MUSIC

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.

This program connects the dots between various lone wolves and outsider units operating on the outskirts of the nascent international mail art / audio cassette trading network of the 1980s and early 1990s. The selection zeros in on tracks that feature a tense, hypnotic dread using early drum machines, sampling technology, and blackbox electronics pushed to their limits in home recording studios all over the world. All tracks are sourced directly from painstakingly collected handmade original cassettes.

Caligula is the third studio album by American musician Lingua Ignota, released July 19, 2019 through Profound Lore Records.[1] Recorded after the signing with the record label in 2018, the album features collaborations with several other musicians, a departure from the recording process of her previous album All Bitches Die (2017), which was done alone in a shed in the woods, and features more acoustic instrumentation than the aforementioned record. It thematically explores themes of abuse, misogyny, hate, vengeance and violence in its lyrics, inspired by Hayter's own experiences in Providence, and features influences from both classical and extreme music. The album received universal acclaim from music critics, and made appearances on several year-end lists.

A split CD commemorating the Japan tour by MARK FELL, RIAN TREANOR, and KAKUHAN in September and October 2023 is now available!

Known as a giant of electronic or experimental techno music since the 90's, they have released many works on labels such as Mille Plateaux, Line, Mego, and Raster Noton. In recent years, Mark Fell has been going beyond the boundaries of "techno" to offer a truly "modern" sound.
In 2023, NYEGE NYEGE TAPES will release "Saccades," a collaboration with Ugandan/Acholi fiddle player Ocen James, and RIAN FELL is creating music at the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music, with new deconstructions and linkages. RIAN TREANOR creates music that involves new deconstruction and interlocking from the intersection of club culture, experimental art, and computer music.
KAKUHAN (Koshiro Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa), who started his activities in 2022 after various collaborations, "stirs" as the name implies, the poles/tunes possessed by various types of music such as "electronic music/strings," "contemporary music/club music," "composition/ improvisation," etc. that the unit is equipped with.
This 9-song split CD, which includes completely new compositions by these three artists, is not a mere "split (mish-mash)," but rather an approach that transcends and melds the boundaries of "physical/metaphysical" on the periphery of music after techno music is evident in each of the compositions. The ongoing attitude of the three artists toward music is truly and casually expressed in this work, which should be listened to beyond genres.

The long-awaited CD version of the album includes two newly remastered bonus tracks that were only included on the cassette tape version! Japan’s KAKUHAN deliver a futureshock jolt on their incred debut album ‘Metal Zone’ - deploying drum machine syncopations around bowed cello and angular electronics that sound like the square root of Photek’s ‘Ni Ten Ichi Ryu’, Arthur Russell’s ‘World of Echo’, Beatrice Dillon’s ‘Workaround’ and Mica Levi’s ‘Under The Skin’ - or something like T++ and Errorsmith dissecting Laurie Anderson’s ‘Home Of The Brave’, her electric violin panned and bounced relentlessly around the stereo field. It really is that good - basically all the things we love, in multiples. While "Metal Zone" might be their debut, KAKUHAN are hardly newcomers. Koshiri Hino is a member of goat (jp), releasing a run of records under the YPY moniker, and heading up the NAKID label, while Yuki Nakagawa is a well known cellist and sound artist who has worked with Eli Keszler and Joe Talia among many others. Together, they make a sound that’s considerably more than the sum of its parts - as obsessively tweaked, cybernetic and jerky as Mark Fell, frothing with the same gritted, algorithmic intensity as Autechre's total-darkness sets, stripped to the bone and carved with ritualistic symbolism. The album’s most startling and unexpected moments come when KAKUHAN follow their 'nuum inclinations, snatching grimey bursts and staccato South London shakes and matching them with dissonant excoriations that shuttle the mind into a completely different place. It's not a collision we expected, but it's one that's completely melted us - welding obsessive rhythmic futurism onto bloodcurdling horror orchestration - the most appropriate soundtrack we can imagine for the contemporary era. By the album's final track, we're presented with South Asian microtonal blasts that suddenly make sense of the rest of the album; Nakagawa erupts into Arthur Russell-style clouded psychedelia, while wavering flutes guide bio-mechanical ritual musick formations. It’s the perfect closer for the album’s series of taut, viscous, and relentless gelling of meter and tone in sinuous tangles, weaving across East/West perceptions in spirals toward a distinctive conception of rhythmic euphoria with a sense of precision, dexterity and purpose that nods to classical court or chamber music as much as contemporary experimental digressions. Easily one of the most startling and deadly debuts we’ve heard in 2022; the louder we’ve played it, the more it’s realigned our perception of where experimental and club modes converge - meditative, jerky, flailing genius from the outerzone. Basically - an AOTY level Tip.

