MUSIC

Mouse on Mars’ Andi Toma and Jan St. Werner return with their most inventive album to date, Dimensional People. The new album finds the Berlin-based duo reunited with Thrill Jockey, a powerful aesthetic partnership marked by such seminal albums as Radical Connector (2004), Idiology (2001), and Niun Niggung (2000). After a series of notorious dance floor releases, Dimensional People reveals them working deep within their own vernacular, digging into fertile terrain of their inexhaustible vault of digital and acoustic experimentation, and charismatically making elemental components new again. This album makes clear how their craft is of discovery, of finding new contexts for places, sounds, memories, sensations, ambiences, technologies, relationships, and of course, people. A number of prolific guests joined the production: Justin Vernon (Bon Iver), Zach Condon (Beirut), Spank Rock, Aaron and Bryce Dessner (The National), Swamp Dogg, Eric D. Clarke, Lisa Hannigan, Amanda Blank, Sam Amidon, Ensemble Musikfabrik, and about 20 more musical collaborators. The cast of characters are as unique as they are vast, clearly a rich quarry for the prodigious duo. Dimensional People, initially titled new konstruktivist socialism, gives each participating guest a platform to imprint the album as whoever or whatever they want to be: a narrator, a perfect moment, a jam, an ensemble member, an abstract sound, a multiple persona, a mood, a soloist. Originally premiering as a spatial composition using object-based mixing technology playing with the possibilities of sonic design and collective musicianship, the recording expands upon these ideas. Dimensional People expresses itself as a dynamic 50-piece orchestra, telling a story in sound. Each player is a multifaceted character, the recording an imagined stage, and the production is direction, lighting, and setting changes. Mouse on Mars offer sound as a means to encourage open-minded societies, aided by cutting-edge technology including their own MoMinstruments music software or a spatial mixing technique called object based mixing, with which a spatial version of the work was created. It is a conceptual puzzle composed around one harmonic spectrum within one rhythmic scheme, mostly in the tempo of 145bpm (inspired by Chicago footwork, so the dance floor is not entirely absent). Looking ahead, Dimensional People will also be realized through installation, presenting the work as an immersive listening experience, as well as performance.

In 2004 Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma, aka Mouse On Mars, celebrate their 10th anniversary. Many will claim their music already was so revolutionary and pioneering back in 1994, that it could well have been written today without sounding the slightest bit dated whatsoever. Starting as an avant-garde experiment in electronic music and philosophy, Mouse On Mars has evolved into one of the biggest music exports from Germany. After a decade of producing music, the duo have released eight full length records including their newest: Radical Connector. In true Mouse On Mars style, Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma came up with a perfect way to celebrate their anniversary. In conjunction with the prestigious Kunsthalle Düsseldorf they worked on an art exhibition called "doku / fiction: Mouse On Mars reviewed and remixed" in which artists delivered their visions of Mouse On Mars, but and here's the special twist (or should we say 'twift') without being able to use Mouse On Mars' music or to generate any sound. The exhibition opened on April 3rd to huge acclaim in both the art and music worlds alike and, as such, constitutes the perfect start for the launch of Mouse On Mars' new album Radical Connector. Due for release in the second half of 2004, it is the follow up to 2001's Idiology. Critical acclaim has been heaped on Mouse On Mars for their significant contribution to the development of electronic music, their importance for the German music scene as a whole, and for their innovations using live instrumentation in performance and recording long before it became common place in the power book scene. Mouse On Mars are true innovators. Jan St.Werner and Andi Toma provide positive proof that despite it being an incredibly difficult undertaking, it is nevertheless possible to write and perform sophisticated music as part of a theoretical framework and still rock like hell. Anyone who has ever been to a Mouse On Mars show will testify to the latter; anyone who has ever talked to Jan St.Werner or Andi Toma will confirm the former. Mouse On Mars' unique way of creating music demonstrates that intelligence and playfulness are not mutually exclusive terms. Their music is both challenging and funny - complexly layered yet with a simple driving beat. Mouse On Mars has a unique vision and a unique way of expressing this vision, resulting in an unmistakeable sound which functions on a universal level and makes people move their minds and their bodies. In a musical genre not noted for longevity, Mouse On Mars has not only found their own distinctive voice, but have remained a force of imaginative innovations for a decade. The new album Radical Connector includes nine new tracks which took Jan and Andi three years to write and produce in their famous St. Martin studio in Düsseldorf. Long-time musical collaborator Dodo Nkishi was part of the recording team once again, and the album fe atures both his drumming and his strangely recorded vocals most prominently in the aptly named "Wipe This Sound". Never has Mouse On Mars written a more danceable track with such irresistible drive. Expect to see dance floors from Tokyo to Santiago de Chile full to overflowing. Sonig recording artist Niobe also participated in the recording her wonderfully aloof vocals ("the end is near...") adorn two tracks. With Radical Connector Mouse On Mars is taking an important step forward both in terms of musical vision and international standing. Their Touring will focus for the first time on North America. Making appearances not only with Drummer Dodo, but as both a duo and as DJ's. When you show up remember to bring your dance shoes and your thinking cap! If in 1994 Mouse On Mars sounded like 2004, then Radical Connector is a portent of what the year 2014 will bring. Enjoy!

