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East Kilbride’s Scott Fraser finally comes good on a 25 year promise to his younger self with his debut solo album on his own label DX Recordings out of London. This record represents the closing of this chapter and the opening of a new one.
A truly international and collaborative project pulling together the help and talent of friends around the world with mastering by Radioactive man Keith Tenniswood, cut by Frank Merritt at The Carvery and world class US visual art and design legends, Tim Saccenti and Nick Martin on photography, artwork and design.
Limited to 300 solid red heavyweight vinyl copies, brown kraft sleeves; individually hand stencilled and numbered by the artist, printed inserts feature a collection of moments and images from the last 25 years - the studio, the equipment, the people and the places that came together to make this release. Japanese rice paper inner sleeves.
Limited edition hand printed screen print by Niall Greaves at Newbridge Print Studios in Newcastle on the first 30 copies exclusively available via the DX Recordings Bandcamp page.
Musically diverse, crossing styles, flavours and moods, threaded meticulously with razor sharp Roland TR606 programming and glued together with a Space Echo, Expanded opens with the sub aquatic funk of ‘Eden And After’. Side one takes you through banging electro on ‘Energy In Constitution’, the dark dub techno of ‘To The Letter Of My Oath’, leaves you disappearing through a black hole on ‘The Path Of Helium Rain’ and the sound of aliens talking through FM synthesis on ‘Collected Stills’. On side two: a slice of dark, heavy instrumental hip hop gets things started with ‘Where Is That Perception? ‘. Next we get into some straight 4/4 club techno with cut up drums and bumping baseline in ‘Mi Dominante’ before moving through some blissed out Detroit vibes on ‘Earth Looking Inwards’, a rough as you like TR606 driven experimental electro groover ‘Object of Life’ and finally closing out with the Ectomorph inspired stark electro of ‘Steel (NB_BLOOD cut)’
Akashaplexia is the culmination of Merzbow and John Wiese’s decades-long partnership, offering over three hours of new music across four CDs. Recorded together in Tokyo, the album balances Merzbow’s psychedelic intensity and Wiese’s meticulous sonic architecture, presenting a vast and intricately detailed landscape of noise, improvisation, and unpredictable dynamic shifts.
Akashaplexia stands as the first full-length studio collaboration between Merzbow and John Wiese, captured in December 2024 at Sound Studio Noah, Tokyo. This box set - designed by John Wiese and elegantly housed in a casewrap slipcase - is remarkable in both ambition and presentation, packing more than three hours of newly forged material on four separate discs. The album’s creation is rooted in a history that stretches over 25 years, encompassing live sets and mail collaborations that have shaped a deep mutual vocabulary between the artists. From Smegma to Sissy Spacek, Wiese has paired with Merzbow through varied musical guises. Both artists maintain core positions within experimental sound and improvisation. Merzbow continually evolves: from his early days of acoustic tape work and improvisatory noise, through the extremes of the 1990s, into an era marked by digital sound and a blend of crude metal scrapings with heady psychedelia. Wiese, for his part, navigates the terrain between rigorous composition and volatile concrète techniques, mixing electronic surges with refined tape collage, and driving performances that stretch the boundaries of sonic drama.
On Akashaplexia, Merzbow’s layered, dynamic noise architecture collides and interlocks with Wiese’s textural sophistication and firey manipulation. The result is a rich landscape where raw, energetic blasts are counterbalanced by moments of deliberate compositional control and intricate collage. Tracks move fluidly between abrasive crescendo and atmospheric detail, giving listeners a chance to experience both artists’ strengths in full scope. Thresholds of sound are tested and extended, expectations upended, and each piece invites attention to both the smallest detail and the overall immersive force of the album. This set marks a new pinnacle for both Merzbow and John Wiese, and for the wider world of experimental music. Akashaplexia is not only about noise but the construction and transformation of sound itself - where raw intuition and calculated artistry become indistinguishable, and the music, in all its extremity, reveals new terrain.
“Kachouzu” is a limited-edition lathe-cut release by Merzbow, also known as Masami Akita. It presents the pinnacle of harsh noise, with Merzbow’s signature metallic and extreme sound unfolding throughout. Unlike standard pressed records, the lathe-cut format delivers a uniquely raw sonic texture that further amplifies the intensity and impact of the work.
