MUSIC

Acoustic, no-age krautrock from Berlin releasing on Glasgow label, Phase Group. 

 The next release on Phase Group unearths a truly unique project that has existed as an outlier in the Berlin underground since 2002. 
 A stage decked out with xylophones, tambourines, timpani, wooden percussion, two drum kits, a cello, harmonicas, saxophones and pieces of scrap metal. Eight unassuming musicians playing repetitive, trance-inducing phrases, at times serene, fragile and dream-like and at others wild, primitive and driving. This isn’t a scene you might associate with hazy nights out in Berlin but it’s what you’d find if you ended up at a Kulku show. Kulku's music is a hard to define blend of percussive minimalism, folk, krautrock, post-punk and no wave, almost exclusively derived from acoustic sound sources. Their debut album ‘Fahren!' presents this unique sound-identity that they have been crafting for the best part of two decades. The A-side presents 3 tracks of percussive propulsion, minimalist xylophone motifs and repetitive drums alongside monotone organ, dramatic narration and woodwind instruments moving in and out of dissonant howls and melodic improvisation. The B-side is devoted to lighter tones, beginning with the glockenspiel minimalism of ‘Unterm Himmel’ and rounding the record out with trance inducing drone of the album’s title track which builds up into a cacophony of snare drums, dissonant accordion and melodica before fading out like dream. All songs composed and recorded in Berlin by Wenzlovar, Gatis Silde, Johannes Schmelzer-Ziringer, Johanna Riska, Cornelius Onitsch, Alexander Samuels and Maxfield Gassmann

 Artwork by Andrija Čugurović



Marking the 20th release on Invisible, Inc. is this special limited edition double-vinyl gatefold compilation featuring tracks from some of the most highly respected musicians of the last five decades. The astonishingly diverse palette of styles comes courtesy of renowned ambient innnovator Laraaji, multi-Grammy Award-winning producer and ground-breaking synthesist and sound engineer Malcolm Cecil (in his Tonto's Expanding Head Band guise), Italian 'Cosmic Disco' pioneer and DJ Daniele Baldelli, avantgarde experimentalist K. Leimer, New York electro synth-pop legend Richard Bone (all five of whom have been active since the '70s or earlier) as well as dub techno locked groove aficionados log(m), West Coast psychedelic electronics maestro Secret Circuit, Berlin-based synthesist/composer Eva Geist plus a veritable "who's who" of some of the finest producers of ambient, dub, downtempo, leftfield and experimental electronica ever collected together on a single piece of wax (or two in this case): Baikonour, Sordid Sound System, Causa, Ulysses, Epsilove, Luv*Jam, Higamos Hogamos, Randweg, Bronze Savage, Komodo Kolektif, Bal5000 and Natural Sugars. Eliciting a distinct sense of musical other-worldlyness, the title is perhaps more than just a nod to Philip K Dick's "Blade Runner" and hints at the idea that if these transmissions 'from beyond' are 'lost' they may in essence be more rooted in our distant past than in some science fiction future. Putting needle to record, ancient rhythms and hypnotic mantras merge with synthesized soundscapes and deep basslines to propel us upward from the primeval forest floor into steady orbit before engaging the hyperspace drive on a trajectory deep into the Great Mystery.

