MUSIC

“Conflict was an album I made during a years long dispute with a loved one. My desired outcome of the argument was that the other person would admit they’re wrong, but upon seeing that wasn’t going to happen, I tried to find a way to exist peacefully in the disagreement. The songs on Conflict try to find the space between right and wrong, winning and losing, etc.

Each song title presents a duality: The pain of a pilgrim’s journey vs. the reward of salvation, the star power of a charming boxer vs. his penchant for violence, the beauty of a battered painting vs. the fight that warped it. The music tries to stay balanced between the two opposites. Each composition starts as a 2 or 4 bar looping piano figure and usually only develops slightly, never changing key or tempo or dynamics. The flute accompaniment improvises on only 3 or 4 possible note choices per song.

This quote by MMA fighter Platinum Mike Perry was often in my head during the recording: ‘Absorb the pain and react smoothly… don’t become distracted by the white noise of possibilities…experience a flow-like state, even an Ultra Instinct.’ Funny enough, there is a bunch of white noise on this record from the DX7 synthesizer and cheap piano mics, but it doesn’t distract from the music.”

Duval Timothy’s piano music grows in stature and sprawling ideas with this mix of odes to Mahler and electro-acoustic/concrète evocations of the landscapes to England, Italy, and West Africa, featuring guest input by Fauzia, Yu Su, Vegyn and Lamin Fofana ‘Meeting With a Judas Tree’ is Timothy’s first solo album since 2020 and a significant way marker on his path thus far, which has snaked from Freeport, Sierra Leone, to London, UK. Recorded 2019-22, it expands on ideas from his early pursuit of brooding avant-jazz on 2016’s introductory ‘Brown Loop’ LP, and the more angular experiments of his first sides on personal imprint Carrying Colour, to a vivid blend of inspirations and a broader emotive palette put to canvas with raw finesse. Capturing his feelings in his South London home studio, plus the Carrying Colour studio in Freetown, the Old Police Statin in Rotherhithe, and Casa Mahler in Spolete, Umbria, the recordings share a immediate vivacity and emphasis on texture that serve to heighten the emotive grip of his work. ‘Plunge’ is a case in point, makign use of an auld upright in Freetown whose palettes had lost their felt due to humidity, and lending the piece a quality of Lonnie Holley’s blues, while the smeared electronics and electric guitar licks amplify the aching cadence, and also in ‘Mutate’ whose cascading discord recalls the uneasy dreampop of A.R. Kane. But a big attraction in the record lies with Timothy’s feel for balancing raw and lofty ideas, as with the mix of warbling effects applied to stately Mahler-esque figures and field recording made with his mum in the hills outside Bath on ‘Up’, and his ability to to seamlessly bring others not the vibe, as on the utopian promise of ‘Wood’ featuring piano and synth by Yu Su, and Vegyn co-production, or the subtle disturbances of Fauzia in ‘Thunder’ that edge the piece close to Klein’s most enigmatic. The final sequence ‘Drift’ with Lamin Fofana is an ideal curtain closer, brimming with an brooding but unresolved quality that recalls his Mahler inspiration via The Caretaker and a sea of natural world inspiration that gives it a beautifully in-between worlds headiness.

In January 2021, Eelco Topper (Felbm) went into hermit mode by way of a two-week residency at Buitenplaats Doornburgh, a former monastery on the outskirts of his hometown of Utrecht, Netherlands. He had already intended to use only natural elements for inspiration, such as naturally-occurring textures and patterns, and the earthiness of acoustic instruments like singing bowls and a range of wooden percussion. On arrival, the contemplative architecture of the building and the peace of the surrounding landscapes energized Topper so much that these initial ideas blossomed into nearly 50 minutes of intimate 4-track cassette recordings. Following the residency, Topper collaborated with a cast of local guest musicians on flute, saxophone and cello, infusing the original rhythmic foundation of percussion and acoustic guitar with a lush melodic backdrop.
 The resulting new release – simply titled ‘Elements of Nature’ - marries the fluttering melodies and lo-fi cassette sound of earlier Felbm releases with a new conceptual approach and more varied sonic toolkit. Here, Topper successfully preserves the joyful naïveté of the Tapes series while exploring sweeping new ground, resulting in a decisive step forward for Felbm as a composer, producer and artist. ‘Elements of Nature’ was first released in November 2021 on limited edition cassette, accompanied by a riso-printed book of artwork. 
Illustrated once more by long-time collaborator Joost Stokhof, the artwork assembles Stokhof’s ink drawings together with the analogue photographs that inspired them, taken by Felbm during his residency.!