Released in 1998 as Massive Attack’s third studio album, this work is regarded as their masterpiece. Unlike the soulful and jazzy atmosphere of their previous albums Blue Lines and Protection, it deepened the trip-hop sound while strongly incorporating influences from post-punk and industrial, resulting in a cold and heavy sonic landscape. Issued by Virgin Records as a 180-gram double LP edition.
Clay oven-baked ruffneck beats and fragrant vocal delicacies from the endless archive of Bryn Jones’ Muslimgauze, offered up in a series of genuinely, previously unreleased - rather than repackaged - material.
The sole 12” in a four part series (the others are 7”) serves two variations on a theme as part of Muslimgauze’s near-ritualistic, everyday practice, at The Abraham Moss studios, north Manchester. Taken from typically untitled DATs sent to labels almost as quickly as they were recorded, the session opens with a wickedly coarse piece of looped, pitching hand-drum rhythms pushed into the red are swirled with a patina of tense cries resembling a glitching muezzin, and peppered with spoken word shrapnel. Its longer B-side variant locks much deeper into that groove with a beautiful wistful vocal loop vapourised into ether whilst the drums are clipped to a cleaner trot, but still riddled with satisfying amounts of sinewy noise in the mix, between its teeth.
Rio’s Felinto channel the punkish ‘80s vim and license of Os Replicantes on a pair of crazed, shouty, scrappy calls to resistance, issued in aid of activists in the favelas.
"Fresh from annihilating EU/UK audiences with his steppas tropicalia on the Bokeh Dekalog tour, Felinto presents a crazed vision of Sao Paulo party punk - industrial scuzz, dub squelch, grinding guitars and riot-ready vocals.
Festa Punk is a call to rage, to ritual, to celebration — as forms of resistance against the grim, creeping global fascism. It’s a shout to bend time, to create moments that shake off erased identities and flip the script on a world that treats violence like gospel.
It's also a homage to Brazilian hxc heroes, Os Replicantes, whose classic 'Fest Punk' appeared on the '87 LP Histórias De Sexo E Violência."
*199 copies limited edition* Aka Meme by Merzbow was first released on Music-Cassette in 1983 on Masami'a own label ZSF Produkt and on V2 Uitgave (a Sub-label of V2 Organisation). Tape was later re-released in other two editions but is long time sold-out and impossible to find. Finally OEC is going to re-release that special tape once more. This is Industrial-Noise from the very first era made by the master of Japanoise. Recordings are mixing many different sounds that range from: ritual-sounds / vocals / found-sounds / treated-guitar / many different rythms / noise.... and a wired and wide range of other bubbling & rumbling sounds! A total merzexperience!
Debut under the AICHER moniker, Defensive Acoustics is a collection of recordings channeling a performance that was presented alongside R. Rebeiro in the worn basement of the Ishiguro Building, an aged and abandoned pharmaceutical store in Kanazawa, Japan in Feb. 2024. Reinterpreted and releasing November 7 on the honourable Downwards Records of Birmingham, England.
"Colossal industrial minimalism from Downwards on a sick debut album from AICHER who deploy sheet-metal percussion and immense bass weight like some ice-cold collab between Valentina Magaletti, Emptyset and Einstürzende Neubauten, captured in an abandoned warehouse in graphic monochrome.
AICHER is the work of longtime label veteran Liam Andrews (MY DISCO, EROS), with additional production from his MY DISCO spar Rohan Rebeiro — an experimental percussionist and erstwhile collaborator of Roland S. Howard and HTRK. Together, they make resoundingly coarse, bullish industrial musick, distilling fascinations with tone and space through eight gristly and darkly sublime cuts, sharpened by production from Boris Wilsdorf of Einstürzende Neubauten and Swans fame.
Through 8 cuts, Defensive Acoustics reveals a clammy touch of reverberant buzz and below-the-belt shudder with a creeping, sensual signature of authority that strongly reminds us of Alan Wilder’s Blasphemous Rumours-era sound design for Depeche Mode, stripped to absolute skeletal fire. Tectonic plates of sound are pushed to an extreme biting point in a sort of structural stress test that feels like an oil rig in action, or perhaps more acutely, junked at harbour.