Domestic Exile warmly welcome the return of Grim Lusk, coming full circle to follow up 2018’s ‘SUNP0101’ after releasing under their Dip Friso and Sunny Balm aliases in the interim. ‘Diving Pool’ is a hallucinogenic concoction of marshy, aquatic, oscillated dubs and skittering, microtonal beat experiments. Grim Lusk's signature production style is in full effect, often occupying some liminal space nearing offbeat discordancy, but beautifully pulling together on the brink. Gelatinous machine funk rhythms and sweet, syrupy dub bass ooozing with a vibrant convergence of bright psychedelic greens, yellows and oranges, akin to bubbling sulphur pools and lava lakes, are present throughout the 6 tracks; Nuovo takes late 80’s drum machine patterns and twists them up with rough-cut vocal chops and long-form sampling of a 60’s film on the first iteration of ‘​​Il Gruppo”. Striding into the turbulent sea, Partans is kept jovial by rim shots, cymbals and snares fed back over the forward bass buzz. Not Enough is a bizarre, primordial, stretched-out gloop sludge half-speed version of the B-side track Too Much, twisted into new rhythmic territory by an off-kilter breakbeat sample. Diving Pool takes crushed, bouncing drum machines and loop-focussed experimentation to find incidental interplay between the two, whilst somehow retaining ebullient make-you-movable gusto. Angular rhythm and zealous sample manipulation seep through in Too Much, live drums patched, extrapolated and pulled further out in the mix, where jump cuts between familiar vocal chops and distorted tape delay contort manically- a warped, swinging echo of Slum Village's ‘I Don’t Know’. Wazoo rounds things out with the most club-leaning moment of the record, a saturated, throbbing atmosphere hanging over a beat-up, lurching drum sample layered with malleable pitched percussion and fuzz guitar. Peculiar shapes, fragmented shards of rhythmic patterns, crushed, crystallised snares, and congealed, jelly-like dubs; the music embodies a sense of carefree fun and playfulness, where dissolving layers of organic echoes, warm, slippery reverbs, and expansive phaser EFX stretch out into nebulous space…

Following the reissues of Pub's beloved early classics "Summer" and "Do You Regret Pantomime?" comes a generous EP of new material. Thankfully the euphoric ambient trance / dub pulse hasn't weakened at all: it's like he never went away. Just in time for fall, Ampoule takes a break from the reissue program to put out the first new material we've heard from Pub in what seems like forever. 'Autumn' plays like a direct continuation of the throbbing hypnotics we last heard on 2001's enduring "Do You Regret Pantomime?" - far more so than Pub's later releases like 2006's gloomy "Sekatuo Ton" and 2012's drifting "Creid", for example. Pub's production, though, has been dragged into a new era, and sounds brighter than ever: the title track brittle and fictile - it's the same old Pub, but with a fresh lick of paint and a nice pink bow. Other than the sound quality, the general musical mode is pretty much unchanged; Pub's distinct blend of arpeggiated analog trance, Chain Reaction dub sonix and THC-laced horizontalism still gives us that floating feeling we had when we heard 'Vilees Wideoo' or 'Summer'. 'Fall in Leaves' absorbs an 'Analogue Bubblebeath' level of oddness, with detuned synths and skittering, spring reverb-drenched beats, a mode that's extended on the record's most generous track - the 12-minute 'Bubble Folder'. It's the most upfront Pub's ever been, wiped clean of any production muck almost glittering in the sunlight, shifting from frangible electro to pulsing, inverted ambience and into key-stepped beat music before sparkling into silence. 'Essence' is the clear high point though, with drums stripped completely to allow Pub's familiar cascading arpeggios to take pride of place. Captivating electronic music that reminds us of simpler times.

Shirk is the new AOR flavored free improvisation solo album by Sam Shalabi featuring Eric Chenaux and Nadah El-Shazly where Synth Pop and Sound Poetry fester. Sam Shalabi is an Egyptian-Canadian composer, improviser and guitarist living between Montreal and Cairo. Starting out during the late 70s punk era, his work has evolved into an experimental synthesis of modern Arabic Music that incorporates free improvisation, traditional Arabic music, noise, classical, text, and jazz. Other than his numerous solo albums, he is a founding member of Shalabi Effect, a free improvisation quartet that bridges western psychedelic music and Arabic Maqam. He has also released four albums with Land Of Kush, the experimental 30-member orchestra which he directs. He has appeared on over 30 albums and toured Europe, North America and North Africa.

