanied voice? Country songs? Shakuhachi? Guitar pieces played with his feet? Shredding fuzz bass over the top of hyper-speed distorted drum machine beats? Continuing in the grand Youngs tradition of exploring new techniques, instrumentation and approaches while bringing to all of them his idiosyncratic touch, Modern Sorrow serves up two sides of twistedly elegiac, radically stark takes on contemporary pop production. The side-long title track is built from a piano sample, synthetic bass notes and organ swells, and an iterative blurt that seems to have wandered out of a 90s jungle track. Eventually joined by a shuffling drum machine, the track moves very slowly through a series of chords, each delayed long enough that its arrival comes as a major event. Over the top, Youngs’ heavily pitch-corrected voice is heard. The processing paints his signature wandering melodic improvisations with shades of contemporary R&B; at the same time, it cuts the natural swoops and glides of Youngs’ melodies into rapid microtonal trills, giving his voice a quavering, middle eastern feel. Unfolding languorously over more than 17 minutes, the piece’s final minutes make room for an extended drumless coda, returning to the stark palette of its opening moments. On the second side, the two parts of ‘Benevolence’ push this minimalism ever further, its first half consisting of nothing more than a remarkably slow drum machine hit, bass-heavy chords and pitch-corrected voice, here so heavily processed that it starts to resemble a shawn solo. In its second part, the harmonic foundation drops out from under the piece while two more voices join; at some moments the voices pause, leaving nothing more than isolated, metronomic drum hits. Though Youngs has explored the sound worlds associated with dance music and contemporary pop in previous work, here these elements are radically reduced, foregrounding a meditative bed of silence with a boldness equal to any more academically inclined contemporary composer. Embracing the accessible digital tools of contemporary music production just as at another moment he would pick up a kazoo, like much of Youngs’ work Modern Sorrow uses simple DIY tools to generous ends, producing formally radical music that remains both free from pretension and deeply moving.

A super special environment with over 40 seconds of reverberation. Amazing electro-acoustic dam music recorded in a huge concrete space inside the dam.

One day in 2022, Carl Stone, an American computer music pioneer, and Ken Ikeda, a musician and artist who emits primitive and original electronic sounds, visited "Uchinokura Dam" deep in the mountains in Shibata, Niigata. This album is a record of musical experiments secretly performed inside the dam to explore new possibilities of electronic music. The dam has a hollow structure, and the internal space is about 40m in both height and depth, and itself is a huge resonance device. The electronic sounds emitted by Carl and Ken fill the space with infinite reverberations. All sorts of sounds such as dripping water, footsteps, conversations, and noises are added as performers, creating a philharmonic orchestra of electrons and reverberations that are created and elaborated while confronting the constant reverberating sounds. 

Aclod is the first fruit of the telekinetic long distance collaboration between Juho Toivonen and Loren Chasse. The artists shared environmental recordings from Coyote Wall, Washington and Pori, Finland to create music for an implied landscape that is located neither here nor there. Toivonen and Chasse began working together in 2021 after Toivonen reissued Chasse`s seminal field-recording based album “Synthesis Of Neglected Places” on his label Akti. Working on the reissue, the artists noticed that they shared a similar interest towards the microscopic details of sound and that they both actively listened and immersed themselved in the everyday sonic experience of their surroundings. One thing soon led to another and they realized that they had created a new 30-minute piece, Aclod. Hive Mind are excited to present this deeply immersive work which seemlessly blurs environmental and natural sound from the two outdoor recording locations with ephemeral whispers of melody recorded on melodeon, metalophone, gong, guitar, Juno synth, water bowls and pebbles. * * * * Loren Chasse is based in Portland, Oregon and has a long history in the underground and experimental music scene having been a a key figure in the Jewelled Antler Collective. Central to his practice is an interest in listening in the moment and a deep and reverential attention to the sound-worlds of our immediate surroundings. Juho Toivonen is from Pori, Finland and currently runs the Akti Label as well as performing in Free Tala and improvisational collective, Vahvistusharha. His recent solo releases on Ikuisuus and C/Site have been garnering some well-deserved attention over the past couple of years.