We go from the lurching buckle of ‘Ascertain’ and bilious atonality of ‘Harness Pleads’, to the vertiginous scale of the title piece and the brutal momentum of ‘An Exhausted Image’ - almost collapsing under its own bass weight, while the pranging girders of ‘Constriction’ makes us think of that 101 version of ‘Stripped’ - propulsive, full of primal energy and clanging, clipped reverb. ‘Possessions’ ends the album with a passage of bleakly romantic ambience, a judicious emotive counterweight to the preceding gnarl.
Powerfully transfixing, heaviest possible gear."
— Boomkat
Salty club dogs Beau Wanzer, Lukid & Tapes agitate each to stuttering 2-step, juke and rave noise extents on a frazzled session for TTT
The five trax of ‘Borez’ see all three flock around mutual poles of briny electronics and nervily restless rhythm programming within a framework of shattered but sharply effective club music. The gibber-jawed juke garage of ‘Point of Some Return’ pitches them into diciest wormholes of teeth-chatter 2-step, next to the dry-humped slam and almost Drexciyan lines of distorted, scudding, coruscating leads to ‘Rubber Eater’ on its 7’ arc to lusher resolution.
‘Darnell Can’t Polish a Turd’ pulls focus to sourest, piquant frequencies and bolshy bass blasts in a sorta bucking roll cage like Somatic Responses gone happy hardcore, and ‘Xylone Xylophone’ follows down that metallic wormhole like Evelyn Glennie on a mazza to the fizzy machine funk of ‘Lomp’.
Since 1992, Robin Storey (founding member of the pioneering post-industrial band Zoviet*France) has been creating innovative and thought-provoking music under the Rapoon moniker. Drawing inspiration from his early days with Z*F, he continues to push the boundaries of ambient, industrial, and world music genres, earning him a dedicated following across the globe.
Originally available in 1994 as a limited-edition DAT tape through Staalplaat Records, Cidar was later included as a bonus CD in the reissue of another Rapoon classic, Fallen Gods. Now, after years of anticipation, fans can experience this mesmerizing work as a stand-alone release—remastered and expanded with three previously unreleased tracks from the original 1994 recording sessions.
Cidar showcases Robin’s signature sound - a seamless blend of Z*F-inspired drones and loops intertwined with vibrant African percussion and hauntingly beautiful Asian string instruments. This combination creates an immersive, trance-like atmosphere that transports listeners into a world of meditative sonic exploration.
With its enchanting rhythms and deeply textured layers, Cidar stands as a testament to Robin's unparalleled ability to craft music that defies genre boundaries while remaining instantly recognizable. Fans of both Zoviet*France and Rapoon will find themselves drawn into the hypnotic sounds of this timeless masterpiece.
The standalone release of Cidar marks an important milestone in the history of experimental music, offering audiences worldwide the opportunity to rediscover or experience for the first time one of Robin Storey's most influential works.
Since 1992, Robin Storey (founding member of the pioneering post-industrial band Zoviet*France) has been creating innovative and thought-provoking music under the Rapoon moniker. Drawing inspiration from his early days with Z*F, he continues to push the boundaries of ambient, industrial, and world music genres, earning him a dedicated following across the globe.
Originally available in 1994 as a limited-edition DAT tape through Staalplaat Records, Cidar was later included as a bonus CD in the reissue of another Rapoon classic, Fallen Gods. Now, after years of anticipation, fans can experience this mesmerizing work as a stand-alone release—remastered and expanded with three previously unreleased tracks from the original 1994 recording sessions.
Cidar showcases Robin’s signature sound - a seamless blend of Z*F-inspired drones and loops intertwined with vibrant African percussion and hauntingly beautiful Asian string instruments. This combination creates an immersive, trance-like atmosphere that transports listeners into a world of meditative sonic exploration.
With its enchanting rhythms and deeply textured layers, Cidar stands as a testament to Robin's unparalleled ability to craft music that defies genre boundaries while remaining instantly recognizable. Fans of both Zoviet*France and Rapoon will find themselves drawn into the hypnotic sounds of this timeless masterpiece.
The standalone release of Cidar marks an important milestone in the history of experimental music, offering audiences worldwide the opportunity to rediscover or experience for the first time one of Robin Storey's most influential works.
Gen’s fabled copy-of-1 acetate, made in 1968 with schoolmates, is reissued for wider consumption, offering an unmissable glimpse at the early stirrings of a notorious “wrecker of civilisation” and one of the most significant artists of their time .