Modern Love debut from Delia Beatriz aka Debit; a study of Mayan wind instruments from the late post classical period, rebuilt as synth instruments and deployed with ultimate heft and wooooze. Delia Beatriz’s musical output straddles two distinct artistic poles; her debut solo album, 2017’s acclaimed “Animus”, oozed from sensual, beatless soundscapes to high-octane club music, while her 2019-released 'System' harnessed tribal guarachero elements while simultaneously scraping ideas from industrial techno. On 'The Long Count', the Mexican-American producer has inked her most rigorous statement to date, sublimating opaque ancestral knowledge into vaporous AI-stirred fog banks, activating an ancient rite that reaches into tomorrow. It’s audacious electro-acoustic archaeology that sounds disorientating, anachronistic and arcane. 'The Long Count' is rooted in research Beatriz made into Mayan wind instruments - whistles, ocarinas, flutes and trumpets - using the archive of the Mayan Studies Institute at the Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, the oldest and largest collection of its kind. Developing a set of digital instruments that could be played using different types of temperaments and scales, Delia processed these sounds using machine learning techniques to shuttle the distant past into our extant artistic universe, peering into Mexico’s pre-colonial history and weaving those ideas into complex tonalities gleaned from musique concrète and contemporary electro-acoustic music. Beatriz describes the Mayan instrumentation as ancestral technology, part of a world that’s not so much been forgotten, but purposefully erased. And although it’s impossible to know exactly how Mayan music may have sounded, it’s feasible to converse with history using modern technology to conduct a ceremony of remembrance. Featuring soundscapes that are haunted by indistinct, shared memories and centuries of pent-up emotion, the material here is as intentional, direct and meticulously crafted as the work of Deathprod or Thomas Köner; Debit's microtonal compositions are psychedelic to their core, shapeshifting through dimensions and painting complex mental images while retaining a stylistic focus and lucidity that’s all too rare. Although 'The Long Count' was nurtured by machines, human experience is coded into its DNA - an ancient-future heirloom that whispers through countless generations. File under: magick concrète.

Alexis Le Tan and Joakim return to Good Morning tapes as Full Circle. On 'From Back There Again' they glance backwards in order to progress forwards. They're on a mission to sloooow your circulation, as they take elements from ambient, trance and Italo disco and reduce the tempos to a gentle chug, resulting in a more spacious, laid-back psychedelic groove that wouldn't have been out of place in the back room of yer fave '90s rave, with a wee bit of contemporary flavour.

Jonas Wiese’s TIBSLC (standing for The International Billionaire’s Secret Love Child) presents its second album on the sferic label. ‘Hypertranslucent’ derives from the same recording sessions as 2021’s sprawling ‘Decisive Tongue Shifts - Situation Based Compositions’ double LP, with late Nineties ambient music being used as a particular source of inspiration to create evocations of massive cityscapes at night. and , after the post-industrial / deconstructed club. A work that integrates the Ethereal sound design of Mastering is also great with Stephan Mathieu! Limited to 500 copies.

You will be swallowed by the beauty, depth, and sharpness of the "over there" side. Kali Malone, a female minimalist living in Stockholm, Sweden, who is familiar with our big and big bestseller "The Sacrificial Code" and produces extremely excellent drone / experimental works from the depths of the current underground such as and The extremely rare debut work left in 2017 is jointly reissued by and ! The original was privately pressed as a numbered record with only a limited number of 100 copies, and it is a very popular work that has also added over $300 in the marketplace, and it is a miracle reprint! Works composed, recorded and produced in Stockholm from 2015 to 2016. R1 Reaktorhallen (Sweden's first nuclear reactor), electroacoustic studio EMS, and a unique hardcore minimalist made with strings, gongs, lutes, electronics, tape, etc. at various locations such as the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. / Noise Drone Masterpiece! Limited to 1000 copies.