Romance & Dean Hurley smudge the collective timeline on a second collaborative album of youtube-sampling ambient fantasies, landing somewhere on the dial between meditation tape, social commentary and regression therapy. Stunning melodramatic wooze from the Lynchian paradigm - essential listening if yr into anything from The Caretaker to Julee Cruise. Continuing their prismatic dissection of daytime soap operas, David Lynch’s chief sound designer Dean Hurley and Celine Dion-worshipping enigma Romance slide into the darkest recesses of fantasy-based escapism on an immersive followup to last year’s ‘In Every Dream Home A Heartache’. While that album spotlighted the omnipresence of daytime tv re-runs and pervasive, endlessly-looped broadcasts, ‘River of Dreams’ examines the interior, mental imbalance sewn by obsessive fandom. As the pair explain, “…the same waters that harvest and transport buoyant dreams, often funnel into nightmarish, tumultuous oceans…” Just as Twin Peaks eyeballed the grotesque energy bubbling beneath the surface of suburban America, ‘River of Dreams’ looks at the same phenomenon using the passing of time as a magnifying component. Lynch's original series was tangled in 1980s and '90s soap themes that have almost lost their relevance four decades later, and so the album’s sanded-down pads, gooey, hyper-emotional loops and detached vocal snippets satirise the past just as much as they idolise it. 'My Heart Beats In Dreams' is an apt example, steering the mood into a bleak windswept landscape scored by tempestuous whistling. In the background, the faintest outline of a beat - memories of a (wavey black & white) dancefloor refracted thru our shared cultural dreamscape. Heavy machinery (a logging saw?) whirrs into the frame, a Hollywood-ready low-end rumbles beneath. Stop - we're back in the 1960s again, rousing from an underwater hallucination, tumbling through multiple timelines in a constant emotional flux. On the closing track 'Wake Up’, the pair use their faded loops to rotate us into the void for one last dance. A child calls out "it's time," and an eerily familiar VHS buzz serenades us into silence.

Brazilian experimental multi-instrumentalist Carla Boregas follows plates for Bokeh Versions and Hive Mind with a ghostly set of deep listening electronics that plays like a symphony for an imagined woodwind orchestra, one to file next to recent work by Wojciech Rusin, Debit and Bloedneus & de Snuitkever. Carla Boregas is best known from her tenure in São Paulo's genre-bending experimental post-punk scene, playing in long-running outfit Rakta as well as other related offshoots. Her solo material has been knottier to unpick, here developing ideas from a collection of unfinished fragments and notebook scribbles exploring the possibility of finding a wind instrument that could be played collectively by several musicians. Coinciding with the pandemic, however, she soon realised the inherent risks involved with sharing breath and so the concept took a different direction, with added resonance. Boregas developed a synthetic alternative, layering vocals and environmental recordings to suggest wind instrumentation without attempting to mimic it. The sounds here are airy, but rarely diegetic - on the title track, Boregas uses analog arpeggios and plucked, sustained tones to approximate the kosmische world of Ash Ra Tempel or more recently Emeralds, as if trapped in a wind tunnel, moved forward by an unseen force. There's a whisper of the ancient past that harmonises with Wojciech Rusin's speculative medieval gasps, and Bloedneus & de Snuitkever's severely underheard ‘Milli Mille’, an examination of the ancient Greek aulos. On ’Grafia Do Invisível' the sound is completely different again, but the concept remains, using precise analog drones and minuscule timbral shifts to imitate the character of a wind instrument and simultaneously harmonise with the deep listening meditations of Éliane Radigue and Kali Malone. A voice enters the frame on 'Sopro’, chopped into deviated gulps and syllables, creating a language that's unfamiliar and percussive. The use of breath is subtle, and vocalisations criss-cross between synths and faint whistles, forming an expression that's different from its predecessors but intrinsically interlinked. This is where ‘Pena Ao Mar’ excels, by viewing breath and its application in electronic music from multiple angles simultaneously. Fans of Lucy Duncombe, Lucrecia Dalt, or Sarah Davachi - don't miss this one.