Through the eye of the pinkish gate... Soft lights... cool evening breezes, toxic fumes, burnt champagne and supper for one... love and longing...disenchantment... and the murky meanderings of Pinkcourtesyphone. It is impossible for us to supply all the recipe ingredients needed for this, the sounds of soured romance, but we can at least dish up the musical setting on a deluxe digital porcelain platter (with a just few hairline cracks)... but only for an hour. A gourmet offering befitting a pall party without compare. Attempts have been made in this collection of recordings, obdurate and diegetic, to express anxiety, always, often, and sometimes. 'Arise in Sinking Feelings', an unmistakable pinkcourtesy mood, simply combinations of magic and memory that spin out within moments before our delighted senses... a fanciful flight of neurosis. No one who is anyone has heard it and even they were met with incomprehension. "A Stunning Blandness!" read the headlines. This album includes a printed insert of inspiration. Use it to gain maximum benefits from your study of Pinkcourtesyphone. Read and imbibe the insert while you listen to the recording. The Room40 Media Institute recommends the ‘Double Sensory’ method of absorbing sonic information. Its consistent use will greatly increase your powers of concentration and retention. Let your feelings sink as you let Pinkcourtesyphone sink in... its secret can destroy you in its unyielding grasp.

Synth wizard, soundtrack composer, and Zombi member, Steve Moore expands further on his stark and drama filled cosmic sound with a new six track lp. These tracks call to mind to his early-L.I.E.S. releases, where Moore focused on cold arppegations and basic beat constructions to fuel his epic productions which center around pristine soaring synthscapes. A master of the genre, Moore gives us an equal mix of explosive, creepy home at the end of a dark street floor fodder as well as slower tempo cosmic headcrushers, all capable of getting your head or niteclub in a frenzy. Beyond epic!!!

Limited edition of 150 copies worldwide. For the first time since 1984, the best of the early Merzbow catalog, newly remastered by Masami Akita, Aurora Central Records proudly presents the reissue of Material Action for 2 Microphones.

Masami Akita's psych-noise mantra originally released on CD in 1998 by Alien8 Recordings. Expanded double LP reissue available now in standard black and limited white vinyl editions. Remastered by M.A. in 2021 with additional material from the same sessions.

Merzbow came roaring onto the Tokyo scene in 1979. To this day, the project remains one of the most prolific and aggressively forward-thinking acts in experimental music. Initially a duo of Masami Akita and Kiyoshi Mizutani, before settling as the moniker of Akita alone, the project took its name from German artist Kurt Schwitters' pre-war architectural assemblage, The Cathedral of Erotic Misery or Merzbau, and quickly set out to challenge entrenched notions of what music could be. Embracing technology and the machine, even in its earliest iterations, Merzbow broke boundaries and pushed toward new territories of the extreme, arriving at an unadulterated manifestation of sonic expression that has continued across the last 44 years, setting the pace for the entire genre of noise along the way. When it comes to Japanese noise, few projects have pushed boundaries or risen to a more iconic status than Merzbow. The mutant child of punk and experimental music, the project’s blistering sounds - as singular and wild as they are unique - are among the movement’s most important, definitive statements, continuously laying the groundwork for countless artists who have followed in its wake. Cloud Cock OO Grand marks a new era for Merzbow, the first of many CDs that will go in the direction we’d see in the ’90s. It is also the first time that this seminal document from Merzbow’s '90s period has ever appeared on vinyl. Composed and performed on synthesizers, metal devices, noise electronics and string instruments, all recorded at extreme volumes, Cloud Cock OO Grand’s five tracks present an enthralling sonic assault, deeply driven by the presence of electronic sounds, played against the sparse interjections of Akita’s heavily processed strings, that push toward new territories of the extreme, while subtly nodding toward historical gestures from the early years of the avant-garde. On the double vinyl, the tracks are not only remastered by Merzbow, but are recontextualized and open up a new sense of his studio experimentation at the time. Cloud Cock OO Grand is a stunning feat of remarkable importance within the genre of noise, delivering this long unavailable masterstroke back into our hands, while further illuminating the project’s crucial work from the 1990s. This is an absolute must for the indoctrinated Merbow fan as much as those just entering this incredible world.

