MUSIC

Lynn Avery and Cole Pulice return with a new album of piano, synthesizers, tenor sax, wind synths and electronics. Following their excellent previous albums (Iceblink’s "Carpet Cocoon" and Cole Pulice’s "Gloam") the duo moves into otherworldly ambience that straddles acoustic and digital spaces, evoking an uncanny world both strange and familiar. “To Live & Die In Space & Time” began with an improvised set at the 2020 Drone Not Drones festival in Minneapolis that unveiled new worlds of sonic possibilities the duo wanted to reapproach. Lynn and Cole continued exploring this palette of sounds and ideas in the months that followed, a practice that continued as they relocated across the country and settled in their now home of Oakland, California. Lynn and Cole were not initially intending to create an "album" - instead, they were just committed to a regular practice of improvising, recording, forgetting, reapproaching, alchemizing old & new ideas, and allowing material to shapeshift. Eventually, something like an album revealed itself, which Lynn and Cole honed into “To Live & Die in Space & Time.” The sounds of TL&DIS&T are elegant, transportive and vast, like being wrapped in a blanket of stars, finding warmth and comfort in the unknown spaces of transition that don't immediately reveal meaning or purpose. In other words, the constellation of sounds on TL&DIS&T approach floating in "the void" as something less than ominous, perhaps even enchanting.

Misha Sultan is a multi-instrumentalist originally from Novosibirsk in the heart of Siberia. His hometown's location, in the hinterlands between Europe and Asia provides a deep well of inspiration for his music. Hive Mind have been happy to work with Misha to bring you this stunning collection of recordings made between 2015 and 2022 which we hope will serve as a great introduction to Misha's unique sound which appropriates elements of Eurasian folk music, psychedelia, 90's chill-out, breakbeat, dub, and field recording to produce something stunning and singular. Whilst we were working on this release P*t*n invaded Ukraine and Misha was forced to leave the country quite suddenly. All money from sales of the digital album will go straight to the artist in order to help through this difficult time.

Recorded over the course of 4 years during late-night, afterhours sessions at RCA's Studio @ Calle Carlos Maurrás in Madrid (one of Spain's best and bigger studio around that time), it was the result of the duo's interest in unorthodox sound-sources which they manipulated in a sort proto-sampling collage technique based on random tape-loops and best heard in their original percussive studies; their dreamy, surrealist-like lyrical passages or the sort of deep primeval atmospheres first conjured by Cluster or Kraftwerk in the early 70's.The studio as an instrument: pure sound alchemy at work. The Wah Wah edition is the first ever vinyl reissue of this legendary LP reproducing the original gimmick cover, with sound mastered from the original tapes by Eugenio Muñoz, and featuring an insert with photos and info. It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only.

A welcome departure from their first effort, the record has gained greater reconection in recent years when contemporary audiencies could fully aprreciate the strenght and harsher direction the duo decided to take for their follow-up album. More rhythmically-oriented tunes whilst revisiting some old-favorites like Daguerrotipo or La Edad del Bronce (both off their first album, but albeit in new mixes). The Wah Wah edition has been mastered from the original tapes by Eugenio Muñoz, reproduces the original sleeve artwork and and features an insert with photos and info. It is a strictly limited edition of 500 copies only

Timekeeper is a collection of temporal impressions. Each track is entitled with a time of day, mapping the ways that changes in energy and emotion form a continuously shifting sense of time. Using a palette of acoustic recordings and digital synthesis, each piece depicts either a temporal field (expansive, unpredictable), wave (swelling momentums) or rope (singular linearity).

Jin Mu is taken from the Chinese Zodiac and translates to the elements of Metal (Jin) and Wood (Mu). this is essentially the concept of this record.. Tucceri plays a selection of wooden and metal flutes and Zeitgeist plays drums and cymbals. In this sense it's a musical connection to the natural elements and spirits embodied in these instruments. Having worked together for several years on the project ‘Zeitgeist Freedom Energy Exchange’ Zeitgeist and Tucceri come together here in a very intimate and vulnerable setting. This recording offers a place of reflection and healing amongst an ever imposing and disposable pop culture. In a time where we fight for each others attention in 10 second social media grabs. The duo offer something of the opposite. An opportunity to tap out of the technological bombardment and allow the listener the place to reflect, to ponder, to imagine. This record is especially poignant at a time of rising tensions in Australia about the acknowledgment and rights of the indigenous peoples and an ongoing fight for the settlement of refugees in what is essentially a nation of immigrants.

