MUSIC

Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, Emile Mosseri, and Ghostly will be making a donation from today’s Bandcamp Friday sales of their collaborative album, I Could Be Your Dog/I Could Be Your Moon to support reproductive rights via Noise For Now. "His music filled me with the urge to connect with the world," Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith says of Emile Mosseri. She first heard his work while watching the 2019 film The Last Black Man In San Francisco; just minutes in, she paused it to look up who did the score and wrote to him immediately. "I love Emile's ability to create melodies that feel magically scenic and familiar like they are reminding you of the innocence of loving life.” Those talents saw recognition in 2020 with an Oscar nomination for Mosseri’s original score to the film Minari. He was already a fan of Smith’s and became increasingly intrigued by her impressionistic process as they started to talk. "The music feels so spiritual and alive and made from the earth," Mosseri says. "I think of her as the great conductor, summoning musical poetry from her orchestra of machines." I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon, their two-part collaborative album, introduces an uncanny fusion of their sonics. Constructed using synthesizer, piano, electronics, and voice, this soft-focus dream world is lush, evocative, and fleeting. It finds two composers tuning their respective styles inward as an ode to mutual inspiration, a celebration of the human spirit and its will to surrender to the currents of life. Early into their correspondence, Smith and Mosseri realized they were neighbors in Los Angeles and met up for a few hikes. Their conversations led to a musical exchange over email. The exercise became a sketch, the start of their first song together, "Log In Your Fire,” with Mosseri finding flourishes in Smith’s cathartic synth lines to intonate and harmonize alongside. Lyrically, it's a beautiful, open-ended sentiment. "Being a log in someone's fire, to me, means letting go, and surrendering to that feeling," says Mosseri. From there, the pair composed a series of musical foundations, trading files from afar, nurturing the eventual expansion as the remote days of 2020 set in. Smith likens the collaborative experience to the exciting uncertainty of starting a garden, "doing what I can to facilitate growth while enjoying the process of being surprised by what will actually grow." In the summer of 2021, the duo finished work on the sequel, I Could Be Your Moon, expanding their musical language as the first part reached its September release. Songs from these more recent exchanges find them even more synced, forging into percussive and harmonic experiments, leaning further into their “unused musical muscles,” as Smith and Mosseri put it. A unified vocal presence emerged. “As the friendship grew I think we both learned how to support each other more and musically that was communicated through singing together,” adds Smith. Now taken as a full album set, I Could Be Your Dog / I Could Be Your Moon moves fluidly from track to track, panning through textural vignettes. Two roughly 17-minute halves, the set evokes the bittersweet sense of something too bright or rare to last, a short-lived glimpse into a golden hour. "Moon In Your Eye" sends a choral refrain skyward; we stay behind, watching it haze away in the heavens. "Brush" bubbles with Smith's characteristic wonder and curiosity, expressed in a flutter of horn-like sounds, leading into the album's central expression, its titular track. Above pulsing harmonies, in his tender falsetto, Mosseri repeats variations of the mantra, "I don't want to feel / lost anymore /I can’t make you what I am." He says the idea they are reaching for is more abstract and universal, "It could mean I could be your friend / buddy, I could be someone / something else, I could transform, I could be your companion, etc. What I like about it is it could change based on what that means to you, or what the word dog means to you." The orchestral march of 'oohs and ahhs' on "Blink Twice” could register as both triumphant and tragic. "Moonweed," strays closer to the latter, with low and slow piano keys guiding the alien hums of a starlit goodbye. I Could Be Your Moon, the second installment and side B of the record, opens with the striking “Green To You.” Depicting a dream or a need for renewal — to be new in the eyes of another, all excitement of seeing and being seen as imagined, idealized versions of ourselves — the song unveils the duo’s newly fused voice. “I only want to be green to you,” they sing, as an organ phrase swirls underneath. There’s a wistful sense that bleeds into instrumental “Amber” and continues across “Standing In Your Light,” a piano ballad-turned-mini-symphony that traces over feelings of remorse (“I was distracted / overreacted… come to your senses”). “Shim Sham” starts woozily in anticipation before flipping on a drum break, becoming the collection’s energetic apex; their hums dance with the beat, wordless yet undoubtedly expressive. Once introduced, the percussion stays and syncopates for “Golden Cow,” another radiant duet that reads like a playful plea, or a reminder to their creative selves (“slow down / be careful now / you’ve done this one before”). The record ends inside “Radio Replacement,” a swan song in the lineage of somber album outros; lyrically they reflect on past loves and the passage of time, personifying the music (“I would really love to be / your favorite melody / for a while”). There is a dreamy, elemental intention to this music, which Smith and Mosseri say came naturally, as they both embraced intuitive interplay throughout their creative back-and-forth. The stylistic threads of each composer are recognizable yet become more ambiguous as the album progresses, sewn into a singular vision. "I'm so grateful that my musical ideas could dance with hers with some grace and harmony," says Mosseri. Smith adds that this experience helped her "remember that music can be a connecting layer of friendship, especially in a time when the usual ways were out of reach."