Originally released in 2005, Insen is the second collaboration album between Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto and the second installment of V.I.R.U.S.‘s five albums series. Remastered in 2021 in collaboration with Calyx Studio, the album’s recordings are accompanied by an unreleased composition titled Barco. Initially composed for Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto’s 2005 Insen tour, the audio material used in this piece is based on the subtle sounds of Barco projectors, whose tonalities served as a ground for the artists’ live improvisation. In Insen, Alva Noto and Ryuichi Sakamoto explore the potential for interaction and tension between electronic and acoustic instrumentation. Across eight compositions, the echoes of the cascading piano combine, collide, and dissolve with the tapestry of digital breakages in sheer vibrancy. This relationship lies at the album’s core. It subtly continues Vrioon‘s calm melancholia, becoming a vessel for all the emotions and memories nourished by the listener. As you hear the opening, lonesome notes of Aurora, you realize that the pair have once again conceded an ambition to embed elaborate disciplines into an archetypal sound of soul-searching beauty. Album art designed by Carsten Nicolai Mastering by Bo @ Calyx

A deeply confounding trip into the sublime from master of contextual dream-weaving Nozomu Matsumoto on perhaps his most heart-piercingly beautiful work to date, including a 13 minute choral section that might just be the most stunning piece of pseudo-classical/liturgical alchemy we’ve heard all year. Huge recommendation for followers/lovers of Kara-Lis Coverdale, Ryan Trecartin or Mica Levi’s ‘Zola’ score Leading on from his ’Remain Calm’ album to accompany visual components by regular collaborator Nile Koetting, ‘Immunotherapy’ offers therapeutic solace through a personalised form of Japanese environmental music. A conceptual continuation of themes explored on 2018’s ‘Climatotherapy’ and 2020’s ‘Sustainable Hours’; Nozomu’s 3rd solo vinyl release reprises his uncanny ability to evoke a reflective headspace with a blend of classical ambient tropes, text-to-speech synthesis, and a contemporary cinematic vernacular that’s both nuanced and moving. In 2022, against the backdrop of global warfare, a pandemic, and ecological collapse, Nozomu’s work grasps the nettle with a sober lucidity to make time and space for his, and your, wellbeing. ‘Immunotherapy’ carefully evokes its own temporality and atmospheric conditions via a grandiose but intimate palette of strings, keys, blissed chorales, and electronic webbing which provide the bed for narration by Amazon’s vocaloid, Polly. The results create an unusual duality - a human/inhuman intimacy rooted in some uncertain semi-robotic near-future that references the original ‘80s era of classic Japanese ambient music, which itself emerged as a soothing response to the headlong rush of a technologically enhanced/enchanted society. Across six parts in 22 minutes, ‘Immunotherapy’ resolves from the initial inset of a panic attack in public, via passages reflecting on “diseases of affluence” thru to spine freezing synth pads and an extraordinary denouement of emotive Koto and shearing synthesis on ‘Vertigo’ before entering a final state of blissed stasis on that closing 13 minute ‘Filippo Pacini’ section - a haunting ode to the c.19th Italian anatomist that uncannily reminds us of Kara-Lis Coverdale’s collaboration with Yasuaki Shimizu - a sound that feels all-too-human despite it’s synthetic contours. A whirlwind of emotion, right on the cusp of bliss and melancholia.

