MUSIC

Billy Bultheel's debut solo album is an ambitious distillation of the composer's,' sprawling litany of influences and his unique approach to site-specific composition. A compilation of pieces created between 2016 and 2023, the album is a forceful testament to Bultheel's expansive performance practice and collaborations with cutting-edge visual artists like Anne Imhof and James Richards. Drawing inspiration from industrial music and metal as well as medieval and baroque polyphony, Bultheel devised a way to present this collection of works side-by-side. The record is split into two distinct cycles: the Snow Cycle, which collects Bultheel's electro-acoustic and compositional work, and the Game Cycle, which assembles his electronic productions. These two suites have unmistakable symmetry; Bultheel's traditional compositions are bolstered by his understanding of electronic production, while his electronic pieces are moulded by his knowledge of classical and traditional music. "Two Cycles" is an album that exhibits duality, embodying the dichotomy of Bultheel's roles as both an ensemble composer and an electronic producer. While 'Two Cycles' is his inaugural solo endeavor, it's not Bultheel's first foray into PAN’s extended universe. Since 2012, he has been an active collaborator alongside the German visual artist and choreographer Anne Imhof and US artist Eliza Douglas. Notably, their creative synergy bore fruit in the form of 'FAUST' in 2019 and 'SEX' in 2021, both of which were released on PAN. Last year, Bultheel joined forces with Alexander Iezzi, operating under the moniker '33,' where they skillfully amalgamated club music with the raw authenticity of DIY punk and the intricate charm of baroque harmonies on the C.A.N.V.A.S.-released album ’33-69’. However, Bultheel's true artistic sanctuary resides within the realm of live performance. From a very young age, he harbored an ardent desire to fuse the timeless elegance of renaissance music with the avant-garde allure of distorted electronics. His quest was further guided by a deep reverence for the ritualistic aspects of communal experiences. Inspired by pioneering composers such as Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis, and baroque masters like Claudio Monteverdi, Bultheel has undertaken a relentless mission to deconstruct the traditional confines of the concert hall and explore new territories for musical experiences. In doing so, he orchestrates performances in unconventional settings, compelling both musicians and spectators to approach his music as a geographic composition. The haunting opening track of the 'Snow Cycle', 'The Arcades Project', — named after the unfinished compendium of architectural contemplations penned by the eminent German philosopher, Walter Benjamin - places four tubas in strategic towers surrounding the audience, creating an immersive auditory experience. Conversely, 'The Snows of Venice' — named after Alexander Kluge and Ben Lerner collection of short stories and poems — was conceived for two flautists directed to intertwine their melodies as they traversed through knee-high water. The 'Game Cycle' meanwhile places a strong emphasis on rhythm, crafting a sonic landscape that resonates with overdriven metallic clanks and sharp stabs. Drawing upon his extensive experience in composing for choreography, Bultheel envisions a series of jittery dances that purposefully deviate from conventional timelines. 'Decreation' infuses techno with the visceral qualities of noise music and 'Game Theory' offers an unsettling skeletal barrage of saturated, precisely tuned percussive hits. Bultheel brings 'Two Cycles' to a close with 'Gigue,' a reference to the 6/8 baroque court dance that traditionally marked the conclusion of a dance suite; by merging marching rhythms performed by two percussionists on a single drum set with chaotic and evocative synth leads, he establishes a tantalizing counterpoint. 'Two Cycles' is a musical compilation that explores the themes of locale and landscape, elucidating the intricate dynamics that arise between the musicians and their audience, the ears and the architecture. Considering timbre, density and the psycho-acoustic qualities of communal spaces, from the warehouse to the cathedral, Bultheel draws indelible lines between seemingly distant concepts, merging the celestial with the terrestrial. The double album cover, one for each side and cycle on the record, features a collage created by the Welsh video artist James Richards that merges medieval iconography with snippets of queer memorabilia.