1983’s Waves of Peace is an album of gentle reflection. The sound of ocean waves permeates every track. Sitar, tambura, synthesizer, and bamboo flute are among the instruments that Aziz & Friends use to conjure their blissful oceanic meditation. “Waves of Peace was born in the beautiful oceanside town of Santa Cruz, California.” Aziz recalls. “Living there in 1982 was the first timeI had ever lived so close to the ocean. I would walk down to the beach on a daily basis. Nature has always been a major source of inspiration in my quest to create beautiful original music. Equally important to me has been recognizing the healing potential of harmonious sound.” “Waves of Peace was my first album to combine instru- mental music with the sounds of nature. Graced by the presence of some truly exceptional local musicians, most of the music was performed and recorded live in the studio.” Aziz explains. “Waves of Peace was created to facilitate relaxation, meditation, healing, and awakening for the body, mind, heart and soul. Let the rhythmic waves of the ocean nourish and inspire you to find your peace within.”

Originally released in 1978, Music By William Eaton is a private-press album from the accomplished experimental stringed instrument builder. The atmospheric recording techniques, mixed with a hint of Fahey/Takoma-lineage make for a listening experience akin to the mountainscape drawing represented on the album cover. The experience may seem simple at first, but like any great trip in nature, new details consistently reveal themselves upon each listen.

“When I started building instruments, playing guitar took on a whole new dimension. From the conception to the birth of each instrument, new layers of meaning unfolded. Cycles, connections and interdependencies became apparent as I contemplated the growth of trees from seed to old age, and the transformation from raw wood to the building of a musical instrument. I sought out quiet natural environments to play and listen to the “voice” of my 6 string, 12 string, 26 string (Elesion Harmonium) and double neck quadraphonic electric guitar. Deep canyons contained a beautiful resonant quality and echo. A starlit night with a full moon provided all the reflection and endless space by which to project music into the cosmos. The sound of a bubbling stream and singing birds added a natural symphonic tapestry to a melody or chord pattern. As I perceived it, everything was participating in a serendipitous dance. Everything was part of the music.

During this time, I decided to record an instrumental album of music. The idea was simple; it would be a series of tone poems with no titles or any information attached, only the words ‘Music by William Eaton.’ While some of the songs evolved out of composed chord progressions, most of the songs were played spontaneously, only on the occasion of the recording. These improvised songs haven’t been played since.” -- William Eaton

"For the very first time, ITDR spaceship travels back in time to unearth 4 tracks from 'Genuine' (aka Chris Zippel) finest productions originally released on Ninetysix sounds in 1997. Celebrating the 25th anniversary of this project, 'Nu Ambient Grooves' is the ultimate mindtrip experience for downtempo, IDM and TB-303 lovers."

Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello unwittingly met in London in the late 70’s, after being introduced by a mutual friend. Both Bruno and Giovanna arrived with varying ambitions. Giovanna wanted to learn English or be a painter, while Bruno found work at the Royal Post Office, which he found testing. It wasn’t until Bruno rescued Giovanna from an awkward date that the pair became a couple. At the time, music was just something they did for fun. Bruno already had an acoustic guitar and G bought a bass. Those were the days when you could start a new band, whether you could play or not, and new independent labels were springing up. Rough Trade Records was literally around the corner. In 1981 the pair moved back to Italy and found an apartment in Rome. It’s here that they began to focus on their music and where they started ‘recording’ their tracks. First, they would record the rhythm, maybe add the Gigster (the name of their “cheap drum machine”), the bass, and then, as they made a copy of the first cassette onto a second cassette they would add guitar, more synth, or both at the same time. After that, it was not unusual to copy from the second cassette back into the first cassette adding even more “stuff”. As with many artists during the early 80’s, the Influenza Prods’ sound was the direct result of the accessibility of emerging electronic instruments and the recording equipment available to them. The duo was resourceful and inventive, acquiring new equipment as resources allowed. They recorded dialogue from British Soap Operas on their TV set, which were later added to their tracks, while further making use of their family’s cutlery sets, which were used to fill in certain percussion sections The duo’s homespun recordings found a web of admirers in the unofficial distribution of tape trading and mail-art scenes. Despite the DIY ethos and the fact that most tapes were handmade, the Influenza Prods managed to ‘release’ three tapes which comprised of the Greatest Tits (1983), Cheek-A-Bomba (1984) and Quasi Solo (1985). Bruno and Giovanna were sadly subjected to serious family problems, including the loss of loved ones in their lives and eventually parted ways, concluding the Influenza Prods. However, to this day they remain close friends who keep in touch regularly.