Before PTV, before Throbbing Gristle, and leading up to action with COUM Transmissions, one Neil Megson made their first foray into recorded music with some pals in their parents attic in Solihull, West Midlands. Spurred by readings of occult literature, Fluxus and John Cage, and footage of psychedelic “happenings” by Bohemian beatniks in London, Megson and pals experimented with janky equipment to make a cute lo-fi racket of giggles, chants, brays, bittersweet witter and poetry, as recited in the instantly familiar nasal tang of ‘Rather Hard to Libel’. It’s effectively the sound of grammar school boys having a laugh in the late ‘60s, but also serves as the seed for a remarkable, notorious, and enduring oeuvre that catalysed countless others to write, make art and music in their wake.
“POLITE WARNING by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge, 2008: Previously thought to be missing, these never before available songs were created on extremely primitive equipment in the attic of 6 Links Drive, Solihull, Warwickshire, England by Genesis Breyer P-Orridge and friends using Thee Early Worm as their collective group name. Only one copy had originally been pressed on an acetate. This disc and its corresponding analog reel-to-reel master tape were discovered in the Porridge With Everything Archives by Ryan Martin during a recent re-organization. This album is mastered directly from the original reel to reel tape and is made available to devotees of Genesis Breyer P-Orridge’s life-long musical body of work as a missing link, and curiosity, that reveals significant structural themes and sonic textures that, with hindsight, can be seen to have remained central to her creative processes ever since. Please be aware that this is inevitably a low-fi recording intended for collectors and researchers.”
A meeting of two uncompromising sound artists, New Music fuses pulsating electronic rhythms, immersive drones, and abstract textures into a vivid, physical listening experience. Rising from the outer fringes where abstract techno, noise, and electro-acoustic composition converge, both artists channel their distinct sonic vocabularies into a shared space of tension and transformation. Giffoni’s deep synth drones collide with Nordwall’s ritualistic sense of structure and rhythmic, creating a sound that feels at once mechanical and organic, grounded and cosmic. Moving between dense rhythmic sequences and vast stretches of tonal drift, New Music unfolds like a continuous exploration of energy and decay - music that challenges the boundary between motion and stasis, chaos and control.
For listeners of forward-thinking electronics, this collaboration stands as a compelling testament to the power of sound and the unique chemistry that emerges when two creative worlds intersect. Nordwall explains: “Even though we spent a lot of time together, we never really talked about making music together. But when Carlos visited Sweden, I asked if he’d be into it, as I felt our recordings were starting to sound like they came from the same planet. He kindly agreed and sent me a batch of files to work on. That became New Music - our music, our shared sound.”
Carlos Giffoni is a Venezuelan-born experimental musician and composer known for his visceral approach. A central figure in the 2000s New York noise and experimental scene, he founded No Fun Fest and has collaborated with artists such as Merzbow, Prurient and Jim O’Rourke.
Joachim Nordwall is a Swedish artist and musician exploring industrial, drone, and minimalist, repetitive electronics. As head of iDEAL Recordings and a member of projects like The Skull Defekts and Organ of Corti he remains a key force in Sweden’s experimental music landscape.
For over four decades, Masami Akita, the man behind Merzbow, has remained one of the most singular and uncompromising figures in experimental music. Known as a pioneer of Japanese noise and a tireless sonic innovator, Akita has consistently pushed boundaries, exploring sound not as a vehicle for melody or harmony, but as a raw material to be shaped, sculpted, and sometimes obliterated. His prolific output spans hundreds of releases, each one revealing a different angle of his evolving sonic philosophy — from dense analog textures to intricate digital manipulations.
Originally released on CD in 2003, Animal Magnetism is now receiving a long-overdue vinyl reissue — a deluxe edition that not only revives the album but enhances it. This new edition has been meticulously remastered by Lasse Marhaug, a respected figure in noise and experimental music who brings on vinyl reissue new clarity, weight, and depth to the recordings. Spread across two vinyl LPs and housed in a gatefold sleeve, the reissue replicates the original artwork, including Masami Akita’s own photographs, while also adding a previously unreleased bonus track, “Quiet Comfort #2.”