FJLP-05 continues with Forest Jams recent trend of Japanese re-issues from the 90’s. This one is E.S. Island’s “Southwind from Hachijo” a deep ambient exploration that is more tribal and spiritual than prior E.S. Island releases. This was recorded on Hachijo Island featuring several traditional instruments with the bulk of the music being played by Eisuke Takahashi (R.I.P.) and Nene Sanae. Limited copies.

Some marriages are made in heaven and this is definitely one of them. Two of the great ambient masters of recent times concoct a stunning EP full of spine-tinglingly beautiful moments, subtle rhythms and soul-soothing tones. Echoes of Ry Cooder and Eric Satie mingle with found-sounds and warm electronics to create a landmark of ambient exotica.

Ever-evolving the mythologies and magic of Dialect’s sonic sphere, Andrew PM Hunt returns with Atlas of Green, elegantly molding unexacting details of memory and mistranslation into the framework of the British musician and composer’s creative pursuit. The album imagines a young musician named Green working in a future dawning era where lost signals and enduring impulses are unearthed from the sediments of technology and time. Across twelve compositions, Atlas of Green is a patchwork of scavenged relics and bygone hues, cast through the iridescent shimmers of a mid-future in flux. Audiophile quality vinyl pressed at RTI and mastered by Stephan Mathieu.

Following releases on Sähkö Recordings and The Trilogy Tapes, "Fever of the World" is the Soda Gong debut by Memotone, the nom de plume of UK-based multi-instrumentalist Will Yates. As a collection, it is both intimate and expansive, like the feeling of gathering one's thoughts before setting off on a long journey or committing to an irrevocable course of action. Throughout, Yates' talents as both player and sound designer are on full display, as are the sonic signatures that have come to characterize the Memotone catalog: low-lit, ECM-inflected noir; evasive and evolving loop-based accretions; and mellifluous mosaics of keys, guitar, reeds, and percussion. It is patient and focused music, built around production techniques and compositional ideas that have been perfected both in studio and in live performance over a period of several years. "Catherine, On Fire" sets the scene, one of two languid, longform selections, and develops slowly from a spare, harmonic-laden guitar loop into a bed of rippling textural ambience and woozy clarinet filigree. Later, "The Bus" and "When the Bakery Has What You Want and It's Cheap" conjure images of rain-streaked windows, fanciful baked confections, and grey skies broken finally by sunlight. Warm, generous, and comfortable in its own skin, this is music that reminds us that when it feels easy to resign ourselves to world weariness, we should pause for a moment and listen to the rustle of the leaves. The wind knows not to linger.