YOUTH are back in town on a 3rd Sports volume packed with exclusive chops from Michael J. Blood, Rat Heart, Sockethead, pigbaby, FUMU, and Iueke, plus new cats Craig Birrel and Zesknel among many others. Programmed by footie-mad graphic designer/DJ, Andrew Lyster, ’Sports 3’ casts a wide net over work by Youth label friends and extended family with results limning a dead cranky conception of club music and blooz/beatdown pressure. All sharing a taste for texture that sounds like the masters were left to decompose for winter, the 16 cuts map odd gooches and ginnels of the contemporary soundsphere from the washed-out jazz reminiscence of Zesknel next to harder-to-place works such as the metallic cyborgian slug of ‘Driesh’ by Craig Birrel, or the groggy breaks of ‘Cocaine’ from HR For Drug Dealers. Pigbaby plays the game with a highlight of midnight keys on ‘Far From Home’, and we spy a zinger from Sockethead on the feral yowl of ‘Coarse Ground’, while Dave Saved keeps it slanted on ‘Abisso 66’ and into a super glum one by the still enigmatic Yugen Disciple. That sense of entropy also infects the set’s more energetic bits, as with the PointilisticT arp flight of ’T’ by S, and the drowning struggle of ‘When It Rains (It Pours)’ from Significant Other complementing the worn out acid trample of Iueke’s ‘Videoslash’ and Jessic*nt’s murky stealth bomb ‘Manic/Panic’. Rat Heart, Michael J. Blood x Sockethead unsurprisingly steal the show on the slow cymbal-crash blooz of ‘True’, and the album ends with Lyster’s own VIP of NW / HR tripped & screwed hardcore submersion.

‘Cupo’ is the debut album of gothic folkways and dark jazz rituals enacted by prolific percussionist Valentina Magaletti and enigmatic spirit Laila Sakini, deploying an orchestra-sized ensemble of instruments into a 10-part movement spread over two seamless sides. Ghostly and completely transfixing material, it sounds like a pitch-black reduction of Talk Talk's ‘Spirit of Eden’ crumbling into Julee Cruise's ‘Floating into the Night’. An ode to DIY culture and improvisation, Cupo marks a turning point and coming together of two of London’s most imaginative figures. The project sprung to life after Magaletti, versatile drummer-composer for a myriad projects including Moin, Tomaga, Holy Tongue and CZN, asked singular singer-songwriter/art explorer Sakini to contribute to an album that quickly developed into a separate project in its own right. Initiated under a title meaning ‘dark’ in Italian, Sakini plays trumpet, flute, harmonica, recorder, vocals, bass, strings and piano, while Magaletti adds acoustic guitar, spoken word, bass, and drums, pitched down to match the sunken swag of Sakini’s voice. ‘Cupo’ oozes a sense of theatrical dramaturgy that feels like two players in a staged psychodrama. The pair’s exquisite twists of light and space enhance the sensation of peering in from the dark of the stalls, scenes mysteriously changing on stage. The opening hums with nervous energy, the vast sweep of possibility - things could go in so many different directions - concrète, free jazz, doom noise, forest folk, trip hop - who fucking knows. Magaletti's drums gain momentum, cutting into the void like a snare roll in the middle of a trapeze act, or the din from the orchestral pit in an old cinema. Staggered bass and pitched trumpet are thrown into the mix, the deep thrum of subs, a heartbeat, shapeless words, flute, lost fragments of chamber music, piano keys wafting in from outside. Just as things feel irrevocably shapeless, all the elements coalesce, Sakini’s voice and a recorder flip the mood. We’re in smokey, weird pop mode - just the thing we were hoping for. The spirit of post-prog/proto-shoegaze hangs in the air, but the music isn't quite so specific. Pop dissolves into jazz, ambient passages cut into rickety blues, then scuffed into DIY art noise. The linking thread is always the duo's creative energy, providing a space for each to explore, without overwhelming the other. Gentle, fierce music from two of the very best in the game right now.