Tibor Szemző presents two compositions on his new album Snap #2 – The Other Shore and the first release of his CUBA. As the title implies, Snap #2 can be considered a sequel to his cult album Snapshot from the Island (released in 1987, 2000 and 2020). In that first album the island was a metaphor for isolation and now Snap #2 offers Szemző’s reflections of his visits to real islands, Cuba in 1988-1990 and Japan in 1992-1994. As usual, Tibor Szemző processed the themes both visually and musically and has presented them many times live as cinematographic performances. The previous version of The Other Shore was released in 1999 on CD. On this album the original recording from 1997 is used; it has been recomposed, remixed and remastered and some additional recordings have been included. The core of Szemző’s Gordian Knot ensemble of the mid-nineties (Tibor Szemző on bass flute, Péter Magyar on drums and Tamás Tóth on bass guitar) has been enlarged by a string section and additional percussionists. The Other Shore composition has a multilayered texture; it starts with strings and is followed by prerecorded voices reciting the Sutra of the Lotus Flower of the Wonderful Law (Myôhô-Renge-Kyô in Japanese), the most important sutra of Mahayana Buddhism. Then percussion introduces the basic beat of the piece and the voice of the 102 year-old Buddhist priest Ônishi Ryôkei giving a lecture on Kannon sutra is heard. The following uneven entries of drums and bass guitar are like paint brush strokes in Zen calligraphy. The long tones of Szemző’s bass flute enters the piece as the last element suggesting itself as a connecting thread through all previous layers. When Tibor Szemző first visited Cuba in 1988 he had just started shooting film on 8mm, something of a personal diary. When he met Jonas Mekas in Budapest a few years later, he realized that this footage could be screened publicly and also be an integral part of live performances. CUBA, presented on the Snap #2 album, is the recording from 2000 of one such performance and was remixed by the author in 2021. It is as similar to and yet different from The Other Shore. The Gordian Knot band seemingly structures the piece in the same way, but the resulting sound is much heavier especially thanks to drummer Péter Magyar. Nevertheless, the contributions of Szemző on bass flute, Mihály Huszár on electric bass and T. Bali on prepared electric guitar also inject the proper rock sting. Incorporated Havanna street sounds and local radio broadcasts recorded by the author provide even more steamy roughness to the sound of Szemző’s CUBA. The cover design of the Snap #2 album with photo reproductions from Szemző’s films reflects the aesthetics of the Snapshot from the Island album. This vinyl LP runs at 45 RPM for better sound quality.

This sprawling collection by Belgian loner blues savant Bram Devens aka Ignatz encapsulates the mystery, murk, and melancholy of his uncanny craft at its most windswept and wayward. Originally issued via Goaty Tapes in September of 2015, this long-anticipated vinyl edition expands the saga with an additional 17 minutes of archival material. Deven’s palette remains constant throughout: feathery fingerpicking, modal loops, and intuitive six-string navigations interspersed with candlelit passages of mournful voice, alternately whispered, mumbled, moaned. His is an aesthetic of embers and resin, cracked masks and distant lights, of what’s left behind and what lingers on. I Live In A Utopia was recorded following a relocation from his longtime base of Brussels to Landen, with a second child due soon: “I remember the weather being nice and having just bought a hammock.” The change of scenery seeded a promise of slower days and lighter times – no utopia perhaps, but a sense of faint hope glowing on the horizon. The songs slide between loose acoustic spirituals and smoky basement ragas, late afternoon haze and midnight moons, a seesawing restlessness reflected in the titles (“I Have Found True Love,” “Time Does Not Bring Relief,” “We Used To Smoke Inside”). The fidelity is grainy but vivid, refracted by tape warp and Flemish dust. As always, Deven’s playing is deceptively elegant, raw but precise, attuned to resonance, radiance, and negative space. Echoes of Fahey and Jandek reverberate in certain moments but ultimately the world Ignatz maps is one incomparably his own. A landscape both doomed and dawning, weary but undefeated, tracing outlines of lengthening shadows. “I walk in the sunshine,” he sings, uneasily. This is music of a rare inner wilderness, poised at cryptic crossroads, devoted to its ghosts. I Live In A Utopia stands as an apex work by one of the underground’s most veiled and visionary talents.