Presented together for the first time, American composer John McGuire’s Pulse Music series (1975-1979) blurs the popular narrative that Minimalism was a reaction against Europe’s angular, intellectual, inscrutable high-modernism. McGuire, born in California, studied at Occidental College in Los Angeles and UC Berkeley before going to Europe to study with Karlheinz Stockhausen, Krzysztof Penderecki, and Gottfried Michael Koenig. His compositions lock serialism’s warped geometries onto an evenly spaced grid, perfectly preserving serial music’s multi-dimensionality while smoothing its wildest disjunctures and sharpest angles. If serialism is Montreal’s Habitat 67 modular housing complex, McGuire’s Pulse Music compositions are the primary-colored grids of Le Corbusier’s L’Habitation apartment complex — an exuberant expression of the same materials and principles. Every layer of pulses is made distinct through its timbre, register, and tempo. We hear them as a plurality, organized like stars in the sky. Every so often the sky rotates and the stars appear in a different arrangement. Our ear naturally starts to draw connections and, as it sweeps between one layer and another, what was discrete becomes continuous. Pulses become flows; quantitative reality becomes qualitative experience. McGuire’s pulse pieces were realized electronically, in the newly built Studio for Electronic Music at the State University of Cologne and WDR, but Pulse Music II adapted his ideas to an orchestral canvas. Commissioned retrospectively by the composer and radio producer Hans Otte for his Pro Musica Nova festival at Radio Bremen. Alongside the Bremen orchestra, conducted by Klaus Bernbacher, were four pianists—Christoph Delz, Herbert Henck, Deborah Richards, Doris Thomsen—and McGuire himself playing a series of twelve drone-like chords on the organ. The techniques of the electronic Pulse Music pieces required a speed and precision too great for live musicians, so for Pulse Music II McGuire adapted his method to an expanding progression of durations; this had the advantage of being much slower and requiring none of the carefully calibrated tempo changes of Pulse Music I or III. It was still based, says the composer, “on what seemed to me an interesting foray into a completely different kind of time structure. Complex time structures had, by 1975, become a condition for me in two senses: a compositional requirement and maybe an illness.” The present recording was made by Radio Bremen at the work’s first and only performance, and has been held in their archive until now. “108 Pulses” – originally composed a proof-of-concept piece and realized as a single, repeating loop in a 20 minute tableau – is also presented here for the first time.

Salamanda is the collaborative alias of South Korean producer/DJ duo, and close friends, Uman Therma (Sala) and Yetsuby (Manda). Together they create avant-garde electronic music inspired by minimalist concepts, harmonious rhythms and the work of American composer Steve Reich.

Across the eight tracks of Sphere, their debut for Small Méasures, the pair conjure spherical worlds inspired by bubbles, refracting light and planet earth. Soundscapes laden with percussive elements ebb and flow as arpeggiated stanzas cede to misty synths and shimmering plates, conjuring images of solitary temples sat in vast open plateaus.

“For Sphere, we came up with an abstract concept and image to explore more diversity and encourage imagination. Each track is related to different kinds of sphere we found or imagined. From the big round planet embracing every creature to dancing little bubbles underwater, fragments of ideas floating around, exploding tomatoes, and movement of lights flashing and tickling the eyes…

Or the tracks can be about completely different types of spheres in other people's perspective. We hope Sphere can unleash the imagination and take you on a delightful journey of music.’’

California-based keyboardist and composer Nico Georis, known for his ambient works created with biofeedback devices and intended “for plants,” returns with a luminous new album via Leaving Records, the spiritual heart of the West Coast’s independent scene. Delving deep into celestial realms of modern classical and new age, this album radiates with grace and compassion. Gently resonant piano tones, softly undulating synth layers, and reverberations that dissolve into space—each sound arrives as a prayer, a blessing, or the ripple of a memory devoted to someone unseen. A profound sense of calm and care pervades throughout, as if tending to the quiet growth of plants or listening closely to the cosmic order itself. A radiant and healing work of meditative beauty.