Morio Agata cuts "Submarine" and "Airplane" as singles from his 1980 incidental masterpiece and world-important work "Norimono Zukan"! 7" Analog Limited Edition!

Last album recorded by Colombian rock pioneers Los Speakers in 1968 after leaving behind its affinity with yéyé and go-go music. One of the most brilliantly whacked-out psych LPs to emerge from South America. Originally self-released on their own Producciones Kris label, this is an almost impossible to find cult record. First time reissue.

From Pacific City Discs, to you the listener, this summer, a DJ mix of fantasy and splash-energy is coming to you in a small edition of vinyl. Fantasy writer/recording artist, Francesco Cavaliere, while visiting his seaside childhood vacation location, was extended an impromptu invitation, to DJ an 80s swimming club. He had this to say about his experience: “I was at Shangri-La and a boy and girl from the bathhouse in silver swimsuits and sand-colored streaks waved me over with a drink and asked me if I would like to DJ the next day during my lesson on the beach at Tana del Pirata! I then and there I laughed but then I accepted (I had nothing at home just my mp3 player and a Nokia with music inside) The next day there was a little wind on the beach and the umbrellas swayed to the left. From the heat they could catch fire, white flames, instead the sea was rough and that wind with very long wrists cheered us up, blowing gaseous clouds in our faces. Perfect for the day ahead. After the first few pieces, I began to see that a group of kids jumped into the adjacent pool trying flips bombs and candle dives. Someone at the bar was playing Altered Beast .. so sipping a drink with ice I imagined DJ werewolf repeating catchy pieces while a kite half cobra half skyscraper inflated above us.” This Impromptu Disc is fresh now, for you to frolic with this summer, while entertaining a daydream in the midst of entering a body of water while witnessing an apparition in the sky.

Discrepant introduces a new series of albums based on the concept of "aquapelago", with gooey compositions from Andrew Pekler, Sugai Ken, Mike Cooper, Yannick Dauby and others. What is it about water that makes it so inspiring for experimental musicians? Discrepant's new series of albums promises to expand on a concept that imagines a deep underwater world. So it makes perfect sense that Japanese composer Sugai Ken - who impressed with 2020's slippery "Tone River" - should start things off with the unsettling 'Boundary', a spoken word piece in English and Japanese leading into Andrew Pekler's predictably balmy 'Shima No Yume', that sounds like being underwater and marooned on a desert island simultaneously. Brussels-based Mexican sound artist Vica Pacheco takes a different approach, splicing together environmental recordings and juxtaposing them with half-speed, haunted brass that sounds as if it's been recorded in an empty swimming pool. Mike Cooper swerves any obvious signals completely, preferring to create a secluded paradise on 'Lamma Island' with gusty field recordings and beachy guitar harmonics. Italian duo Babau bolt together one of our favorite tracks, using idiophones to create a shimmering backdrop that harmonizes with Visible Cloaks' cult "Fairlights, Mallets And Bamboo" mixes.

This is alga marghen’s third installment of Smegma’s original “Suburban Primitive Avant-folk music” Period (1973-1975) based in Pasadena, featuring three previously unreleased tracks from the deep vault of their home recordings. In the beginning, the Band Smegma had only one rule. No Musicians. Starting from scratch, they took the Road much less traveled. They were inspired by outsider musical artists of the time such as John Cage, Sun Ra, Captain Beefheart, Wild Man Fisher, Art Ensemble Of Chicago, etc. and they recorded every experiment with youthful enthusiasm. Mostly they only succeeded in tormenting their own friends and neighbors (except for the few who joined the band), but somehow they never chose imitation, but stumbles on a path that allowed Past (shamanistic) and Future (space) sounds to lead the way. The titled track gently pulls you in and carries you off with a way-out inner-mind group Jamming/not-Jamming trip, featuring Prepared Piano, Modular Synthesizer, Human Mouth sounds, Pan Pipes, Tabla and Electric Bass Guitar. “Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow” (definitely not the 1960s pop Hit) rips you straight into a high energy New Year's Eve Party Jam, in a romping free jazz style with stream of consciousness vocals and exuberant alto sax solos. Side B starts with Beatnik finger Popping and wild dogs barking from a record player, while breathless flute playing leads you down the rabbit hole of mysterious group vocalizing, including imitating the cry of the wild Tropical Parrots that lived in the palm trees in the front yard of the house in Pasadena that they had lived in. Always out of sync with their own time, 49 years later, these tracks still throb and pulsate Beautifully with their own inner logic.