Early Basinski works, released on professionally pressed CDs (not CDR's!) for the first time. Minimal packaging in the style of the original release (from 2003). These works have been spoken of in hushed tones for a few years, as they have never been widely available. But the Basinski legends grows as the full catalog becomes accessible. "The first two discs of the 9 month generative ambient experiment conducted over the turn of the century. Very tranquil and soothing. Remastered and now available on CD in C-shell." "A one-hour track entirely composed on a Voyetra synthesizer, Water Music is a perfect antidote to the saccharin-drenched ambient cakes released nowadays by hundreds of self-producing wannabes. It's a never-too-present low humming lullaby, caressing the brain and the ears and slowly developing from silence. Comparisons could be made with some of Eno's best old releases, but please be advised this is not Music for films 2002 -- instead, the author gets right to the point with a simple idea, a small plant that needs to be growing in the semi-obscurity of your deep feelings. What a nice sensation." -- Massimo Ricci

Languoria is a collaboration between Denmark’s Sofie Birch and Poland’s Antonina Nowacka. While Birch describes herself as an ambient musician, Nowacka’s primary instrument is her own voice; they share in common a facility for creating complex, layered work. Birch and Nowacka were first brought together by Unsound to perform at Ephemera Festival in Warsaw as part of a durational overnight performance. Entirely improvised, the music already felt coherent, with Nowacka’s voice weaving effortlessly through Birch’s ambient soundscapes and field recordings, indicating an immediate, deep connection, a meeting of kindred spirits. The artists were reunited at Unsound Kraków to perform a morning show at a 19th-century synagogue. Here, the music took clearer shape, and the audience glimpsed the birth of works that would eventually take the form of individual tracks on Languoria. This past winter, the two artists met in Copenhagen to record the album, completing 11 compositions that feel sacred, almost devotional in character. Fusing the melodicism and gentleness of Birch’s sound practice and the abstract, spiritual vocalisations of Nowacka, the album alludes to the wonders of the natural world while also turning its gaze inwards. “When working together, every small decision was very important, and that’s why such simple compositions can hold so much complexity and depth,” Sofie Birch says of their time in Copenhagen together. Contemplative, meditative and awe-inspiring in equal measure, Languoria is a breathtaking collaborative debut. Together, these artists have uncovered a new dimension of their respective practices, creating music that is difficult to categorise, otherworldly, yet strangely comforting.

Yara Asmar is a 25 year old multi-instrumentalist, video artist and puppeteer currently living in Beirut with her cat, Mushroom. Hive Mind are thrilled to be working with her and to bring you this wonderful debut album of music she recorded at home on cassettes and a mobile phone over the past few years. On it you'll hear her play a range of instruments including the piano, her grandmother's old accordion which she found in the attic of her grandparent's home in Lebanon, the metallophone, synth, and various deconstructed and disassembled toy pianos and music boxes. You'll also hear her field-recordings of hymns sung in churches around Lebanon which Yara has turned into waltzes. These beautifully melodic works contain recognisable elements of classical music wrapped in layers of tape hiss, synth wash, reverb and delay and disturbed by the metallic percussive sounds of the dissembled music boxes. The atmosphere of melancholy that pervades the album should be familiar to anyone living in the 21st Century.

A masterpiece that updating the lineage of Italian avant-garde music, which has been reevaluated in recent years, to the present day! He is known for his prolific compositional activities, and this year he has already dropped a number of works on prestigious labels such as Die Schachtel, 901 Editions, and Matière Mémoire. He has also collaborated with powerful artists such as Jim O'Rourke, Akira Sakata, Tatsuhisa Yamamoto, and Eiko Ishibashi. Belgian cellist/maestro Jean-Paul Dessy, jazz bassist Manolo Cabras, and other performers participate in the project. Three full-length modern classical/minimal drone pieces by different ensembles, with an obscure, clean and sublime sound image that is recommended for those who like Hans Otte and Charlemagne Palestine. This is a must have for analog. Limited edition of 300 copies.