Japanese artists Yumiko Morioka and Takashi Kokubo unite for Gaiaphilia, a journey through ambient soundscapes that seamlessly blends Morioka’s graceful piano compositions with Kokubo’s immersive field recordings and atmospheric synthesisers. This collaboration brings together two of Japan’s most influential pioneers in ambient and new age music, each with decades of groundbreaking work. Morioka, celebrated for her 1987 album Resonance—reissued to critical acclaim by Métron Records—infuses her introspective playing with Kokubo’s vivid environmental textures, creating a dialogue between nature and melody. After releasing Resonance, Morioka stepped away from music, moving to America to raise her family. For years, her work was quietly cherished by fans, only gaining wider recognition with its reissue in 2020. A devastating wildfire destroyed her California home seven years ago, prompting her return to Tokyo where she became a chocolatier before rediscovering her passion for the piano in recent years, playing live and recording new works. Takashi Kokubo’s legendary discography spans over 30 years, and has found wider acclaim in recent years via YouTube algorithms and bootleg uploads, wracking up tens of millions of plays. Yet he is probably best known for his sound design work, specifically the Japanese earthquake alert sound as well as credit card payment jingles - his creations are pervasive in Japanese society. “From our love and concern for our planet, we both offer a unique sensibility and spirit of inquiry which we express through our music.” Rooted in shared philosophical interests, Gaiaphilia reflects a profound reverence for nature’s resilience and harmony. Themes of Gaia, Mother Earth’s renewal, and the interconnectedness of life are central, with inspirations drawn from cosmology, sacred geometry, and Japan’s mystical Katakamuna tradition. The album invites listeners into a meditative space where sound mirrors the delicate balance of the natural world. A master of sound design, Kokubo enhances this vision with his distinctive field recordings, captured using a self-made binaural microphone shaped like a crash test dummy’s head. From the jungles of Borneo to the gentle rhythm of ocean waves, Kokubo’s globe-spanning recordings transform into immersive soundscapes that perfectly complement Morioka’s introspective piano compositions. “The title, Gaiaphilia, is a newly created word to encompass our love and respect for nature and life, this feeling is the theme we hoped to express.” Released on Métron Records on 12/03/25 and with artwork from Ventral Is Golden, Gaiaphilia marks a remarkable new chapter for Morioka and Kokubo. Recorded at Kokubo’s log house studio named Studio Ion in Yamanashi, their collaboration offers listeners a deeply emotional and transcendent experience, rooted in the timeless beauty of Japan’s natural landscapes.

Experience the high strangeness of plant music—plants that “sing.” For years musician Nico Georis has used biofeedback instruments to
connect a variety of flora to analog synthesizers, letting their biodata
create music that is strange and existentially gorgeous.

Nico’s work in plant music happened during a six year span, and was
set in motion by a simple desire to find a fresh supply of long-form
ambient music for relaxing to at home. After a chance encounter with
an obscure technology dating back to the 70’s allowing plant
electricity to be converted to MIDI data, Nico began experimenting with using his house plants to generate endlessly evolving ambient music. “I was looking for music that I couldn’t find, and I realized the plants & I could make it.”

Here was an opportunity for another type of ambient music, one not
born of the human brain, to emerge. A music that moves beyond
human thought forms all together, and leans deeply into the green.
Culled from hundreds of plant songs recorded between 2016 - 2022
both at home and in the wild Plant Music Vol. 1 and 2 represent the
“greatest hits” of Nico’s plant music years.

Plant music Vol. 3 marks the newest installation, showcasing music
generated from psilocybin mushrooms, known by many as “Golden
Teachers”.

◯

"This music is created via an artistic translation of electrical biodata into musical data. Two mushrooms and the mycelium connecting them are hooked-up to sensors, and their fluctuating electrical conductivity is translated into an equivalent flow of music notes (MIDI). These notes are then filtered into musical scales and routed into synthesizers that generate tones.

These recordings have been arranged into a variety of solos, duets and trios. They reflect what we feel are the most fascinating and beautiful examples of psilocybin mushroom music, straight from the tub."