Triángulos De Luz Y Espacios De Sombra (Triangles of Light and Spaces of Shadow) is a collection of visionary Mexican electronic music sourced from obscure cassettes, CDs, private pressings, and personal archives, presented by Séance Centre and Smiling C. These works trace an expansive scene of prescient musicians who created a unique speculative cosmology, forging Mesoamerican mythologies with innovative sonic technologies. From the mid-80s through the 90s, a network of Mexican musicians embarked on a journey to craft a musical expression distinct from the mainstream musical culture that dominated the airwaves and record industry. Based around practices of collaboration, ethnomusicology, electronic experimentation and home-recording, these artists traversed territories at the very edges of genre and musical form. Myth-scientists Antonio Zepeda, José Luis Fernández Ledesma, Jorge Reyes, Isaac Alva, and La Fábula venture into the periphery of the new age, incorporating Pre-Columbian rhythms and melodies into their dream-like compositions. Vistas Fijas, Armando Velasco, Eblen Macari, and Gabo move through radical new wave territories, utilizing guitars and drum machines to map their musical chronicles. Germán Bringas and Eugenio Toussaint traverse the jazz landscape, blending horns with electronics, improvising long uncharted expeditions. Pinning down a unified sound for these artists is challenging, yet they collectively cohabitate the capacious space of "ambient," employing diverse expressions through various imaginative modalities. What distinguishes these artists is a distinctly transhistorical approach which vividly imagines sonic possible worlds. In an attempt to situate themselves within a culturally and historically complex landscape, many of the artists on the compilation reactivate ancient Mesoamerican music traditions, those of the Aztecs, Maya, and Olmecs. Their electronic compositions are intricate tapestries woven with the haunting melodies of pre-Hispanic flutes and ocarinas, resonating alongside the echoes of ancient percussive marvels like the teponaztli and huéhuetl. Ritualistic chants, undulating synths, and atavistic rhythms intertwine, conjuring a hypnotic mosaic of chimeric sound. Natural and acoustic sounds are juxtaposed within a synthetic habitat, as if towering skyscrapers cast a shadow across ancient pyramids. Rather than longing for an impossible past, these works evoke fantastical visions suspended in dreams, glimpses into the mythical realm of the hummingbirds. The title "Triángulos De Luz Y Espacios De Sombra" (Triangles of Light and Spaces of Shadow) is inspired by a public access TV show of the same name that showcased several artists featured in this compilation. Imagining triangular prisms of light superimposed on otherworldly shadows feels apt for these illusory and phantasmagoric sounds. The space between these two opposing but interdependent images is the resonant juncture where these artists create their auditory oracles. This compilation highlights the prophetic luminaries of this underground community of musicians, with many of these songs previously unreleased or only available on fugitive formats until now. This double LP release features 17 tracks remastered from reel-to-reel, DAT, and cassette masters. It includes two inserts with an essay by Mexico City based music journalist David Cortés on both Spanish and English, accompanied by archival photos of the artists and artifacts featured on the compilation. The first edition comes adorned in a luminescent sticker illustrating a solar eclipse. RIYL: Outro Tempo, Durutti Column, Jon Hassell, Música Esporádica, Finis Africae

Music From Memory is excited to introduce ‘Total Blue’, the Los Angeles-based trio of Nicky Benedek, Alex Talan, and Anthony Calonico. Despite collaborating for over a decade, ‘Total Blue’ represents a new chapter in their artistic journey together as a trio. Embracing chance, inviting the unknown, and guided by a spirit of sheer play and exploration, ‘Total Blue’ was driven by a desire to ‘touch the beyond’ in pursuit of an elusive vibe the three had been chasing for years. Alex, Nick, and Anthony envision ‘Total Blue’ as the all-encompassing full picture, a place where the real and the imaginary begin to blur; a destination reached not through escapism but by expanding one's perspective; a widened scope of vision where personality both shines and disintegrates. Across the album, their mission statement is expertly achieved with subtlety and delicate human touch; painting with a lush palette of digital synths, Akai EVI wind synthesizer, fretless bass, and guitar, the trio masterfully balance texture and color, evoking wide expansive vistas that stretch from Los Angeles right out to the furthest reaches of sky and sea. This is ‘Total Blue’ - a place of time and timelessness where echoes of history and tradition merge with rootless inhuman sonics. MFM071 will be released as 1xLP on vinyl and in digital format on July 19th 2024. Art and design by Michael Willis.

Throbbing Gristle revisits TGCD1, long out of print, now available on vinyl for the first time ever via Mute. This release includes the original sleeve notes by all the members of the band, uncovering the story and ethos behind TG’s independent record label, Industrial Records. Formed in 1975, Throbbing Gristle, aka Chris Carter, Peter “Sleazy” Christopherson (1955-2010), Cosey Fanni Tutti, and Genesis Breyer P-Orridge (1950- 2020), fully delivered on punk’s failed promise to explore extreme culture as a way of sabotaging systems of control. Their impact on music, culture, and the arts has been immeasurable and still felt today. Originally released on Mute’s imprint, The Grey Area, in 1986, TGCD1 comprises forty-two minutes of studio recordingscaptured at their own Industrial Records Studio on a TEAC 8-Track in 1979. Initially serving as an exclusive piece of unreleased material for TG’s first-ever CD release, the record’ dark and harsh droning sound stands as a significant chapter in their discography, showcasing the band during, arguably, their most formative era. TGCD1 is reissued alongside The Third Mind Movements - both vital additions for dedicated Throbbing Gristle and industrial music fans.