Animal Magnetism occupies a unique position in Merzbow’s vast catalogue. It is a work that remains firmly rooted in the artist’s signature approach — dense layers of distortion, feedback, and electronic debris — but it also stands out for its sense of structure, variation, and surprising accessibility. It’s an album that, while intense, is not impenetrable. It invites the listener to explore its textures and uncover subtle melodic patterns and rhythmic shifts beneath the surface noise.
The opening title track sets the tone: a chaotic yet strangely hypnotic blend of static, metallic clangs, fractured beats, and synthetic tones. There's a sense of tension throughout — familiar in Merzbow’s work — but here, it builds gradually, revealing layers rather than overwhelming the listener all at once. There’s even the faint outline of something resembling a melody, buried deep beneath the sonic rubble, slowly emerging and fading as the piece unfolds.
What makes Animal Magnetism distinctive is its balance between harsh noise and a more refined, composed sensibility. Where many Merzbow albums plunge into total abstraction, this one maintains a sense of movement and progression. Tracks evolve over time, flowing into one another with a kind of warped continuity. Noise isn’t just a wall here — it breathes, pulses, and shifts form.
One of the album’s highlights, “Quiet Men,” is a surprisingly playful and kinetic track. High-pitched, swirling sounds bounce around in cartoon-like patterns, giving the piece a strange but infectious energy. It’s vivid, bright, and almost whimsical — a striking contrast to Merzbow’s more oppressive works. Yet, it never abandons the core aesthetic of noise: distortion, friction, repetition — only here, it’s presented with a lighter touch, almost like a satire of dance music through a noise lens.
The album’s longest piece, “A Ptarmigan,” stretches to more of twenty minutes and showcases Merzbow’s gift for long-form development. The track shifts dramatically over its runtime — starting with a sense of movement and brightness, before descending into slow, grinding dirges. At one point it feels almost celebratory, the next meditative and ominous. It’s a miniature sonic journey that encapsulates many of the album’s contrasts: playfulness and heaviness, speed and inertia, chaos and control.
Later, “Super Sheep” picks up the pace, with a more aggressive rhythmic drive. While its bass line may evoke familiar electronic or break core structures, Merzbow twists and mutates it into something uniquely his own. The distortion here feels intentional and compositional — not just as an effect, but as a central part of the track’s logic. It’s not chaos for chaos’s sake, but a carefully controlled burn. Another standout, “Pier 39,” veers into ambient territory. Gentle scraping textures, soft frequencies, and minimal movement make it a quiet anomaly in the tracklist — but also a necessary one. It shows how even within the noise genre, Merzbow is capable of creating space and silence, of dialing back the intensity to explore fragility and restraint. The newly added bonus track, “Quiet Comfort #2,” fits seamlessly into the album’s sound world. It serves as both a continuation and a reflection, extending the album’s themes while offering something fresh.
Today, as interest in Merzbow continues to rise — with new generations discovering the depth and breadth of his work — this reissue feels especially timely. It’s a reminder that noise can be complex, emotional, and even, beautiful. Animal Magnetism is not just for seasoned noise fans, but also for adventurous listeners looking for a unique and challenging experience that rewards attention and repeated listening. This edition is a must-have for collectors and newcomers alike: an essential document of an artist who continues to redefine the outer edges of sound.
‘She who loves silence’.
Founder of KUMP and Meth.O tapes, Lyon’s Marc-Étienne Guibert (AKA Gil.Barte) awakens his new Mert Seger moniker for a shadowy Plaque excursion. Nine slow burners strike from the murk with venomous precision.