◄░░░░░░►

Nico Georis is a keyboard player, producer & songwriter from
California. He produces music from his studio at Granny's Dancehall in a ghost town amidst the wilderness. His music, a unique amalgamation of global influences, presents an imposing total aesthetic that is all his own. 
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 340px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2614175823/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://nicogeoris.bandcamp.com/album/plant-music-vol-3-the-golden-teachers">Plant Music Vol.3 - The Golden Teachers by Nico Georis</a></iframe>

Plant music recordings of a creosote bush near Death Valley, CA.

"Wafting audio incense from the desert wastes of the Eastern Sierra. Music for reading, dreaming and dissociating."
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 208px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=683590967/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://nicogeoris.bandcamp.com/album/plant-music-vol-2-creosote">Plant Music Vol 2 // Creosote by Nico Georis</a></iframe>

Shirley Shirley Shirley is Nico Georis' latest release, an otherworldly document of his experiments in plant music. For several years Nico has been using midi technology to connect a variety of flora to analog synthesizers, letting their biodata create music that is unlike anything I have ever heard. The results are strange and breathtaking. Ultimately it's the closest thing I've found to an organic expression of John Cage's notion of indeterminacy. But unlike Cage's music, Shirley is existentially gorgeous. It stands in the same category as music by Laraaji, Roedelius or Steve Roach. It is available as a download or on limited double vinyl.

- Psychic Arts
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 472px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2448452603/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://nicogeoris.bandcamp.com/album/plant-music-vol-1-shirley-shirley-shirley">Plant Music Vol 1 - Shirley Shirley Shirley! by Nico Georis</a></iframe>

*edition of 100 3CS bundles
*full-color printed slip-case housing
tape1: Vol.1 - Shirley, Shirley Shirley! (runtime 73min)
tape2: Vol.2 - Creosote (runtime 30min)
tape3: Vol.3 - The Golden Teachers (runtime 34min)<iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 340px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2614175823/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://nicogeoris.bandcamp.com/album/plant-music-vol-3-the-golden-teachers">Plant Music Vol.3 - The Golden Teachers by Nico Georis</a></iframe>

California’s Nico Georis has always straddled (or, rather, negotiated) multiple dimensions. As a child, Georis flitted between the rigors of classical training and DIY experimentation—studying under a disciple of Franz Lizst (a mentorship that would enshrine the piano as his primary instrument), then squirreling away to the basement of his childhood home, strewn as it was with his father’s instruments and home-audio equipment, to play and record freely. Despite his evident virtuosity as a trained pianist, Georis has, across numerous projects, stints, incarnations, and chapters, persisted in this gentle and exploratory approach to music-making. Foregoing the pursuit of technical mastery and acclaim within the confines of the contemporary classical world, he has dedicated his talents to songcraft, broadly-defined — channeling unseen (or inaugurating altogether new) worlds through melody and repetition. Conceived after an isolating, five-year struggle with a severe case of Lyme disease, Cloud Suites (out June 9th on Leaving Records) documents Georis’s initial return to experimental ambient keyboard compositions. Conceptually, there is little ambiguity here: the songs—the “suites”—are clouds, or, rather, reflections of clouds, each named after a particular formation. Track titles range from the meteorologically specific to the expressive: “Cumuloids,” “Sundog,” and “Soft Yellow Gazers.” Georis composed the suites in real-time, peering out the windows of his Big Sur cabin-home/recording studio (dubbed The Sky Shed), responding improvisationally to render specific clouds as music—in effect to pluck them from the sky. Georis has referred to this process as a kind of musical game, and, indeed, its end product conveys the recurring and joyful revelations of play. But for a project born of levity and improvisation, Cloud Suites’ path to realization has been winding—harrowing, even. Over three years in the making, the recording process was beset by all manner of technological and environmental setbacks, ranging from broken equipment to a mudslide that tore through the Sky Shed. Nevertheless, even as other projects saw fruition (see 2022’s beautifully elegiac Desert Mirror) the Cloud Suites continued to gestate. When circumstances finally aligned, Georis entered the studio with a rag-tag collection of tape recordings. Performing over these Cloud demos, Georis would eventually weave these initial recordings into finished tracks, an analogue collage/cut-up approach recalling his childhood basement experiments, and his long-time affinity for Dub. Morphing seamlessly across eleven tracks, Cloud Suites functions wonderfully as a record (that is to say, as a discrete release—a standalone musical artifact), but one also senses the limitlessness of the project. Having stumbled, largely by accident, upon this inviting dimension (at once bracingly psychedelic and achingly nostalgic), Georis may not wish to close the door behind him. Or maybe it isn’t his door to close.