Following in the steps of last year's mysterious "Beyond the Garage" 12 inch, L.I.E.S. throws another curveball with a 30 track continuous LP from veteran West Coast producers, Vinny+Charlie. Each side running 20 minutes, this can best be described as a smoked out, haze filled afterparty beat tape on wax. Obscure samples, dusty sp-12 crushed beats, head nodding loops, sweet low rider soul..chopped, sped up, slowed down and ready to wreck your system. Limited edition white label housed in a lp jacket with custom art by LA artist SOB STORY. 300 copies worldwide.

Welcome to the Encyclopedia Sónica: Every sound you will hear on this album has been recorded by me since 1994 in different parts of the world. On top of these sounds, their melodies and rhythms grow the compositions you will hear. Some of the pieces have a collaborator that integrates with the sounds in different ways. Since I was a little boy, I always found music everywhere. I remember listening to the engine of my mother's car and finding incredible rhythms there. I've always thought that every sound we hear can be made into music. Every sound we hear can be heard as music, felt, and understood as music. Every sound has an attack, a decay; some have a pitch. What is more beautiful - the sound of a flute, bird, trumpet, car horn, violin, or buzzing mosquito? They can all be used to make music. If we learn to hear all sounds as 'musical', or at least having the potential to be used to make music, we might look at and listen to the world more lovingly. That car passing by had a beautiful crescendo. That dog barking in the distance created an amazing melody with an impossible-to-transcribe rhythm. Is there no creative intention behind those sounds? Can the listener give them an intention? Can the listener transform them into art? I am just trying to organize and use them in a way that they will be musical to you, hoping that the next time you hear an ocean wave breaking, or a bonfire crackling, or a fly flying, you can enjoy the notes and the rhythms they are making. They are being created by something - who knows what the intention is, but some of the most amazing rhythms I've heard come from rocks falling in cenotes or ice breaking down in a glacier. The melodies I've listened to, from bats, dogs fighting, or newborn dogs, are haunting and beautiful. The timbre from sounds such as the thorn of a cactus, the voice of a homeless person in the street, or a mosquito buzzing can be used to create instruments as beautiful as any instrument. They have a new sound, or familiar old sound, used differently in a way that invites us to hear the music created by this planet. I hope you enjoy these sounds... Leonardo Heilblum

“It’s just too easy to make a standard dance track,” Aphex Twin said of his mindset back in 1992. “You’ve got to put a bit of thought into it to get something a bit different.” ‘Digeridoo’ was released on the Belgian R&S Records label in 1992, and originally peaked at #55 in the UK singles chart in May of that year. Over the last 32 years the track has become one of the essential Aphex Twin tracks in a gargantuan catalogue that continues to amaze and inspire. “I wanted to have some tracks to play to finish the raves I used to play in Cornwall, to really kill everybody off so they couldn’t dance,” Richard D James, AKA Aphex, told Select magazine back in the 90s. “Digeridoo came out of that.” Released as a 4 track EP that also included early Aphex productions (now classics) including the industrial, acidic clang of ‘Flap Head’ and hyperbolic futurism of ‘Isopropanol’, the release cemented a relationship with the R&S label that went on to release the ‘Xylem Tube’ EP and the pivotal album ‘Selected Ambient Works 85-92’ in the same year. The label’s owner & A&R Renaat Vandepapeliere reflected “When I first heard Aphex Twin’s music I said, ‘This is it!’, and everybody else said, ‘You’re crazy!’ …a lot of the hardcore R&S fans dropped us. To them it wasn’t music.” ‘Digeridoo’ (Expanded Edition) is the first time the EP has been re-issued with extra material. Whilst digging in his DAT archive (allegedly stored in an airtight military ammo box), Richard James revisited the recordings, encoding them through a Nakamichi CR7e cassette deck, using the customised deck with vari-speed to encode at speeds “felt right at the time”. Alongside these CR7e versions, the original mixes have been remastered by Beau Thomas at Ten Eight Seven Mastering, offering a dilated insight into one of electronic music’s most endearing releases.

We invite you to embark on a captivating sonic odyssey with Quiet Logic, a masterpiece co-crafted by electronic maestros Mixmaster Morris and Jonah Sharp at Haruomi Hosono’s Studio back in 1997. It encapsulates a time when electronic music was undergoing rapid transformation, and these artists were at the forefront, pushing boundaries and redefining soundscapes. Inspired by their unique musical backgrounds, from Hosono's immense contribution to electronic music, and a key figure in the renowned group Yellow Magic Orchestra, to Morris's illustrious worldwide chill out DJ performances and Sharp's pioneering San Francisco Reflective label, Quiet Logic delivers a blend of intricate rhythms and celestial environments remastered for 2023 and available for the first time on vinyl format. Listeners are invited to once again traverse its ambient realms and complex beats. For fans of Haruomi Hosono / YMO, The Irresistible Force, Spacetime Continuum, Dreamfish, Tetsu Inoue, FFWD, H.I.A., Fax +49-69/450464, and mind expanding musics.