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)

The latest reissue from chOOn!! is Giedrius Kuprevičius’ Erotidijos, the sixth release from the label that specialises in obscure, archival and forgotten releases. Erotidijos translates from the Lithuanian to “Erotidies” – these were festivals held in honour of Eros, God of Love in Ancient Greece. They were organised every five years and were famous for their celebrations, decorations and luxury. Ritual games were played during the festivals, musicians and poets competed, worshipping Eros. Erotidijos is a haunting yet hypnotic tableaux Kuprevičius originally created for a Stanislovas Rubinovas theatre play staged in 1994 in Kaunas, Lithuania. The Lithuanian composer was one of the founding members of the pioneering electronic pop outfit Argo and has written dozens of scores for stage and film over the past several decades, imbuing his soundwork with a multitude of artful moods and emotive depth. The story of Erotidijos unfolds in both melancholic and serenely lush scenery, in turn mysterious and playful. Memories of places you’ve never been drift into frame, from bedroom womb into a foliage of phantasmal keys and gently psychotropic symphonies. A collection that glissandos between notes, place, and time. Erotidijos is guided by an intuitive, improvisational dream logic that threads the line between waking and sleeping revelations. It offers a hazy, voyeuristic lens into another world with dusty ambience and eccentric keyboard effects, warm synth pads and shimmering vistas serving as soft accents to the angelic murmur of giggling voices. As you listen, you are invited to apply your own interpretation of Erotidijos’ narrative of a new land, its climate, sounds, and geography. A contemplative, celestial electronic work in a gentle, often beautiful ambient style which breezily swings with exquisite analogue synth textures and infinity loops. Jazz spontaneity and organic pop impulses lift the meditative veil, ending with a climactic final scene: a sensuous reverie complete with shedding light and gently opening synapses. Available for the first time on vinyl, including over twenty minutes of music not featured on the original cassette release and produced in cooperation with Giedrius Kuprevičius for chOOn!!

»Herbstlaub,« the first full album by Marsen Jules after 2 digital only mini-albums, was both introspective and visionary, modest and ground-breaking. Blending elements of classical music with electronic textures, the German artist created six pieces that draw on the power of repetition, yet are full of internal tensions and sweeping dynamics. Now, Keplar makes it available again on vinyl for the first time since its original release in 2005. This version, remastered by Stephan Mathieu and with a new artwork by Umor Rex’s Daniel Castrejón, shines a new light on a record that paved the way not only for the artist’s later work, but also further developments in electronic and ambient music more broadly. »The noughties were a special time,« says Marsen Jules today. »It felt like there was a new tool made available practically every day that allowed you to create new musical worlds on your computer.« Hence, this prolific phase saw the emergence of a plentitude of genres and styles that can be traced back to individual records—»precious gems that opened up new possibilities and anticipated a lot of what later would be picked up on,« as he describes them. »Herbstlaub« surely falls into this category, having paved the way for a distinct approach to combining elements from classical and electronic music. While Wolfgang Voigt was focusing on the marriage of romanticism and techno with his Gas project at the same time, the six pieces on »Herbstlaub« follow a very different concept. Through repetition and reduction, Marsen Jules threw any sense of time out of joint while also inserting an emotional component into the music. »What would remain if you abstract musical contents to this degree, how much of your personality would still resonate in it,« he sums up the questions that shaped his approach. »When will reduction result in monotony, and how could unique, magical moments created through repetition?« More than one and a half decades later, »Herbstlaub« seems both melancholic and brimming with excitement. This is the sound of an artist experimenting freely with the sounds and structures of two supposedly irreconcilable musical traditions with new and exciting tools, creating something previously unheard of in the process.

- Californian pianist and composer Nico Georis presents the celestial piano music of Desert Mirror in preparation for a full-length album later in 2022. Currently inhabiting around Death Valley, Big Sur, Ojai, and LA, Nico's experiments persist with performances and recordings via the Noon at 2pm duo w/guitar pal Matt Baldwin, and his various plant music projects with PlantWave electrode hardware. - The majority of Desert Mirror was recorded in a small town outside of Death Valley on an upright piano in an abandoned airstream / work-in-progress studio. Use of hard-panned "mirror delay" - the same technique used by the influential composer Terry Riley on his album A Rainbow In Curved Air - was quintessential to the creation process of these "survival piano jams".