"Drag City presents the first official reissue of Dorothy Carter's 1976 album debut, her folk-music exegesis, Troubadour. In her lifetime, Dorothy, a self-made traveling musician and folklorist, brought forth masterful evocations on hammered dulcimer and psaltery from a myriad of times and places. Her music was played, produced and sold outside of that era's mainstream music distribution. Troubadour reissue producer Eric Demby can look back to a childhood spent off the grid: the early '70s in rural Maine, and later on, in Boston -- wherever his freewheeling father brought the family, at one point or another, there too was Dorothy, as she lived and breathed, playing her hammered dulcimer. The early '70s found everyone living up on the farm up in rural Maine; it was here that Rutman, Constance, Dorothy and some others formed Central Maine Power Company, a troupe of almost feral improvisers playing on a combination of self-made and found instruments, with live video feedback to boot. In 1976, Dorothy had been playing music for decades, but had yet to record any of it. That year, she went to Cambridge's Studio B with Rutman and friend Steve Baer at the console. Constance and Sally Hilmer accompanied her. The performances captured there were released later that year as Troubadour. In addition to hammered dulcimer and psaltery, Dorothy played the flute and sang. She chose songs from all over: Appalachian folk tunes, old and ancient psalms and hymns, Scottish, Irish, French and Israeli melodies, with a few of her own songs for good measure. They all flow together effortlessly under Dorothy and friends' hands in a syncretic space that we can identify today as a garden of world musics -- a highly energized, alternately meditative and proselytic recital whose vitality has only burgeoned in the decades since it appeared. As it should be: the music of Dorothy Carter is akin to a portal, linking her with the eternal. This edition of Troubadour reproduces the original album package, adding an insert adorned with additional photos of Dorothy and her collection of instruments, as well as notes from Eric Demby exploring the era -- his childhood -- from a vantage point of some 50 years. This reissue is a long-held family dream come true, and it is dedicated in loving memory to Bob Rutman, Constance Demby, David Demby and Dorothy Carter."

ルーマニア出身、フランスを拠点を拠点に活動した前衛的作曲家／音楽学者であり、〈Cramps Records〉の名シリーズ〈Nova Musicha〉にも傑作を残すCostin Miereanu。現在のミニマル～ニューエイジ再評価文脈においても密かに注目されるべき存在である同氏が自身のレーベルである〈Poly-Art〉に76年から82年にかけて残した幻の作品群が6枚組CDボックスセットとして〈Metaphon〉から奇跡の再登場！ジャーマン・エレクトロニクスを想起させるような外宇宙的憧憬を、現代音楽やミニマル・ミュージックの文脈でより親密かつ天上的に独自解釈した、幽玄なコズミック・ミニマル・アンビエントが満載。本当に素晴らしい逸品です。名匠Stephan Mathieuによるオリジナル・テープからリマスタリング仕様。28ページに及ぶブックレットが付属。この機会を絶対にお見逃し無く！

“Originally released on the lauded Green Energy label from experimental maverick Henry Kawahara, Forest Jams is thrilled to present the official re-issue of Nami Hotatsu’s sophomore album – revised and re-christened “Ultra Hyper Cosmic Voice” by the artist herself. Equal parts beguiling and inviting, Nami’s mixture of vocals and driving propulsive beats still sound as fresh and as captivating as when they were originally released in 1994. Now, thirty years later, we invite you to discover Nami’s “perfect world of being” in its totality – awakening yourself to the unknown world inside through what lauded producer Haruomi Hosono hailed as a “shamanistic” vision!” – Hsu Jui-Ting

The idea of putting together songs like impressions of a feeling rather than a collection of recordings from a certain decade or style or genre was at the heart of a discussion I had with Norman in 2019. It was a warm July day on the Riviera. I had just finished putting together the sound system for our first and only festival. “It should paint a picture”...