“Momento Claro”, a dream-like landscape crafted by funcionário, influenced by Jon Hassell and Hiroshi Yoshimura’s latest works Glossy Mistakes proudly announces the upcoming release of "Momento Claro," the latest full-length album by Portuguese artist funcionário. Scheduled to drop on May 10th, "Momento Claro" will be available digitally and on vinyl, inviting listeners to embark on a profound auditory exploration. Following the success of his previous work "Cavalcante," released on Hozulam, funcionário returns delving deep into the realms of ambient and Fourth World. Inspired by the likes of Jon Hassel, Brian Eno, and Japanese environmental artist such as Hiroshi Yoshimura and Takashi Kokubo. "Momento Claro" offers a sonic tapestry rich with textures and layers, evoking a sense of spirituality and introspection. A split second. At the heart of the album lies a collection of eight tracks, each a testament to funcionário's craft. The journey begins with "Esperança," a mesmerising nine-minute meditation adorned with the soothing sounds of the ocean, setting the tone for the ethereal voyage ahead. From the tranquil atmospheres of "Retrato" to the contemplative depths of "Momento Claro," each composition invites listeners to immerse themselves fully in the sonic, dream-like landscape crafted with care and depth. Here a glimpse into the intricacies of day-to-day experiences and interactions collide throughout a collage of organic layers, atmospheres and approaches, "Momento Claro" serves as a poignant reflection on the contemporary working society, where "the power of sound as a bridge between memory and the imagination that interprets it”. Mastered by Damian Schwartz, "Momento Claro" achieves a sonic clarity that enhances the album's immersive qualities, ensuring that each note resonates with precision and depth. Prepare to be transported to a realm where time stands still and the boundaries between reality and reverie blur. A deep journey that promises to captivate the mind and nourish the soul

Raising Earthly Spirits was conceived as a ritualistic, shamanistic album centred around the concept of transcending this level of consciousness and existing mindfully in multidimensional space and time. It draws heavily upon the sacred ideas and practices of many indigenous peoples from this earth and how they communicate and interact with their ancestors and how they see themselves in relation to this world. It was made with respect towards these beliefs. - Robin Storey/Rapoon

Raising Earthly Spirits was conceived as a ritualistic, shamanistic album centred around the concept of transcending this level of consciousness and existing mindfully in multidimensional space and time. It draws heavily upon the sacred ideas and practices of many indigenous peoples from this earth and how they communicate and interact with their ancestors and how they see themselves in relation to this world. It was made with respect towards these beliefs. - Robin Storey/Rapoon

United States Of Islam is the second part in a series of 4 outstanding double vinyl albums with bonus songs, previously released on CD between 1990 and 1994 on the Australian cult label Extreme Music. Armed with a cleverly provocative title, USoI showcases a moodier side of Muslimgauze. While the trademark blend of driving percussions and minimalism reigns supreme as always, the general feel is much more dreamy and mysterious than on some of Bryn Jones' more forthright pieces. The original tracks were perfectly remastered for this first time ever vinyl release and the new masters received high praise from the Extreme Music owner Roger Richards. New sleeve designs were created by Oleg Galay, who is famous for his artworks for many Muslimgauze reissues. All 4 album covers are made from extra heavy cardboard with deluxe spot UV finish and inside print.

Intifaxa is the first part in a series of 4 outstanding double vinyl albums with bonus songs, previously released on CD between 1990 and 1994 on the Australian cult label Extreme Music. Intifaxa is full of heavy percussion fire with deep tribal grooves, embedded in modulated field recordings. The album is a transcendental journey into Eastern soundscapes and a secret weapon for DJs who enjoy to tear down the borders of tribal underground house and psychedelic trance music. The original tracks were perfectly remastered for this first time ever vinyl release and the new masters received high praise from the Extreme Music owner Roger Richards. New sleeve designs were created by Oleg Galay, who is famous for his artworks for many Muslimgauze reissues. All 4 album covers are made from extra heavy cardboard with deluxe spot UV finish and inside print.

September 23rd is the first release in William Basinski’s new Arcadia Archive series. Recorded in September 1982 in his first loft in the pre-gentrified DUMBO neighborhood in Brooklyn, New York, September 23rd is a recently unearthed early entry in what has become a hugely inspirational and influential catalog. Built from a piano piece that Basinski composed in high school in the mid-1970s, September 23rd quickly evolved into a vastly different work. As Basinski explains: “The original piano recordings were made on on a piano belonging to my downstairs neighbor, John Epperson – later known more famously as world-renowned drag artist, Lypsinka – at 351 Jay Street aka Casa Degli Artisti, our first loft in New York. It was recoded with a little portable (probably Radio Shack) cassette deck sitting on the piano as I improvised a piece I had been working on since high school. It was pretty terrible, but when I did the John Giorno/William Burroughs cut-up technique, suddenly I had something to put through the Frippertronics loop and feedback loop tape delay system – and boy did I get results. A very prolific time for a young, wacked-out queen in NYC.”