NEW one from 1/2 of acclaimed duo BLACKWATER... more sooon.. (Mint / New - limited version with screen print) Debut solo album from The Dengie Hundred, one half of London’s Blackwater whose slo-motion synth-pop LP ‘Navigation’ was acclaimed by cult record shops Monorail, All Night Flight and World of Echo, which included it in its review of the best releases of 2021. Named after a clifftop cabin overlooking Whitsand Bay in Cornwall’s ‘forgotten corner’, ‘Brackenbank’ charts the first weeks of a new relationship between long-distance lovers in London and the South West. Desiring vocals move like the tide toward and away from drones and dub-soaked drum machines that recall heart beats, train tracks, the clinks of boat rigs and clunks of ferry chains. Composed of sounds recorded in an unfamiliar landscape of sea and rock and sky, ‘Brackenbank’s’ electronic sonic atmosphere was processed on the lines of the Great Western Railway as The Dengie Hundred travelled back and forth: looking forward; longing after. Kingsand, Cawsand, Eddystone, Firestone – the album’s grid references are both geographical and emotional, offering love songs and instrumentals as pulsing trances from places that can be traced with a finger across the map of The Rame, Cornwall’s ‘most unsung’ peninsula. Brackenbank was mastered by Carim Clasmann, mastered and cut for vinyl by Stefan Betke (aka Pole).

Felis Catus and Silence is a breakthrough release for Tokyo composer-guitarist Leo Takami, following the milestone albums Children’s Song (2012) and Tree of Life (2017). Takami counterpoints the soothing aesthetics of prime-era Windham Hill New Age guitar-heroism with meditative, intellectual compositions comprised of ambitious, process-oriented arrangements. While Takami largely wears his genre influences on his sleeve -- jazz, classical, Japanese gagaku -- the influence of ambient music is a tacit foundation of his work. Working diligently outside of any established communities for fringe musics, Takami conjures this association through a patient focus on generous musical intervals. Steady, kaleidoscopic unfolding of his compositions reflect Takami’s creative intent to “become aware of precisely the time and place I am living.” The unabashedly sweet, tuneful virtues of his music in concert with this reflective form provide an artistic relief of Takami’s thematic harmony. “Each song is based on birth and death, and moving onto the next stage...”

Leo Takami, born 1970, studied guitar under Hideaki Tsumura (aka Kamekichi Tsumura) and performs regularly in Tokyo.

For the past 10 years, it has been a sacred place that has expanded the horizon of the underground scene in Copenhagen, Denmark, to the world, and defines one of the current experimental lifelines represented by and . A new catalog of the sacred place , which depicts the shoegaze sound of a new era that is a prestigious and prestigious spectacle of the beauty of nonexistent things, is in stock at once! !! 2022 by CTM, an experimental pop project that is also known as Posh's work with Croatian Amor, Varg² ™, Frederik Valentin & Loke Rahbek, and is a major authority in the Danish music world. The latest album "Babygirl" of the year is released in analog form. Produced by Holger Hartvig, Malthe Fischer and Cæcilie Trier. An ambitious work by gorgeous people such as Ydegirl, Coco O., Johan S. Wieth (Iceage), ML Buch, Jakob Littauer (Yangze), Emil Elg, Claus Haxholm, who were in charge of vocals and instruments. Containing years of recording and composition fragments, this work is positioned as a musical platform that incorporates many voice expressions, relationships and time. An ethereal and avant-garde daydreaming electronic music piece that floats melancholic between light and dark shadows! Mastering specifications by Malthe Fischer.