OOIOO has always created a musical language all its own. Under the leadership of Yoshimi, also a founding member of Boredoms, the group has recorded six albums that have subverted expectations and warped perceptions of what constitutes pop and experimental music. Four years of work went into making Gamel, their bold new album inspired by the Javanese style of gamelan and the first new music from Yoshimi in over five years. Gamelan is an ancient form that has inspired a great many composers and musicians over the past century, from Erik Satie and Claude Debussy to Mouse on Mars and Sun City Girls. The introduction of this traditional form transformed the group into a super tribe, side-stepping the road between the past and the future. Their focus is not to replicate these ancient styles, but to incorporate them into their consistently inventive, constantly shifting musical frameworks. They take their love of indigenous music into an entirely new dimension by freely weaving organic and electric tones into a vivid tapestry, employing their keen sense of color and texture.

While previous OOIOO albums have been largely studio creations, Gamel is the most accurate portrayal of the band’s overwhelming, forceful live presence they have released yet. Yoshimi leads her minimalistic rhythm ensemble by making quick, impulsive shifts in tone and attack, the group acting as one mind under her expert instruction. While the gamelan elements will be brand new to many listeners, the band offsets the bizarre with familiar, at times even nostalgic and childlike, melodies. Gamel is euphoric, bursting at the seams with an exhilarating frenzy that is universal yet uniquely their own. OOIOO’s music is reflected in the ear of the beholder, with each listener taking away something different.

Yoshimi began her music career in 1986 playing drums in UFO or Die with vocalist Eye, and later joined him in the revolutionary noise-pop group Boredoms. Her explosive drum performances captivated audiences and even inspired Wayne Coyne to name a now-famous Flaming Lips album in her honor. While the band’s tours of the United States are infrequent, they are as The New York Times has stated, transcendent. 

Imagine a feather floating from outer space and landing on earth. What's going on? Which bird did this feather come from? That's what OOIOO's (pronounced oh-oh-eye-oh-oh) music is like? so colorful and shiny that you can't even see what is happening.

OOIOO's Gold and Green reveals the group's hard-to-categorize and refreshing avant-garde rock music, which adeptly incorporates elements of punk and more traditional tribal music. Their rhythms are unique and the organic interplay with the vocals is compelling. The music is complex and challenging and playful and childlike. Previously released only in Japan, Gold and Green includes guest appearances including Seiichi Yamamoto (Boredoms), Yuka Honda (Cibo Matto), and Sean Lennon. The album packaging, designed by Yoshimi, is a beautiful miniature gatefold album jacked filled with drawings and photographs by Yoshimi and other artists.

OOIOO began as a fictitious band for a photo shoot for Switch magazine in 1996. An all-female four-piece ensemble started by Yoshimi, the Boredoms' drummer, the band quickly gained attention by being the opening act for Sonic Youth in 1997. On Gold and Green, Yoshimi shows off her musical imagination and virtuosity with her songwriting, as well as by playing the guitar, flute, and trumpet, singing, and adding a number of percussion elements. Yoshimi is joined in OOIOO by the striking Kayano on guitar and vocals, the petite and powerful Maki on bass, and the amazing Yoshico on drums.

OOIOO toured the United States in 2004 for the first time in over five years in support of their recent release, Kila Kila Kila. Their soldout tour performances were notable for their unique exuberance and captivating stage presence. Starting off with a vocals-only polyrhythmic song, the band struck a chord like no other. They will be recording a new album for release in the fall of 2006. 

音楽フリーク注目のレーベル、Warp傘下の〈Disciples〉からPhewの最新作『Vertigo KO』がリリース！

"このアルバムは、2017年から2019年、10年代の終わり、この閉塞的な期間に制作された音のスケッチです。
言い換えるなら、幻想に浸るでもなく、音楽へ逃避するでもなく、また世界観を提示するものでもなく、2010年代後半のある個人のドキュメンタリーミュージックです。
このアルバムの隠されたメッセージは、「なんてひどい世界、でも生き残ろう」です。” - Phew