Electronic Music from 1972-2022 seeks to frame fifty years of Carl Stone's compositional activity, starting with Stone's earliest professionally presented compositions from 1972 ("Three Confusongs" and "Ryound Thygyzunz", featuring the voice and poetry of Stefan Weiser – later known as Z'EV) up to the present. This collection is not meant as a definitive history but rather as a supplement to be used alongside the previous two archival releases. It is simultaneously an archival release marking Carl Stone’s evergreen 70th birthday and a document of archival art. In the spirit of disorienting repetition and layering, call it an archive of archiving. Stone’s practice emerged from the repetitive archival process of his graduate job at CalArts preserving vinyl recordings by dubbing them to tape. With perhaps 10,000 albums ranging from Renaissance and electronic works to music from across the globe, he had to re-record multiple discs concurrently, creating chance collisions and coincidences. In the decades since, he’s explored various ways to compose this process, creating temporal envelopes in which found sounds – existing tracks or field recordings – can take form. Whilst the technologies he’s used have changed and samples have varied beyond categorization, what’s remained consistent is his concern for organizing temporal experience using fragments of pre-existing sounding events. Stone's impish collage-like constructions of times cut from time suggest that archival records are neither wholly in documents preserved from change nor in living memories and use, but in their interaction.

One of the universal experiences of life on Earth is staring, neck craned, at the cosmos. The vastness of one’s internal life meets the vastness of space, and in that moment those perspectives fuse in a state of wonder and curiosity. Space As An Instrument, the new album by French artist and musician Félicia Atkinson, invites listeners to explore the phantasmic landscapes created in such transformative encounters, when the mind is open and receptive to its environment. Like being absorbed by the immensity of the night sky, this music dilates the imagination and helps us to sit comfortably in the mystery of the ineffable. We are guided through Space As An Instrument by the piano, its a linear story told through restrained, iterative melodies that become entwined with the sounds at the music’s margins - a wisp of electronics, a pinprick of an enunciated consonant. They were recorded on Atkinson’s phone, which was placed next to the keys, or behind her, with the sound of the room bleeding through to give a sense of the place and time of the encounter. She describes these sessions as meetings where she and the piano commune to co-create these spiraling phrases and vaporous dissonances moment by moment. Complicating this dynamic is the presence of digital pianos, which exist in the surreal space of diodes and LED displays. They act as avatars of their three-dimensional counterparts: nowhere and everywhere simultaneously. Still, the inhabited world of people, water, and wind can be heard throughout Space As An Instrument. Often these recordings are integrated into the backdrop of electronics, or reduced to the sound of movements whose physical forms are obscured: the microphone straining against a forceful gust on “Sorry,” arhythmic footsteps traversing an invisible terrain on “Pensées Magiques.” These field recordings take us to the brink of synesthetic experience, allowing us to glimpse with our ear the topography of the imagination. But Atkinson’s music resists any kind of singular perspective on the scene, or any distinct conclusion. “It doesn’t explain anything,” she says, “but it translates the way I perceive it, somehow.” Atkinson is a polymath by nature, engrossed in a variety of daily artistic practices that nourish one another. In her garden, she performs the slow work of cross-species relationship building, cultivating an ideal space for introspection and further creation; many of the album’s vocal and electronic elements were recorded there. Poetry, which she prizes for its capacity to render the everyday tools of meaning-making more enigmatic, becomes folded into the music as well. She paints as often as time allows. One personal limitation Atkinson finds in painting, the rendering of perspective, has become one of her music’s defining characteristics. The vantage point of the listener is slippery and undefined, with sounds at once appearing gigantic and minuscule, distant and immediate. This phenomena is central to “Thinking Iceberg,” a 13-minute piece that was whittled down from an hour and a half performance, who remain only a ghostly presence on the album’s recording. Atkinson wrote the piece in response to Olivier Remaud’s book Thinking Like An Iceberg, in which the philosopher assigns agency to these massive, endangered objects and imagines how they might perceive their millenia-long relationship to humans. Stoic synthesizer tones percolate while water flows just out of the immediate frame with a disarming clarity and presence. As the piece crests, Atkinson’s whispered voice emerges softly, placed right against the listener’s left ear, contrasting with the billowing mass of sound that otherwise dominates. We emerge with a glimmer of awareness of how immensity and delicacy can coexist as time and humanity extract their toll. Félicia Atkinson says her music exists “on the verge of understanding and not understanding,” which often precludes such literal interpretations. But in that nebulous space there is humility and openness, and perhaps enough empathy to understand the consciousness of a massive, frozen chunk of water. With the listener’s perspective diffused into many different vantage points, how might that, too, become a vehicle for the development of compassion? As we listen, we encounter the wisdom that there is meaning not just in the experience of the sublime, that radical juxtaposition of limitlessness and intimacy, but also in the continuum of countless individuals that have taken the same journey.