Sounding almost as though Tortoise and Stereolab had joined forces to play jazz, Piero Umiliani described his 1975 LP, Piano Fenderblues, as “Music with a modern but discreet sound”. Recorded by an ensemble comprising two electric pianos (Fender and Wurlitzer), bass, piano, drums, and percussion, the album encounters the famed Florentine composer stretching out into territories that stand slightly apart from his most widely celebrated efforts and avant-garde experimentations. Released under the moniker Rovi by Umiliani’s own Omicron imprint, at first glance Pianofender Blues appear to be what the literalness of its title describes, a bluesy excursion driven by electric piano. At a closer listen, the album’s 'light', 'easy listening' repertoire - orbiting around the melancholic tones produced by the famous keyboard - reveals a startling level of complexity and tension, that highlights the composer's remarkable versatility. Funky and smooth, darting to and from like elevator music on the high seas, Piano Fenderblues is a fascinating and startling listen - revealing its depths slowly over time - embedded in what migsht be misunderstood as one of Umiliani’s more accessible works. Dialogo’s beautiful, fully-authorized vinyl and CD reissues of this strange wonder - the first since its original 1975 release, beautifully remastered from the original analogue master tapes - further expands our understanding and approach to one of Italian music’s most radical and complex minds, and is an absolute must for any fan of this unparalleled era of the country's library music and soundtrack triumphs.

Belonging to a series of geographical-themed albums that draw upon numerous indigenous traditions from across the globe, like the previous releases in Dialogo’s Piero Umiliani Legacy Series - Continente Nero and Africa - Polinesia, issued by Piero Umiliani’s own Omicron imprint in 1975, highlights the composer’s travels and his striking ability to mirror these physical movements through sound, activating a seemingly unstoppable realm of creative freedom and exploration for composer and musician alike. Rooted in a foundation of rich percussion, soft tribalism, and exotic suggestion, Polinesia renders an abstract mirage of white beaches kissed by the ocean via its colorful cocktail of sonority, dancing blissfully across the album’s 15 songs, and covering a startlingly amount of creative territory as it goes. From the loungy kitsch of its opening tracks, or the overwhelmingly beautiful vocal melodies of Sotto le Palme, to the percussive minimalism of Canoe, Erbe Magiche, Danza Magica - each calling to mind Moondog at his best, with a bit of Midori Takada thrown in - and the dense ambiences of Pellegrinaggio, the composer takes us deep into an imagined realm, moving freely across its geographies and drenching the ears in its sounds. Beautiful and striking from the first turn to the last, Umiliani’s Polinesia fleshes out the world we began to explore with Dialogo’s reissues of Continente Nero and Africa, adding breezy sounds to the mix and plenty of dynamism across its length. Never before reissued on any format, with original copies commanding top dollar on the secondary market, Dialogo’s fully authorised vinyl reissue of Polinesia is a stunning thing to behold. Also available on CD, the album was remastered from the original analogue master tapes.

Faitiche presents a new album by Andrew Pekler: Sounds From Phantom Islands brings together ten tracks created over the last three years for the interactive website Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas. With his 2016 album Tristes Tropiques, Pekler created a highly unique cosmos of ethnographic sound speculations. Sounds From Phantom Islands continues and simultaneously expands this concept: finely elaborated chordal motifs float like fog over fictional maritime landscapes. A masterpiece of contemporary Exotica.

Phantom islands are islands that appeared on historical maps but never actually existed. The status of these artefacts of European colonial expansion from the 15th to the 19th century oscillates between cartographic fact and maritime fiction. Sounds From Phantom Islands interprets and presents these imaginations as a quasi-ethnographic catalog of music and synthetic field recordings. The pieces on this album are based on recordings made for Phantom Islands - A Sonic Atlas, an online interactive map developed with cultural anthropologist Stefanie Kiwi Menrath.

Originally conceived as a mock live bootleg for Turn Us Alias 2020 (Macao’s Saturnalia festival online edition), Stock Fantasy Zone is the new album by Babau dedicated to the unearthly delights of unconscious reticular motion, wacky 2D shredding and daily side quests. Directly from inside the Stack, finally imagine a zone where all activities are possible but purposeless, all primary objectives are achieved without even moving and the game-logic has finally disappeared leaving back a virtual fauna of forsaken babbling Npc’s and uncharted, yet to be tested stockpiles of maps and levels. Lofty low poly structures, tentacular mickey-mousing gesticulations, already obsolete sonic ontologies and the unsung age of Dreamcast fantasy frenzy. All and all, just another day spent testing the margins and edges of the simulation without leaving your Sofa. Don’t wait! Enter the Stock Fantasy Zone! Stock Fantasy Zone has been mentioned by Simon Reynolds among his 2020 albums of the year and two tracks have been selected by Kode9 for a mixtape released by Club To Club Festival.

Italy's New Age / World label Black Sweat reissues 80 years of unknown electronic music from Italy.
A cassette work of a project called Futuro Antico. A meditation synth and a bewitching flute unfold, which is good because it has a gentle, violent, piercing sound. It's also reminiscent of Terry Riley and Don Cherry's legendary live performances in Cologne.