Another Timbre releases a new CD by Barbara Monk Feldman, wife of American avant-garde music legend Morton Feldman, featuring five chamber and solo pieces composed between 1988 and 1997. Performed by the "GBSR Duo" consisting of George Barton & Siwan Rhys and Mira Benjamin from Apartment House! This is a fantastic chamber music piece that envelops you in a very ethereal tranquility.

TIZIANO POPOLI - Sull’accordo mimetico
.
SV30 / 1st time on LP Limited edition. Side A: 1. Sull’accordo mimetico - Parte 1 (28:00) Side B: 1. Sull’accordo mimetico - Parte 2 (28:00) Total time: 57 minutes Tiziano Popoli: Yamaha Dx7 synth, Korg MS1O-MS50 synth, Akai S900 sampler, tapes, FX.

 Recorded at home on Teac A 3440 4 tracks tape recorder, mixed on Revox 2 tracks. Sull’Accordo Mimetico (On the Mimetic Chord) dates back to the end of the 80’s. It was commissioned by the artistic director of the ParcoScenico Festival, held in Treviso, Italy. Since the area where artists and the public gathered after the Festival was located to a very busy street, Marco asked me for a sound installation that could work as some sort of a defensive barrier for the street noise. I suggested that my work, rather than hiding the noise, should aim to harmonize the disturbances coming from the street within musical structures and forms, without burdening or saturating too much the acoustic spectrum of the place. In this way, I thought about sonic veils, consisting of repetitive – but also light and discreet – harmonic-rhythmic structures. Since the Festival took place in a beautiful centenary park, I also integrated the music with natural sounds and animal calls, always as an attempt to bridge these sound events and the other materials that made up the composition. The human voice constitutes a central element in this musique d'ameublement project, as a constant source of memory of places and times – here with many references to traditional music for children. A pearl of ambient electroacoustic minimalism with field recordings components in which the nostalgia of Maestro Tiziano Popoli shines through in painting landscapes that slowly change to be seen with the ears. Nocturnal, emblematic, Lynchian.

A new album of piano driven ambient music from British composer Robert Haigh. Following in the path of his albums for the Japanese Siren label, Creatures of the Deep is an underground vantage of a meeting between the musical worlds of Harold Budd and Erik Satie. With a storied musical career that has ranged widely in style ― from his industrial-avant-garde works on Nurse With Wound’s United Diaries label as SEMA to his legendary ambient drum and bass records as Omni Trio on Moving Shadow ― Robert Haigh's work occupies a space between music and mystery. With Creatures of the Deep, Haigh is at the peak of his powers. Among noir, minimal, neo-classical landscapes are robust scatterings of bright reflection and a musical expression that is subtle and elusive yet uniquely Haigh’s in its voice and masterful execution. The closer we examine, the more is revealed, and the less is defined.

With a shared ethos of elevating and amplifying left-field Black music, South London/Jamaica's, cktrl shares his most ambitious work yet, partnering with Errol and Alex Rita's Touching Bass to present 'Robyn'. Collaborating with the likes of Campbell Addy, Duval Timothy, CHILD Studios (Tayo and Ro), Coby Sey, Shirley Tetteh, Purple Ferdinand and photography/creative direction by the iconic Ib Kamara, he has created a vital exploration of contemporary-classical music. Spurred on by the overpowering feelings of heartbreak, 'robyn' impressively creates emotive and heartfelt clarinet and saxophone-led soundscapes about the all-consuming power of love. On the project, cktrl says: “‘Robyn’ at its core is heartbreak and is just really sentimental. It’s a journey of losing a love but it ends with optimism as you find strength to love again.” Born and bred in Lewisham, cktrl aka Bradley Miller is an integral part of London’s pioneering musical underground. One of the only remaining original DJs on NTS, cktrl has previously worked with and played alongside the likes of Sampha, Sango, Kelela and Dean Blunt. Throughout his career to date, cktrl has also been recognised and heralded by fashion and film creators including Ib Kamara (who shot the artwork), Bianca Saunders, Tremaine Emory, Nicholas Daley and Jenn Nkiru who recently secured him a cameo in Beyonce’s ‘Black Is King’.