Parallel Traces of the Jewel Voice by dj sniff is a project that takes inspiration from historical narratives and personal memories constructed around The Jewel Voice Broadcast (Gyokuon Hoso) that took place on August 15 of 1945. Contrary to common belief, Emperor Hirohito did not speak live on air to announce the surrender of Japan on this day. Instead, two lathe-cut discs with his recorded voice were skillfully mixed and played by NHK engineer Shizuto Haruna. Haruna’s proto-DJ/turntablist performance was heard not only in Japan but also throughout the colonized territories in Asia, marking the end of World War II and Japanese rule. Interested in these aspects which often have been overlooked within the Japanese narratives of this historical event, dj sniff conducted research in both Taiwan and Japan. Over the course of 3 years he collected various materials that include; interviews and field recordings, audio samples extracted from phonograph discs and recordings sessions with improvising musicians, and a re-reading of the Imperial Rescript on Surrender in Chinese. These were used to compose two compositions that are paired differently depending on their distribution format. The vinyl release is a multi-sided disc with two parallel grooves cut on one side, which in effect plays a different composition depending on where the stylus is cued. The other side has no audio but features two silkscreened lines that refer to how Haruna played the original lathe-cut discs. For the digital release, each composition is independently assigned to the left and right channel and is heard simultaneously. Additionally, an extensive text written by dj sniff accompanies this release. Sniff uncovers technical details of the recording and broadcasting of the emperor’s voice that took place over 75 years ago. He also reflects on his encounters with the elderly community in Taiwan who spoke fluent Japanese and shared their personal stories after listening together to records from their childhood.

Roberto Laneri's works always convey a clear artistic certainty: a total composer with an eclectic cultural background. In this latest adventure it seems to propose a kind of weird and curious Exotica music; his Mediterranean ragas release glows and shadows, but the music plays more the plateaus of the Maghreb than the Indus Valley. Like a sorcerer piper, the sax shapes alchemy and hypnotic phrasing become: vague dances of camels, ecstatic progressions of an aboriginal vortex or a mystic arabesque tropicalisms. He doesn't neglect his training as a jazz clarinetist, with gentle and smooth orchestral veins that are decidedly retrò and old-style; remembering the dreamlike compositions of Nino Rota for Fellini's movies. There is no lack of esoteric voices from distant islands, Amazonian soundscapes, or rocking Brazilian moods. Laneri filters hidden traces of different traditions, creating unknown geographical syntheses without borders, furious extrapolations of compositional elements and famous themes misrepresentations. A visionary gaze, but also a good dose of ironic plaesure and fairytale humor. Not surprisingly, the original cover-art of Noura Tafeche does nothing but suggest the idea of a tasty psychedelic fruit-salad.