Release date Feb. 9th. Kali Malone's anticipated new album "All Life Long" is a collection of music for pipe organ, choir, and brass quintet composed by Kali Malone, 2020 - 2023. Choral music performed by Macadam Ensemble and conducted by Etienne Ferschaud at Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-L'Immaculée-Conception in Nantes. Brass quintet music performed by Anima Brass at The Bunker Studio in New York City. Organ music performed by Kali Malone and Stephen O’Malley on the historical meantone tempered pipe organs at Église Saint-François in Lausanne, Orgelpark in Amsterdam, and Malmö Konstmuseum in Sweden. Kali Malone composes with a rare clarity of vision. Her music is patient and focused, built on a foundation of evolving harmonic cycles that draw out latent emotional resonances. Time is a crucial factor: letting go of expectations of duration and breadth offers a chance to find a space of reflection and contemplation. In her hands, experimental reinterpretations of centuries-old polyphonic compositional methods become portals to new ways of perceiving sound, structure, and introspection. Though awe-inspiring in scope, the most remarkable thing about Malone’s music is the intimacy stirred by the close listening it encourages. Malone’s new album All Life Long, created between 2020 - 2023, presents her first compositions for organ since 2019’s breakthrough album The Sacrificial Code alongside interrelated pieces for voice and brass performed by Macadam Ensemble and Anima Brass. Over the course of twelve pieces, harmonic themes and patterns recur, presented in altered forms and for varied instrumentation. They emerge and reemerge like echoes of their former selves, making the familiar uncanny. Propelled by lungs and breath rather than bellows and oscillators, Malone’s compositions for choir and brass take on expressive qualities that complicate the austerity that has defined her work, introducing lyricism and the beauty of human fallibility into music that has been driven by mechanical processes. At the same time, the works for organ, performed by Malone with additional accompaniment by Stephen O’Malley on four different organs dating from the 15th to 17th centuries, underscore the mighty, spectral power that those rigorous operations can achieve. All Life Long simmers in an ever-shifting tension between repetition and variation. The pieces for brass, organ, and voice are alternated asymmetrically, providing nearly continuous timbral fluctuation across its 78-minute runtime even as thematic material reiterates. Each composition’s internal framework of fractal pattern permutations has the paradoxical effect of creating anticipated keystone moments of dramatic reverie and lulling the listener into believing in an illusory endlessness. On an even more granular level, the historical meantone tuning systems of each organ used, and the variable intonation of brass and voice, provide further points of emotional excavation within the harmony. The titular composition “All Life Long” appears twice on the album, first as an extended canon for organ and again in the final quarter, compactly arranged for voice. In the latter, Malone pairs the music with “The Crying Water” by Arthur Symons, a poem steeped in language of mourning and eternity. For organ, “All Life Long” moves with a patient stateliness, the drama concentrated in moments when shifting tonalities generate and release dissonance and ecstasy. For voice, each word is saturated with feeling, the singers swooping gracefully downward to capture the melancholy of the narrator’s relationship to the timeless tears of the sea. “Passage Through The Spheres,” the album’s opening piece, contains lyrics in Italian pulled from Giorgio Agamben’s essay In Praise of Profanation. In it, Agamben defines profanation as, in part, the act of bringing back to communal, secular use that which has been segregated to the realm of the sacred, a process Malone enacts each time she performs on church organs. This is not music of praise, or of spiritual revelation, but it is an artistic enactment of translating the indescribable. It carries the gravity of liturgical chant, and its fixation on the infinite, but draws its weight from the earthly realm of human experience. A music that draws the listener into the present moment where they can discover themselves within the interwoven musical patterns that can come to resemble the passage of days, weeks, years, a lifetime.

Ai Aso’s immaculately crafted form of minimalist pop music skirts the edges of tensity with the manner and with the skill of a tight rope walker, calmly balancing repeatedly at every step, with a combination of surety and the risk of a slip, a fall, and an unknown uncoiling of events. Aso's capacity to capture, or inspire, the tension and attention from within the listener and observer are quite pronounced. At Aso's concert the performance constantly teeters near the brink, a sharpened awareness in the hall emerges from all observing, with the will of that most delicate balance. On “The Faintest Hint” she brings a meta level to the proceedings, the dream of a singer in a bright sunlit room in the centre of the density of the society, simply and precisely searching for single ideas, single tones, a sense of sensuality and even a dream of a grandeur (rock dream) emerge. A stillness prevails, even a sharp set of instances of dreaming, melancholia, nostalgia… or even saudade. The album was recorded, mixed & mastered by Soichiro Nakamura at Peace Music between 2018-2020. Atsuo and I joined these sessions as producers, and moreso as catalysts, yet also became the skeleton of a band on the album (with the tender touch). The legendary Japanese rock band Boris accompany Aso on two pieces. A faintest hint of sharpness and la tendresse féroce quickly erodes into a fine brief cloud of the purest crystalline dust.