We began a work of compiling. Norm would send tracks and we would try to situate them on the spectrum of a large “carte postale” encompassing in one corner the kitsch resort balneaire, in the other the sail boat in a Caribbean creek, with sandy beaches and glimmering waves in between. With the certainty that the French only seem to possess in matters of taste (my wife Emma is the same), Norm would go: “ah ca c’est 100% Blue Wave” or not at all.

Shortly after, I was introduced by Norm to Charles. The two had been exchanging on references for a while and they had agreed to work together. I was over the moon of course. Our souls had been sucked to Club Meduse shortly prior, and was an inspiration for our aspirations.

The timeline here gets blurry. I lost a bunch of money in the Lebanese crisis and the local economy melted down. Covid hit. The second edition of Pocket of Light Cote d’Azur got cancelled. Movements restrained. Lovers separated. And then the Beirut Port Explosion happened.

I won’t meander long in self pity, but at this very moment in time, the beach seemed so far away, like a forgotten paid reservation at my dream holiday destination. It took me a while to shake that feeling off. Sometimes it still catches me.

We convened to meet in Dusseldorf. We had a party at the Paradise Now. The next day, we had cold tea and cake. Charles walked us through a part of his collection. Every record like a layover on the way to where I left off in my head.

At this moment, seeing Norm and Charles moving to the sound, I remembered that we were up to something golden.

A couple years later here we are. I am thankful for the patience of my collaborators and thrilled to present to you this volume of Transcoastal.

A reminder to keep sailing on that capricious sea despite the weather. Not too far off after the horizon, a gentle vision of paradise awaits.

We went out of our ways, we hope you go out of yours.

Love, light and sand in your shoes,

Mario

Vinyl-only for the time being.

First ever vinyl release for the cozy ambient jazz gem from the brilliant mind behind Home Decor and Shower. Originally released in 2021 on cassette only. Desert music inspired by the city. A serene soundtrack of contemplative synth and mini pleasure-grooves, sure to gently pacify the emotionally conflicted. For fans of: finding solace in this world of madness.

Full HD re-creation/restoration of the legendary soundtrack for 1994 Exploration / Action-Adventure / Sci-Fi / Alien video game Super Metroid by Louisiana-based composer and producer Jammin' Sam Miller. Jammin' Sam Miller explains: "Composed by Kenji Yamamoto. Recreated by me. This was made possible by locating the original instrument samples from workstation keyboards and drum machines before they were put into the game and rebuilding the soundtrack from the ground up, applying some modern mixing techniques along the way to lift the veil of 16bit compression and create an updated listening experience." *For fans of Video Games, SNES, Samus Aran, Atmospheric Sounds, Zebes Music*

From Daisuke Hinata, Grammy nominated artist/composer/producer and member of Japanese ambient, environmental, synthpop band INTERIOR.

Daisuke Hinata - Tarzanland (1989)

First Vinyl Release Ever.

Comfy Environmental Music for a Cozy Life and the Heartwarming Companionship of Beloved Pets.

Like Steve Winwood on the Synclavier and Steely Dan on the MPC60.
Or Like John Hughes Meets Japanese Ambient.