Coinciding with the release of the compilation "1972-1985 KATEBEGIAK Prog-Rock, Psych-Folk & Jazz-Rock Music from the Basque Country [Compiled by DJ Makala]", in which has been included Amaia Zubiria & Pascal Gaigne's "Itsasoa Laino Dago" song, we've just reissue for the very first time this rare & hard to find cult record of Basque music, released on 1985 by Elkar label. AMAIA ZUBIRIA & PASCAL GAIGNE "EGUN ARGI HARTAN" (ELKAR 1985) After the well-earned "Adarra" prize awarded by San Sebastián city council in 2021, the name of Amaia Zubiria is back on people’s lips, one of the most outstandingly beautiful voices in the history of folk and Basque music in general. In fact, thanks to the albums recorded with Haizea and with Txomin Artola and many other collaborations, she has been a constant presence in a long, fruitful career spanning over 40 years. However, despite this popularity, much of her extensive body of work is unknown or remains almost forgotten, apart from four or ve records and her most popular songs. This is a shame, because her forgotten back catalogue contains many of Amaia’s most moving songs. Among them, as a taster and an invitation to get into her music, we encourage you to listen to the enchanting “Itxasoan Laino Dago”, recorded together with Pascal Gaigne in 1985. A track featuring the electronic sounds created with great care by Pascal and adorned by Michel Doneda’s saxophone, and guided with a magical sophistication by the talented sound engineer from Hendaye, Jean Phocas. It is an impossibly beautiful melt of avant garde and traditional music (Text: Antton Iturbe)

A milestone in the history of electro-pop and post-punk music in Brazil! Finally gathered in a 12" the two 7" of the seminal band Agentss, ground zero of Brazilian post-punk. Originally released in '82 and '83, until now these recordings were only available in their original format. Their members were key figures of the São Paulo underground, after the band split-up they went to create important bands such as Voluntários da Pátria, Azul 29, Violeta de Outono, and Mumia. The track "Agentes" was included in the Não Wave (Brazilian Post Punk 1982-1988) compilation released by Man Recordings in 2005. The release comes with an insert featuring unpublished photos and texts telling the story of the band. A milestone in the history of electro-pop and post-punk music in Brazil. Agentss was a seminal band that recorded only two singles, did few shows and imploded. It's no exaggeration to compare their debut show with the famous Sex Pistols concert in Manchester, when approximately 50 people that left the place with the idea of starting their own band. The band's sound was a transitional one. Part of what is perceived as post-punk is actually pre-punk (including bands as Suicide, Chrome, Cabaret Voltaire, and This Heat) and we could draw comparisons of Agentss with the initial Ultravox (John Foxx era), the albums by guitarist Snakefinger produced by The Residents and the experimental early Devo.

Also known as the leader of the jazz trio Inga, Sam Gendel is an L.A. saxophonist who has developed a free and unique sound that has been described as psychedelic, outsider, and meditative, and Shin Sasakubo is a Chichibu-based guitarist. A new album by the duo of Sam Gendel, an up-and-coming saxophonist from LA, and Shin Sasakubo, an uncanny guitarist based in Chichibu, who is also active as a photographer and contemporary artist. The two showed great chemistry in Shin Sasakubo's previous work "CHICHIBU", which has become a hot topic in many places. On this album, Sam Gendel plays on the A-side and Shin Sasakubo plays solo on the B-side, and they feature each other on the final track of each side. The music was recorded in LA and Chichibu during the Corona disaster, and the result is a quiet work with an intimate atmosphere. The release is from Cafe Carne, a cafe in Chichibu where Shin Sasakubo also frequents. The impressive artwork is by Eri Masuko, a popular illustrator who also worked on the Cafe Carne logo.

(LP / 180g / Tip-on jacket / limited to 200 copies)

■ TRACK LIST

SIDE A (SAM GENDEL)
01 IN THE DUNES
02 REEDS
03 PENSIVE FROG
04 PIPE
05 COPYEXERCISE

SIDE B (SHIN SASAKUBO)
01 CARNET
02 OPUS
03 FONTAINEBLEAU
04 HUMAN LOOPER
05 NADJA

"The Japanese avant-garde pop band strove to create a “sacred ambiance” on their second album, fusing unconventional arrangements with bouncing volleyballs and an eyes-wide air of wonder." “It’s rare that art-pop matches its extravagance with such alluring modesty. In doing so, Paradise of Replica feels like encountering cinematic spectacles in miniature.” —Joshua Minsoo Kim (Pitchfork, September 30, 2022)