Perennially bewildering polymath Akira Rabelais unveils the most impressive durational work of his career thus far with a 4 hour smudge of classical works by the musical zeitgeist of the late 19th and early 20th century Belle Époque. It’s a highly enigmatic erosion x sublimation of the familiar in a way that's by now etched into modern canon thanks to works by The Caretaker, but Rabelais has been weaving his own uncanny shroud of infidelity over our collective memory for over two decades now, with this extended set somehow managing to play like a homage to the mixtape, to the novel, to French pre-war culture and to the modern malaise all at once. Deeply immersive, stunning work that’s essential listening if yr into works by The Caretaker x William Basinski. The focus of the set covers the time period and culture around Proust’s 'À la recherche du temps perdu’ novels, and attempts to unravel his fascination with the illusive qualities of memory - most famously identified in his notion of “Proust’s madelaines”, outlined in the eponymous novels that inspired this release. Taking fifty-one works by Bartók, Bellini, Berg, Brahms, Caccini, Chausson, Chopin, Debussy, Delibes, Donizetti, Franck, Hahn, Jungmann, Lully, Ravel, Saint-Saëns, Satie, Schoenberg, Schubert, Schumann, Scriabin, Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Verdi, Wagner, and Weber, Rabelais uses his Argeïphontes Lyre software, as well as specially commissioned new recordings (Bartók's String Quartet No. 2 was recorded specifically for this album at half speed with minimal dynamics) to play with our perception of time via a prism of distortions and subliminal refractions. In an attempt to breathe in the same creative air as the French author, Rabelais’ distils the creative potential of sound in relation to our cultural fabric; everyone knows these pieces, despite precious few of us having lived in Paris in the 1920s. They're the background sound and building blocks of our culture, from cinema to advertising, but secreted in the music’s play of decaying reverbs, you get an uneasy sense of some unknown spectre floating thru the mists of time. Stunning, multidimensional work from a master of the artform.

“Gyropedie,” Anne Guthrie’s third record for Students of Decay, takes us further into their hermetic practice, wherein expertly captured field recordings, French horn, and electronics are woven into potent and richly imagined electroacoustic environments. In Guthrie’s own words, “Quite literally a record of pilgrimage from East to West. Remnants of Midwest and East Coast soundmarks, instruments sold to lighten the travel load, sketched out and then buried under the new. Winter birds and crunching snow, frozen playgrounds, broken synths - I spent a year decoupaging over this, but of course it's still there. A second moon appears occasionally in the daytime, and there are frequent, murky transmissions. California has something alien about it I'm still trying to grasp. Primarily vintage, unabashed, corny, I find myself becoming an impressionist.”

Anne Guthrie is an acoustician, composer, and French horn player. They studied music composition and english at the University of Iowa and architectural acoustics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where they completed their Ph.D in 2014. Their music combines their knowledge of acoustics and contemporary composition/improvisation. Her electronic music has focused on exploiting the natural acoustic phenomena of unique architectural spaces through minimal processing of field recordings. Their composition has focused on the orchestration of non-musical sounds, speech in particular. Their French horn playing has focused on electronic processing and extended techniques used in improvisatory settings, as a soloist and with Fraufraulein and Delicate Sen, among others. Their acoustics research has focused on the use of ambisonics for stage acoustics.

Af Ursin, a project of Timo Van Luijk, who also works with Andrew Chalk in the units Elodie and Mirror, and organizer of La Scie Dorée, released this work in 2017. The work is a masterpiece in which his worldview is deployed without regret, with improvisations that gradually build up heat with an unobtrusive yet drone-like energy, and sound works that have the feel of In Camera/Mirror. The natural analog soundtrack further enhances the perfection of the piece.

Three introspective instrumental compositions for English horn, flute, percussion, double bass, Hammond organ. Performed, recorded and mixed by Timo van Luijk at Kulta Saha, 2010-2012. Remastered May 2020.