日本のアンダーグラウンド・ミュージック界の伝説的なアーティスト、Phew。1978年に大阪で最も初期のパンク・グループの一つであるアーント・サリー (Aunt Sally) のフロントを務めたのを皮切りに、80年代にはソロ・アーティストとして坂本龍一、コニー・プランク、CANのホルガー・シューカイ、ヤキ・リーベツァイト、アインシュテュルツェンデ・ノイバウテンのアレクサンダー・ハッケ、DAFのクリス・ハースなど、多くの著名なアーティストとのコラボレーションを行い、近年では、レインコーツのアナ・ダ・シルヴァ、ジム・オルーク、イクエ・モリ、オーレン・アンバーチ、ボアダムス/OOIOO/SaicobabのYoshimi (Yoshimi P-We) などとのコラボレーションも行っている彼女が、最新作のリリースを発表。

本作は、これまでに、ブラック・ロッジ、ボグダン・ラチンスキー、ヒズ・ネイム・イズ・アライヴといったカルト・ヒーローたちの未発表音源を世に発表して音楽ファンから一目置かれてきたレーベル〈Disciples〉の審美眼に適った初の日本人アーティスト作品となる。

Phewの80年代初期のニューウェイブ指向の作品には、日本のみならず海外のコアな音楽フリークやレーベルから多くの関心が寄せられており、コラボレートしてきた著名なアーティストたちの数々も印象的だが、〈Disciples〉は『Light Sleep』『Voice Hardcore』といった近年の作品は、彼女の素晴らしいキャリアの中でもモダン・クラシックと呼ぶべき傑作であり、Phewが今、再び最盛期を迎えていることを確信し、本作のリリースへと繋がった。〈Disciples〉が今回のリリースにおいて探求したいと思ったのは、まさに彼女の今なのだ。『Vertigo KO』は、前述の2枚のアルバムと同じ時期に録音された楽曲と、今回のリリース用に制作の新曲を収録。アルバムには20ページのブックレットが付属しており、Phewについての文章と、表紙にもなっている塩田正幸の写真が収録。

Originally recorded and mixed at ZSF Produkt Studio 1995. First released in 1996 by the A.I.P.R. label in German in an edition of 200 copies. A very rare record nowadays. This beautiful re-issue comes in a completely handmade cover. The front cover has a metal mesh attached to it. The cover is spray painted on both sides and is completed with alluminum adhesive tape and stickers. Remastered at Munemihouse in 2019 by Masami Akita. Edition of 200 copies.

Vertigo is album number 18 for Australian jazz trio, The Necks. They like to take a simple idea and allow it to develop organically through improvisation. They don’t know where they’re going when they set off but they always seem to get there. Their music is very human, it allows room for space, it’s ambiguous allowing the listener to interpret it in their own way.

Limited edition gold vinyl with embossed sleeve. After leaving the band, Damo Suzuki himself said, "No one else can reach that kind of space. It's a new dimension." He also said that this album is Can's masterpiece.

Originally released on Prestige in 1957, this is the third LP from NYC street performer and avant-garde/minimalist composer Moondog. Perhaps the least accessible of his early releases, this album is made up of percussive jams, usually on instruments of his own creation, street sounds, poetry, and Far East melodies, despite opening with a swinging number that is, oddly, the most bizarre thing on the album. Another classic from Moondog reissued with its original Andy Warhol artwork. Limited edition of 1,000 on purple and green starburst vinyl.

Days and nights, living in the clarity of mind and voice: Radio Hito's pensive compositions get stripped down to the bare elements while still retaining the solemn power of truth. The words of others gain meaning of their own through a contemplatively personal rendition, organized as seven tracks whose simplicity manages to brim with endless poetic possibility. This exclusive live was streamed on the occasion of KRAAK Ullakolla Festival at the legendary Habbo Hotel at the end of December, a couple of days prior to the end of the most iconic internet technology: Adobe Flash Player. Special thanks go to KRAAK & Ullakolla people - Gabriela, Pauwel, Samuli - and Maoupa Mazzochetti.

“hi leaves” is the new full-length record from soft tissue, the duo of Glasgow-based artists Feronia Wennborg and Simon Weins. Following their self-titled debut for Penultimate Press in 2019, this collection examines microsound by way of extended amplification technique, bone conduction, domestic recordings, and digital feedback. Tracks like “plant pot” and “kettle” appear to disclose their source material, presenting wonderfully tactile environments of highly articulate sound. Wennborg and Weins prove themselves to be masterful arrangers of discrete, organic material, weaving together knotty and immersive compositions from these sharp, prickly sounds. Ultimately, soft tissue inhabits an intoxicating soundworld somewhere in between the patient abstractions of composerly EAI music, the haptic indulgences of ASMR, and the diffuse digital pastorals of the 90’s a-musik/Cologne scene.