Strong debut album by one of China’s most distinctive new industrial/dance music producers, Tzusing, for L.I.E.S.; portraying the Shanghai-based artist’s full breadth of kinky darkroom rhythms and sleazy cinematic arrangements. Under the title 東方不敗, meaning Invincible East, the record wraps an armoury of powerful percussion and native instrumentation around a narrative locus based on a swordsman character in a Jin Yong novel “who must make the ultimate sacrifice to attain knowledge and transform”. Coupled with the artist’s own observations on living in, and travelling around, Asia, it’s an urgent and gripping listen with a versatility and varied topography lending itself to DJ use and soundtracking industrial subterfuge alike. 日出東方 唯我不敗 starts out like ’05 sino grime or dubstep from a parallel dimension; Digital Properties trades in secretive choral code at a killer New Beta momentum which decelerates into the the wind-tunnel chug and pealing cyber-tribal chant of Esther. His signature triplets last heard on A Name Out Of Place wickedly come into play against sheer electric blue synth tone in King Of Hosts; we’re put thru an intense, Americanised club drill in Post-Soviet Models; and Torque Pulsations both literally and physically lives up to its name with a belly and spine-twysting EBM tattoo. TIP!

Kakuhan, a unit of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, has released a self-released CD, which has been sold exclusively at live venues, on "Nakid," a hot label run by Koshiro Hino, who is also well known for his activities with goat and YPY and for running "birdFriend," and has released such powerful artists as Keith Fullerton Whitman and Mark Fell & Will Guthrie. The CD is a self-released CD by Kakuhan, a unit consisting of Hino and Hiroki Nakagawa, which has been sold exclusively at live venues and has won critical acclaim!

The CD includes a live performance by KAKUHAN, a unit consisting of YPY, Hino Koshiro, and cellist Nakagawa Hiroki, at the "Feldman meets freq 2022" event held at Kyushu University in February 2022.
KAKUHAN's first album "Metalzone", released at the end of 2022, was voted the 5th best release of 2022 by Boomkat and the 5th best album of the year by Music Magazine in the best electronic music category. The CD contains a total of six songs, including the previous night's "Prototype," a song from the same album, and includes a song that can only be heard on this CD.
As the unit name suggests, the various elements of both artists' activities-"electronic music/strings," "contemporary/club music," "traditional/contemporary," "physical/metaphysical," "composition/improvisation"-are literally "stirred" in the performance. It is highly recommended to listen to it together with "Metalzone"!

Originally released digitally by Cafe Oto in 2020, "A Queer Anthology of Drums" is Italo-British percussionist Valentina Magaletti's most satisfying set - a future-fluid evolution of post-punk/industrial murk, free-jazz fizz, electro-acoustic trickery and avant-minimalist mischief. Think Chris Corsano, Morton J. Olsen, Thomas Strønen, Han Bennink. Best known as a prized collaborator who's put in work with Raime, Helm, Jandek, Floating Points, Nico Jaar and numerous others, and making up part of Moin, Vanishing Twin, Tomaga and CZN, Valentina Magaletti is also an accomplished solo artist, and this is where her skills really tend to shine. "A Queer Anthology of Drums" stands as a blueprint for her methodology, rolling through her studied musical philosophy centering percussion without sacrificing structure, cohesion and momentum. Anyone who's heard her performances before won't be completely caught off guard, but this record is the most complete collection she's assembled thus far, balancing lucid rhythmic ritualism with playful psychedelia and fragmented melodic elements. Magaletti recorded the album at home, collaging drums, field recordings, vibraphone, toys and oscillators into a fluxing symphony of rhythm and tone. And while the original album was eight tracks, an additional piece has been added to this new remastered edition to open the record: 'She/Her/Gone', that introduces us to Magaletti's sound in a shower of delayed piano, brushed drums and jangling bells. From here, the set takes a darker turn, pattering into cavernous, metallic spaces on 'The Unity of the Mind', and erupting into a chunky, limber rhythm on the tough-as-nails title track. The fog lifts a little as the set progresses, first with the Steve Reich-cum-Broadcast lounge minimalism of 'Rumors of Bread', and then with 'Per Strada', one of the album's most disarming moments that offsets Magaletti's gamalan-influenced percussive cycles with rousing choral sounds. She utilizes these elements to illustrate her understanding of musical history - her drumming is not tied to the instrument's expected function: it's not simply jazz, or punk, and it's definitely not free improv. Her interests are deep and literate, and her sound reaches thru global folk traditions and ritual practices, touching on pop and experimental forms without mimicking them or operating in template mode. But it isn't an academic exercise either, Magaletti queers her subject matter in a way that makes it accessible and humane. Absolutely essential listening for anyone interested in percussive music, ritual music - even experimental lounge.A Queer Anthology of Drums - "a percussive collage of low-fi frequencies documenting a journey that never took place" (Takuroku), a home recording capturing Valentina's ritualistic free-improv essence, is now being presented to audiences across the world by bié Records, via both streaming services and vinyl for the first time. *A Queer Anthology of Drums was originally released on Cafe Oto's label “Takuroku” with 8 tracks solely in MP3 format. The new version by the Beijing-based bié Records, whose associate acts range across Hualun, Yu Su, Lim Giong, Gong Gong Gong and many more, is specifically remastered for vinyl format and expanded to 9 tracks with the previously unreleased “She/Her/Gone”.