The first collaboration between Japanese noise titan Masami Akita, aka Merzbow, iconic Brazilian drummer and producer Iggor Cavalera and forward-thinking Italian guitarist and sound designer Eraldo Bernocchi, 'Nocturnal Rainforest' terraforms a sonic landscape that's almost overpoweringly dense and disorienting, but never aggressive or chaotic. It's a fully immersive experience that re-contextualizes the trio's years of work in extreme experimental music by concentrating on texture, atmosphere and sensory overload. The noise itself is used to provoke a refined level of focus; 'Nocturnal Rainforest' is mediative in its own way, enveloping listeners with waves of distortion, phantasmic unmetered rhythms and perplexing processed field recordings, but it's not intended for passive listening. Made using a fusion of bespoke techniques the trio have been developing for decades, it exists in a raw and mystifying liminal zone between the organic realm and the digital world - a place that's too hauntingly familiar to be ignored. One of the world's most notorious and most prolific noise artists, Akita has release acclaimed genre-defining albums on labels as diverse as Relapse, Important Records, Tzadik, Cold Spring and Soleilmoon, and collaborated with a diverse spread of artists, from Keiji Haino and Mika Patton to Melt-Banana and Boris. Since 1979, he's released over 500 Merzbow records, including 1984's tape experiment 'Pornoise/1kg Vol.1', 1996's noise wall milestone 'Pulse Demon' and 2005's dubby 'Merzbuddha'. Meanwhile, Cavalera is best known for co-founding Brazilian metal act Sepultura, and since leaving the band in 2006, he's been constantly re-examining his relationship with underground experimental music, working alongside artists like Laima Leyton, Ninos Du Brasil, Raven Chacon, Linekraft, Petbrick, Pig Destroyer, Soulwax, Dwid Hellion, Shane Embury, amongst others. Bernocchi started his journey in the '70s playing in various punk bands, and came of age in the '80s when he co-founded post-industrial collective Sigillum S and making connections that stretched across the entire global underground. An active member of the influential illbient movement, he worked with some of the genre's crucial figures such as Spectre, Bill Laswell and DJ Olive, recording for WordSound as well as cult hip-hop imprint Rawkus. And Bernocchi has continued to innovate, working as SIMM with Grammy-winning grime MC Flowdan and recording with Harold Budd, Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, Gaudi Nils Petter Molvaer, Hoshiko Yamane and many others. 'Nocturnal Rainforest' is a product of each artist's ongoing musical evolution, powered by extreme music but tempered by deep listening techniques that expect presence rather than dissociation. On 'Swietnenia Macrophylla', evocative humid soundscapes provide a precarious sense of security at first, blurred at the edges by purring oscillations that mimic the jungle's fauna. And that peace is quickly ruptured by percussive, foghorn-like distortions that mark out the scale of the trio's vision. Not just raw noise, the rougher elements are cut with subtle waves of billowing ambience and muggy low- end drones before the track launches into a symphony of computerized stutters. There's a constant push and pull between organic and artificial sounds - before there's been time to acclimatize to the DAW-corrupted noise, collaged tape saturations and slashed amplifier hum muddies the atmosphere, purposefully confusing the senses and obfuscating the sources. And the thought is continued on 'Ceiba Pentandra' when the trio follow the jungle's teeming sonics with growling, whirring electronics and dense interference. What starts as birdsong and an choir of insects mutates into a wall of deafening, transcendent full-spectrum texture that cracks open like a slow-moving storm over a shadowy wilderness.
Includes bonus track not available on vinyl reissue
25th anniversary reissue of MERZBOW's legendary Tauromachine, now remastered by James Plotkin and featuring unreleased bonus material!
Bebedera takes the style of Tarraxo to a heightened awareness of its sexual nature. Tight, wicked layers of percussion, a suggestive ID ("Drinking is his life"), a slow pace that's not only perceptively slow, it sounds charged with intent, even malice, dissolution. Letting go of morality may be the big attraction in the music, permission to get down, this time in a heavy, conspicuous manner instead of a spiritual, breezy floatation. One has to recognize the impulse in ourselves. Once at peace with this rough nature, there are sublime grooves to follow, mind-boggling arrangements, a freedom from judgement in connecting with what may seem to be at first a very masculine take on dancefloor sensuality but which is in fact only human. Just with less filters.
In other ways, an aural combination of metal and flesh produces this notion of a cyborg, a very expressive physical body making its weight known to everybody around, a sort of walking fortress as in the "Moderan" group of sci-fi short stories. A glorious rattle of lata percussion, scraps from the junkyard. A sense of unease, even slight danger starts a flow of adrenalin. According to DJ Marfox, it's not the only thing flowing, there's also a strong desire for intercourse when a Bebedera tarraxo is playing. His very distinctive style has been a cult favourite for years. Accordingly, it took years to make contact, to reach an agreement, and the result is a set of classics that stretch as far back as 2014. Still the same punch, still the feeling no one has really stepped into this territory with such force.