狂風暴雨，神獸互搏，溫柔的交織 An enchanting "in distance" collaboration between cello noise and percussions, weaving the sound of a harsh and dreamy landscape. 「這張專輯密集地撰寫著高功率的官能性噪音音樂，在藝術家和混音師的努力下抵達『好聽的噪音』的那個境界。」 "This album is a dense collection of high-powered, functional noise music, the artists and the sound engineer have reached that 'euphonious noise' level. " - 空之穴 holeinthesky This is a recording between two friends in Beijing and London during the pandemic, a wonderful long-distance collaboration. After releasing her critically acclaimed debut solo album '卵生 Oviparity' (The Wire's Top 50 of 2020), Sheng Jie 盛潔(a.k.a gogoj) continues to explore her own unconventional path in tandem experimentation with electric cellos and effects, while Shen Jing 沈靜 (a.k.a Shenggy, former drummer of the legendary Beijing punk band 'Hanging on the Box'), who has been in the music scene since the 90s, she started to develop her solo project in the field of industrial music, ambient and analogue synthesizers since 2003, for this record she returns to her role as a drummer, adding also gamelan and various percussion instruments from different parts of the world. A free, chaotic yet tender piece of work is what they deliver. 這是一份疫情期間的創作，分別身處北京和倫敦的兩位好友，心有靈犀完成了這份精彩的遠程合作。在出版了首張個人實體專輯《卵生》並且大獲好評（2020年英國《The Wire》雜誌年底50佳）後，盛潔（a.k.a gogoj）繼續在電子大提琴和效果器的各種串聯調試中探索著自己的非常規演奏道路，而作為90年代就已進入音樂領域的沈靜（a.k.a Shenggy，傳奇朋克樂隊“掛在盒子上”前鼓手），自2003開始就在工業音樂、氛圍、模擬合成器的領域不斷孕育自己的個人計劃，這次她又重拾鼓手的身份，使用鼓、甘美蘭、和其他多種世界不同地區的民間打擊樂器，和盛潔碰撞出了這張自由、狂躁卻又溫柔的作品。

Light touches of curved liquid sable highlight clouds above a mermaid’s island on a page of white. The swim-bubbled treasure gleams the blissful pleasure of Summer leisure, where at any time of day you’ll find an iridescent glow. As incredible as a dream.

Continuing on from the last album, here's a recommendation. The Tara Clerkin Trio, a Bristol-based unit with Tara Clerkin at the core and various other members, is the latest release from the label division of London's World of Echo record store. Building on the avant-garde musical vision of their previous album, the Tara Clerkin Trio's new album is a slow-burning sublimation of Bristol's signature trip-hop, dub, chamber music, ambient, downtempo, and contemporary jazz into another dimension. This album is an epoch-making fusion of Bristol's outsider pop music and Chicago's experimental jazz.

Finally came out! !! !! That Martin O'Cuthbert, which was traded only between Far North Music Seekers and Junkies, has been released by EM in Japan! !! !!

"Record of the Year:
Martin O'Cuthbert:'B.E.M.S' (Esoteric Records)
Seriously, when I played this record, something on the wall suddenly quivered. There are also witnesses. Martin Ocasbert is a super evil person (listen to the record) or a ridiculous idiot (listen to the record). Maybe don't be big in Japan. I think it's all because of Yamaha's organ, but how can I make such a terrible sound with a synth? "
(John Lydon "New Musical Express" July 22, 1978)

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"INDUSTRIAL MUSIC FOR INDUSTRIAL PEOPLE !!! [Noise-filled disc guide 511 selections]" A collection of pathological alien synth music that will be sent to you with the selection and commentary of the author, Tamotsu Mochida! !!

Martock (early active under the name Martin Ocasbert) is an English writer / electronic and electrical musician who appeared on Earth during the post-punk period and is still active. Inspired by John Foxx, Fad Gadgets, Kraftwerk, Eno and others, he is deeply devoted to science fiction and fantasy literature, including his countrymen J.G. Ballard and Iain Banks. It's unclear if the composition developed into his own work, but the mighty power of his Dark Force was proved by numbing John Lydon (and in his debut work).

He rejected all major invitations and released everything independently for the noble purpose of "creating lasting music that doesn't look at things that are in line with disposable products" (!!!). There are 11 singles and 13 albums. In the recording, I used a lot of drum machines with a crunchy synth sound that seems to have been sent to aliens and a collapsed groove feeling. All 10 songs The Best of Martock selected by Dr. Mochida, who took the great works that are completely ill (= difficult for earthlings to understand) !!!! (Professor Boredoms Yamazuka) It ’s a little famous for its favorite!?!)