Limited edition of 150 copies worldwide. For the first time since 1988, Aurora Central Records is proud to present this limited edition re-issue of the first ever Merzbow live show, Recorded Live at Kid Ailack Art Hall, Tokyo, 22 March 198, remastered by Masami Akita.

Brooklyn's illbient cult Sensational meets Kyoto's composer unbuilt.

LP (red vinyl) & 7" (one-sided blue vinyl). Limited vinyl edition of 300 copies.

Masami Akita (秋田 昌美), (メルツバウ, Merutsubau) aka Merzbow, Animal Rights Activist, Writer, and Musician, Emerges as Iconic Figure in International Noise Scene Renowned for his pioneering contributions to the noise music genre, Merzbow (aka Masami Akita) has solidified his position as one of its most significant and recognizable figures. From his groundbreaking utilization of tape loops to craft expansive industrial landscapes in the late 1970s, to his transition to laptop-generated static noise at the turn of the century, Merzbow has consistently pushed the boundaries of sonic experimentation. Modern Obscure Music is delighted to unveil Merzbow's debut release on the label, "Tsubute Mosaic."

Finally, Regis lets his rhythmic noise opus out into the world, a bruising and hauntingly absorbing new album - his first since 2001 - recorded in Berlin with Einstürzende Neubauten’s engineer/producer Boris Wilsdorf and an absolute must if you want a dose of highest grade industrial rhythmic noise or into anything from British Murder Boys to Test Department, Jeff Mills and Cabaret Voltaire. On a masterful twenty-year followup to ‘Penetration’, Karl O’Connor yields a definitive solo LP that distills his passions for sonic brutalism and bastardised Chicago tracks with syncopated UK swagger and reverberating warehouse ballistics. Its lip-bitingly gripping effect is testament to a resounding reputation as one of Industrial music’s most influential producers, and sees the artist bring his own influences - from Test Department to Jeff Mills - into line with his potent palette of narcotised tones. Recorded in Berlin with Einstürzende Neubauten’s producer/engineer Boris Wilsdorf, the album’s supple, spartan, and rhythmic gymnastics notably benefit from acres of icy room to roll around and lash out. Snagged around muscular bassline revs, and caressed with keys and vocals by post- punk catalyst Annie Hogan (whose recent turn for Downwards was a total revelation), the 9 tracks portray Regis at his leanest and most mesmerising, which is all the more impressive coming from an artist who’s deliberately held his line through Industrial mutations for more than 30 years. Between the razor-sharp electro of ‘Everything is Ahead of Us’, and the pure voodoo of ‘Calling Down A Curse’, he sharply carves a uniquely UK and shark-eyed style that lets on to influence from tech-step D&B and dark garage rolige as much as Test Department’s seminal ‘Beating The Retreat’ or 23 Skidoo and ‘Crackdown’-era Cabaret Voltaire. Highlights such as the swingeing 11 minutes of swordplay drums and bubbling acid in ‘The Sun Rose Pure’, and the straightjacketed funk of ‘I See Fire’ epitomise the rudeness at play, and together with the viscerally personalised sound design virtues of ‘Another Kind of Love’, the immaculate noirish vignette ‘Alone of All Her Sex’, and the lush tristesse evoked by ‘Eros in Tangiers’, this album effectively defines Regis as peerless in his field, and is essential to fans of the artist’s solo classics and with British Murder Boys, Sandwell District, Ugandan Speed Trials and CUB. KILLER!!!