*Music You've Never Heard Anywhere Else Before*</p><iframe style="border: 0; width: 350px; height: 373px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=1275567063/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=none/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://wrwtfww.com/album/tarzanland">Tarzanland by Daisuke Hinata</a></iframe>

TRACE is a collection of 11 unreleased tracks produced by Yutaka Hirose during the Sound Process Design sessions, right after the release of his classic Soundscape series album Nova. Sound Process Design was Satoshi Ashikawa's label, home of his Wave Notation trilogy (Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Music For Nine Postcards, Satsuki Shibano's Erik Satie 1866-1925 and Satoshi Ashikawa's Still Way). Following Wave Notation, Sound Process Design worked with museums, cafes and bars to create site-specific soundscapes, starting with the sound design of the Kushiro Museum. Yutaka Hirose was called to work on sound for these spaces.

Rather than simply providing pre-recorded compositions, Hirose sought to create a "sound scenery". To achieve this, he participated in the conception of the space and paid particular attention to the accidental combination of sounds by placing the speakers and using a multi-sound source, and following the concept of "sculpturing time through sound".

The composer explains: "sculpturing time through sound means that the time, the space itself, the sound played in it, and the audience all become one sculpture. It is close to the idea of a Japanese tea ceremony where you use all of your 5 (or 6) senses to taste the tea."

TRACE: Sound Design Works 1986-1989 is divided into two parts. "Reflection" is based on an ambient soundscape. It narrates "a sleep that starts with the sound of water droplets at dawn and slowly disappears into darkness" and feels like a natural and soothing progression of Nova. It was played at entrances of spaces, at events, in cafes and bars. "Voice from Past Technology" expresses the dream world born out of that sleep and is based on what Yukata Hirose calls hardcore ambient, environmental music with a noise approach. It was played in museums and science centers.

All in all, TRACE is a crucial addition to every Japanese environmental music fan’s collection, alongside Midori Takada’s Through The Looking Glass, Hiroshi Yoshimura’s Green, Satoshi Ishikawa’s Still Way, Motohiko Hamase’s Notes of Forestry, Inoyamaland’s Danzindan-Pojidon, and Yutaka Hirose’s very own Nova.

In the fall of 2022, celebrated UK chill-out institution Seahawks landed in Los Angeles for the first time in their 15-year history, with plans to record a sweeping new age downtempo “exploration of visionary California.” Instead, they immediately fell ill with flu (Fowler collapsed next to a taco truck; 911 was called), and were bedridden for the better part of a week. Upon recovering, they resituated at the synthesizer sanctuary of Brian Foote (Peak Oil, Kranky, Leech), channeling their post-sickness psychedelia into one of the band’s lushest and most elevated creations to date: Time Enough For Love. Inspired by the “groove and mood” of Harry Nilsson demos, as well as its wider 70’s wavelength – Rhodes, Wurlitzer, wood paneling – Seahawks transposed their classic post-rave ambient exotica onto a warm and woozy Golden State palette. Buoyed by the liquid touch of English maestro Kenny Dickenson on keys, the results rank high among the duo’s smoothest and most multi-sensory voyages. “Sail Across The Moon” delivers on its title, a simmering, phaser-smeared cruise through the beauty of the night. “Messengers” echoes the cosmic lounge of Air’s Moon Safari, shuffling, weightless, and ethereal, while “Falling Deep” reaches for the stars, pure cascading bliss, the ecstatic moment writ large. The album skews steadily more astral as it progresses, drifting towards jazzy, galactic outer reaches. “Like A Grain Of Sand” opens with a spoken sample by the celebrated late American poet Rachel Sherwood (“The children watch, breathless / with the birds / They feel an emanation / from this shuddering place”), before taking flight on a Balearic trip through island house, PM Dawn gold dust, upright bass meditation, and kaleidoscopic light. A remix of the title track by Chicago trio Purelink closes the record in a suitably subdued and skittery state of mind. Time Enough For Love radiates color, complexity, and positivity, infused by the “life enhancing” nature of the band's time in Los Angeles – sunsets, sound systems, and sativa, framed by coastlines and cloudbanks, the city’s mystic sprawl glittering beneath purple dusk.

Six shimmering new tracks on the downtempo spectrum from the Khotin Industries Northern HQ. Peace to all listeners.