Flipping the construct on its head, there's two Bebedera house tracks, we'd say almost an oddity, an abrupt change from the previous density of atmosphere, though they retain all the percussive bounce. Sensual, sure, a different tempo also letting through a romantic disposition other than the sheer physical attraction. One of the titles sums up the aesthetical power at play: "I Will Beat The Top High". As in reaching further out, further up. Wanting to. Time freezes - 2014 and 2016 (production years of these two tracks), fold up and melt into the Present. Where it matters.
This is the first-ever compilation bringing together Nigel Ayers’ solo work and his long-running project Nocturnal Emissions. Covering recordings from the early 1980s up to 2024, it spans more than four decades of experimental sound.
Nocturnal Emissions is recognized as one of the earliest and most uncompromising industrial/noise groups, standing alongside Throbbing Gristle, SPK, and Cabaret Voltaire. Their sound sits at the intersection of raw industrial electronics, noise, and electronic Dada, fusing harsh textures, tape collage, and rhythm in a constantly evolving hybrid form.
The compilation, fully remastered in Tokyo, traces the major phases of Nocturnal Emissions and Nigel Ayers’ work, spanning raw, confrontational noise rooted in the squatting scene and anti-capitalist protest of the early 1980s; the rhythm-driven period that brought dancefloor energy to industrial grit; and Ayers’ later solo “Neotantric” phase of ambient, ritualistic sound exploring magick, ancient beliefs and altered states while carrying forward a spirit of subversion and transcendence that remains entirely intact decades later. Across these eras, the collection captures the full breadth of Ayers’ creative journey and moves between intense, layered noise and quiet, atmospheric soundscapes blending field recordings, spoken word, electronics, and collage.
1. Nigel Ayers / Tangled Clumps 02:13
From Excavations in Substation (2024)
Words and music by Nigel Ayers.
2. Nocturnal Emissions / 04 06:37
From Music for Butoh (1992)
Music made for the performance of Transearth by Poppo and the Go Go Boys.
Recorded live in La MaMa Theater, New York City, USA, October 1992.
Music composed and performed by Nigel Ayers
Originally released in 1993, edited and digitally mastered in June 2005.
3. Nigel Ayers / Nonsite Observatory 05:35
From Painted by Spirits (2019)
Electroacoustic instruments played by Nigel Ayers.
Recorded in Cornwall, October 2019.
4. Nigel Ayers / The Wise Wound 04:13
From Omega Earth Electrode (2019)
Sounds of Cornwall's industrial heritage recorded and processed by Nigel Ayers.
5. Nocturnal Emissions / Vegetation Narration 05:28
From The World is my Womb (1987)
Composed by Caroline K.
Text, narration and instruments played by Nigel Ayers.
6. Nocturnal Emissions / Night Sky 10:25
From Imaginary Time (1994)
Acoustic instruments played by Charlotte Bill.
Disarranged and decomposed by Nigel Ayers.
7. Nocturnal Emissions / Sealing a Phase 04:46
From The World is my Womb (1987)
Composition and instruments played by Caroline K.
Text and narration by Nigel Ayers.
8. Nocturnal Emissions / Rusting Shells 06:04
From Shake Those Chains Rattle Those Cages (1985)
Recorded in the studios of the Emission Control during November 1984.
Text and Voice by Caroline K. and Nigel Ayers.
9. Nocturnal Emissions / Sperm Count 04:19
From Befehlsnotstand (1983)
Recorded The Emission Control, London, England in 1983 and remixed in 1992.
Composed by Caroline K. and Nigel Ayers.
10. Nocturnal Emissions / When Were You Last in Control of Your Dreams and Aspirations ? 4:12
From Tissue of Lies (1981)
Computer and Synthetizer by Daniel Ayers.
Voice, Bass, Synthesizer and rythm by Caroline K.
Voice, Guitar, Violin and Tape by Nigel Ayers.
Recorded in South London in 1980.
11. Nocturnal Emissions / Never Give Up 4:53
From Songs of Love and Revolution (1985)
Music and voice by Caroline K.
Lyrics and voice by Nigel Ayers
12. Nocturnal Emissions / Golgotha 07:23
From Omphalos! (1998)
Decomposed and disarranged by Nigel Ayers.
13. Nigel Ayers / A Small Rectangle 02:42
From Excavations in Substation (2024)
Words and music by Nigel Ayers