In 1987, Nakahara Masaya founded the project Violent Onsen Geisha, which quickly became one of the most well-known and influential names in the Japanese noise music scene, distinctive among others for frequently displaying a bizarre, sarcastic, and mischievous sense of humor. The band's name, which translates to "violent hot springs geisha," is a reference to the traditional Japanese practice of hot spring bathing, as well as a nod to Nakahara's confrontational and irreverent approach to music. As Violent Onsen Geisha, he creates experimental music that blends elements of noise, industrial, and avant-garde styles. He is known for his use of unconventional instruments and sounds, including feedback loops, field recordings, appropriated or "found" music, in addition to (or even instead of) straight-ahead noise. As well as his work as a musician, Nakahara is also a prolific visual artist and writer. His artwork has been exhibited in galleries and museums around the world, and he has published several books on the subjects of art and music. He is known for his irreverent and humorous approach to art, which often subverts traditional Japanese imagery and cultural norms. Despite his underground status, Nakahara has been a highly influential figure in the Japanese art and music scenes for over three decades. His work has inspired countless musicians and artists both in Japan and around the world. "Wagamama Na Ofukuro" is a super rare 1993 cassette release by Nakahara’s label “My Fiance's Lifework” . The title translates to "Selfish Mother" in English, and the tape is known for its confrontational and irreverent approach to music. It consists of handful of tracks that features a barrage of harsh noise, feedback, and distorted vocals. Despite its abrasive nature, there is a sense of humor and playfulness to the music, with artist incorporating samples of children's songs and nursery rhymes into the mix. Nakahara's use of unconventional instruments and sounds, as well as his willingness to push boundaries and challenge established norms, make this cassette a standout in the noise genre. Now available fully remastered 30 years after its first release.

First vinyl pressing of the long out of print 1993 classic many consider not only Skullflower's apex, but one of the finest noise rock records of the 90's. Edition of 600 clear smoke 2xLP in deluxe embossed sleeve.

Brooklyn's illbient cult Sensational meets Kyoto's composer unbuilt.

聽覺侵蝕 噪音宣言 2 years after their debut album on Utech Records, P/O MASSACRE goes deeper in their immersive noise experimentation in this collaboration album with Alex Buess, and Merzbow (Masami Akita 秋田昌美). An architecture of distortion, Moog processors, spring reverb, drone effects and more, then developed in different directions by two electronic/noise veterans. It’s a journey of pure sensation, destruction, and rebirth. A skull-vibrating sound decomposition to your face. For this very reason of searching the limit of frequency and sound structure, we’ve decided to make this album as double 45 rpm vinyl, for a maximum aural experience, cut for vinyl by Frédéric Alstadt at Mont Analogue Masters. As he says: “it’s the cut of the uncuttable”. The visual design and layout are taken care of by the Taiwanese noise builder Chia-Chun Xu (Karma Detonation Tapes), with the artwork from the film destroying artist Tseng Peng-Chieh. Heavy gatefold sleeve, with obi and a bonus CD which includes an exclusive track “Nonslaught” from the same recording session by P/O MASSACRE only.

Panasonic tracks remixed by Zoviet France and Muslimgauze

"A brittle metronome in a delirious tension landscape, WOMEN'S HOUR are a Glasgow based experimental post-punk duo featuring Contort Yourself head honcho Murray CY and artist Jenny Wicks. Creating noise, harmony and disquiet washed in synth and repetitive guitar, rough beats and distorted vocals, WOMEN'S HOUR are constantly trying to embrace the shouting in their heads." On this, their debut release, a 12 track lp, a true to form jagged 80s post-punk affair, the two piece bring to life the day to day in the grim North through their music. One can almost feel the chill coming from the brittle window panes of the dank drafty flats, filled with asbestos paint, busted heaters, and no hot water flowing for who knows how long. Desperate, urgent, coming close to falling apart, yet pulling it together to make it through to the next song...this is as "British" as it gets (yes we know Scotland is its own thing guys, don't shoot) The sun hasn't shown its face for many months, wind blows through the deserted streets, change jingles around in your pocket, a hungry dog barks. This is the music of Women's Hour. Limited to 300 copies, one time pressing. Includes insert and art by Jenny Wicks of Women's Hour.