“Maggot Mass,” the fifth full-length album by Pharmakon on Sacred Bones Records, marks the project's return after a five-year hiatus. This album signifies a departure from the original rules and structures established by Margaret Chardiet for Pharmakon, evolving into a new form. It retains the project’s experimental roots in power electronics and noise while incorporating industrial and punk influences. The album stems from a profound disgust with humanity’s dysfunctional relationship with the environment and other life forms. It explores the loneliness resulting from this broken bond and challenges us to acknowledge our personal and systemic responsibility. What peace can we make with privilege when the true cost of our comfort is not measured in dollars but in death? How can we reconcile with death when we impose the same hierarchical structures on it that we do in life? Is life worth living in the isolation of this self-imposed species loneliness? Humans often measure worth by accumulation—money, assets, objects—mistaking this for power and influence. Western heritage dictates a hierarchy, placing humans at the top, separate from the natural world. This delusion turns bodies into objects, land into property, and people into expendable tools. If our value were instead determined by our contribution to the ecosystem, who could claim that a human is more valuable than a maggot? Maggots recycle death into life, breaking down matter and nourishing new growth. They transform into flies, pollinating plants and sustaining the Earth’s flora. In contrast, humans pollute rather than pollinate, with a select few profiting from exploitation at the expense of biodiversity and the well-being of many. In grappling with grief and loss on both personal and global scales, Margaret sought solace in the idea of rebirth through death, celebrating the beauty of regeneration through decay. However, she had to confront the stark reality of the disconnection from the earth under oppressive systems. Pharmakon is here imagining a path where the final act is to give back what was received from creation, offering our lives and deaths to sustain existence. once I slough off this human skin I will find my home and ancestral kin… in the coffin-birth of my cadaver’s ecosystem All songs written and performed by Margaret Chardiet Lyrics by Margaret Chardiet Recorded, Mixed and Mastered by Sasha Stroud at Artifact Studios Produced by Margaret Chardiet and Sasha Stroud

Like a winding system of trails and paths cutting through a digital forest-scape, M. Sage’s Paradise Crick is shaped by time. Full of wonder and charm, designed patiently and from a rich, curious mulch of synthesized and acoustic sound, the versatile American artist and magic realist’s new suite of music is an imaginary destination and a pastoral fantasy that envisions the natural and fabricated worlds as one. Matthew Sage is a musician, intermedia artist, recording engineer and producer, publisher, teacher, partner, and parent. Assembling a sprawling and idiosyncratic catalog of experimental studio music between Colorado and Chicago since the early 2010s, recent highlights include The Wind of Things (Geographic North, 2021), an ensemble-recorded expression of bow-splashed nostalgia, and the four seasonal albums of Fuubutsushi, the improvisatory ambient jazz quartet he formed with friends from afar in 2020. Sage renders projects with nuanced velocity and a completist sensibility — when it’s finished, it’s done — which is what makes Paradise Crick, his debut for RVNG Intl., a compelling outlier. Sage first staked his tent in Crick’s conceptual campground five years ago from his home studio in Chicago (he’s since returned to Colorado, home to the mountains and prairies often personified in his work). He had just read Richard Brautigan’s Trout Fishing in America, a kaleidoscopic reflection of pastoral America’s shifting identity by way of magical fishing sojourns. Inspired by that feeling, of getting lost but finding oneself in through the outdoors, he amassed over seventy demos documenting a fictional soundtrack for camping. Pull up to this park, and the sign might read, “Welcome to Paradise Crick. Fire Danger Is Low.” The sequence, pruned down to thirteen tracks, courses the dewy mornings, afternoon hikes, and firelit nights of a weekend expedition. While Sage is not a filmmaker, he views the method of making this album as a similar form of world-building via structure, narrative, formal elements, and editorial refinement. Contrasted with his collaborative craft, here he is a sole auteur reclined in total autonomy, able to improvise scenes and implement special effects at will. A parallel precedent for such unchecked imagination in the M. Sage canon is A Singular Continent, his 2014 album that tilted its compass to a faraway land. Where Continent built its world layering samples as composition, Paradise Crick deploys a balance of accessible song structures with experimental instrumentation and sound design. Speckled with harmonica, autoharp, chimes, penny whistle, voice, hand percussion, and other mysteries, Crick’s texture is treated as a sensorial adventure; the swamps gurgle, the lakes glisten, and the valleys breathe in robust HD. The rhythms are loose and buoyant, bursting with a few ‘kick and snare’ moments shaped by Sage’s lifelong love for drumming and headphone prone electronic music. Crick bumps more than most anything he’s done before; crackling static pulses and lush vibrations reveal an intrinsic groove, a hidden beat map. In the landscapes of Paradise Crick, science and magic co-exist, 5k boulders and midi frogs share the frame with real-life memories of Midwest camping trips and the desire to feel extra human in a digitized space. Sage strived for “nature in the holodeck” but couldn’t help leaving fingerprints in the simulation, and it’s these traces of spirit and character that give Paradise Crick its strange allure. The album’s bubbling sense of play, melody, and timbre takes cues from left-field electronic lineage; synth pioneers like Tomita and Raymond Scott up through the more expressive pop tendencies of Woo, Stereolab and the Cocteau Twins, and into contemporary composers like Sam Prekop. The album’s vocabulary is uncomplicated; the gestures are sweet and inviting, intended to lull the listener. As much as Sage continues to be an experimentalist by nature in his work, with Paradise Crick, he spins a narrative. Not necessarily a concept album, but rather an invitation to take off for a weekend. That’s the modus operandi down here in the Crick, we stretch out.