‘Eighteen Movements’ is a collection of recordings captured at live performances between 2017 – 2019. The record’s rich textures combine ambient, tribal rhythms, field recordings, ritualistic vibes, and a meditative feeling that runs through the entire LP. Đ.K. is in full flight mode, illustrating the project’s aptitude for deep transcendence. Đ.K. is a DJ, composer & producer based in Paris, France. A versatile and prolific artist, D.K. has cultivated an eclectic body of work in recent years, with acclaimed output on renowned labels including Antinote, Melody As Truth, 12th Isle, Good Morning Tapes, Music From Memory’s Second Circle imprint, and L.I.E.S. (as 45 ACP). Luminous and mesmeric, D.K.’s work combines finetuned traces of house, synth pop, ambient, balearic, minimalism, and fourth world music, creating energies and soundscapes which aim to invoke elevated forms of consciousness. Prismatic tones exchange space with devotional drums on ‘Clarity’ and ‘Echo Chamber’, as Đ.K. hits a hypnotic stride somewhere between Jon Hassell, HTRK & a Folkways percussion ensemble. With ‘Full Consciousness’ meditation bells ring out across a progression of gleaming new age emanations, conjuring an entrancing spell. Movements of pulse and ether. On ‘Mirror’, sonorous, elaborate percussive phrases are interwoven with drifting ambient vapours, while ‘The Other Side’ veers into broad, rolling blasts of dub and Antipodean drone, a cavernous trance evoking the early roots of Ras Michael and Yabby You, pared back to resolute drum sequences and infused with esoteric chimes and sultry synthesis. The finale of ‘Eighteen Movements’ represents one of Đ.K..’s most ambitious recordings. ‘Awakening’ is an epic tone poem of aqueous, outer planetary resonance that completes this mercurial cycle with a poignant, euphoric fadeout. Chronicled in the moment, alternating between rhythm and repose, momentum and aviation, 'Eighteen Movements' sees Đ.K. voyaging further, into vast, uncharted outskirts of sound. A collection of movements for heightened states and new diversions.

Released three years later in 1975, “Continente Nero” - issued by the composer’s Omicronis imprint - is the perfect complement to “Africa”. Where the former channeled sounds and influences drawn from the African diaspora into decidedly abstract terms, with “Continente Nero” Umiliani pays a similar homage by incorporating a vast pallet of rhythmic variations into a visionary rethinking of the idiom of jazz, channeling Fela Kuti, Art Ensemble of Chicago, John Coltrane, Max Roach, Charles Mingus, Freddie Hubbard, and hundreds of others into a free-flowing vessel that’s entirely his own. Chugging and free flowing, driven by tonal and rhythmic depth that only large bands can achieve, “Continente Nero” possesses such a remarkable sense of emotiveness and creative honesty that the fact that it was made for use in films, rather than being issued within the broader context of jazz, seems to defy reason. It easily stands among the greatest documents of the idiom to have emerged from Italy during any period. Closely related to multiple threads of spiritual jazz that were emerging within the United States during roughly the same period, the band locks in and plows forward with African tinged melodies and carefully orchestrated distances, guided Umiliani’s startling vision, repetitive structures - often bordering on the minimalistic - and unique rhythmic sensibility that runs like a river beneath it all, sending the listener plunging into a deeply personal, imagined world; a hypothetical forth world concept of jazz. Impossible to sum up, “Continente Nero” is incredible from start to finish. Long deserving of wide recognition, if not outright celebration, Dialogo’s reissue of this masterpiece is nothing short of momentous event. Pressed onto glorious vinyl, the format for which it was conceived, remastered from the original analogue master tapes, and housed in a sleeve that immaculately reproduces the album’s stunning, original cover design and also include a obi-strip.

Africa, released by Liuto Records - the label founded in 1970 by Piero Umiliani and his wife Stefania - belongs to the canon of library music produced in Italy across the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, which encountered many of the country’s most talented composers employed within the film industry, where they were offered unparalleled creative freedom to experiment and produce radical and forward-thinking sounds. A long-standing holy grail for collectors of visionary Italian music, Africa emerged under Umiliani’s moniker M. Zalla, the pseudonym he used when tidying up uncompromising and avant-garde music textures. It was years ahead of its time upon release in 1972, encountering the maestro locked within the walls of his Sound Work Shop Studio, weaving complex narratives and sonic collisions, while incorporating dozens of influences from a life spent experimenting and discovering new sounds. Launching from the prog-tinged rhythms of “Africa To-Day”, the album immediately shifts toward radical waters with the glacially paced pulsing rhythms and abstract electronics of “Echos” and “Sortilege”, the rippling minimalism of Savana, and the ‘fourth world’ temperaments “Green Dawn”, but still refuses to be nailed down. Across the two sides, experimentation drives the sound, as the hypnotic drumming and bass lines of “Rhythmical Stress” break through, opening space for the flute driven works, Sadness”, “Folk Tune”, and “Mysterious, “ as much as diving, percussive and tonally rich works that make up the majority of the second side. If ever there was an LP to expand the notions of Library music’s vast potential and scope, M. Zalla’s Africa has to be it. Nearly 50 years on, it feels as fresh and forward thinking as anything that has come since. A true masterpiece of the genre, that stands with best of any other idiom of experimental music, it’s impossible to recommend enough. The album comes remastered from the original analogue master tapes, and housed in a sleeve that faithfully reproduces the original cover design and also include a obi-strip,