Oliver Coates' Throb, shiver, arrow of time is a portal into somatic chiaroscuro, aglow with the embers of imperfect memories and smudged with the plumes of internal echoes, which augment in vast, mercurial dimensions. The ten compositions of Throb, shiver, arrow of time find weightless melodies soaring across after-image gradients, while Coates reaches further to collapse the digital into the analogue and vice versa, allowing serendipity to reorganize the material and push out against the confines of flatness.

Underneath his mysterious metal mask, MF DOOM hides the cachet underground legends are made of. After his first group KMD’s sophomore album Black Bastards was shelved by Elektra in 1994, and his blood brother Subroc — one half of the sibling rap duo — passed away, surviving frontman Zev Love X slowly mutated into the supervillain MC known as MF DOOM, and the rap world is better for it.The 1999 release of Operation: Doomsday marked MF DOOM’s official debut, reintroducing a mysterious figure who would soon become one of underground rap’s greatest voices. Within its 19 tracks, Operation: Doomsday reveals the confluence of DOOM’s tragic past, personal interests and daring creativity. His clever rhymes and remarkable schemes stood out against the landscape, and every sound he touched — from cartoon theme songs, to ‘80s soul, to rap classics and more — got reinterpreted into something brand new and surreal.Decades later, MF DOOM is still celebrated for all facets of his work and influence. In the face of tragedy, DOOM re-infiltrated the rap game on his own terms, and crafted an instant cult classic. Operation: Doomsday stands as a testament to the power of betting on yourself against all odds.

MM..FOOD, a 2004 concept album "about what you find at a picnic or at a picnic table," released by underground rap's greatest voice MF DOOM on Rhymesayers, is back in analog form! The fifth studio album, which debuted at #17 on Billboard's Independent Albums chart, features guest appearances by Count Bass D, Angelika, 4ize, and Mr. Fantastik.

Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn’t set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel’s Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel’s significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz’s musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel’s extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles “Isfahan” and “Neon Blue.” LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel’s work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz’s voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz’ “supreme openness,” explaining: “Whatever is happening, she’s there with you. We really meet right where we are. She’s all ears, I’m all ears. I don’t even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow.” Gendel remembers first being impressed by her musicality one day while they were gathered in the backyard at her family’s home; she improvised a strange and fully-formed little composition. The melody struck Gendel - he pulled out his iPhone and had her sing into it, then later orchestrated an ornate, fully fleshed out world around the voice memo. It came easily and simply. The subsequent LIVE A LITTLE session unfolded naturally, too – no discussion, no plan, no ambition – just “let it rip.” They started when it felt right and ended when it felt finished, once the flow of ideas dissipated. Then they put it away without discussion and moved on to the next activity. For a week afterward, Gendel tinkered with the live recording, adding a part or three on top of the initial session, sculpting it into its final product; a moment of raw creativity condensed into a polished little stone. Then he brought it back to Cytrynowicz, who hadn’t heard it since that summer afternoon, and was floored by hearing what they had created. LIVE A LITTLE is a series of “what ifs” cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It’s a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn’t have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. “That’s why she and I can make music I think, because I don’t think I ever deviated from that approach - or at least, I hope I didn’t,” Gendel says. “I really think that’s the best way that works for me musically – that ‘no mind’ sort of thing.” And here they both decisively follow that intuition, chronicling the way an idea blossoms and moves through you. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.