MUSIC

Editions Mego presents GETGETGET by Thomas Brinkmann, which serves as an inquiry into silence, code, and the limits of perception. "The title GETGETGET references the trilogy of ‘Get’ lp’s made by Rehberg under his PITA moniker; Get Out, Get In and Get On. The music is based on material by Rehberg and Brinkmann morphing these two identities into a third colour, a disappearing colour. Emerging from a live performance at the label’s 30th anniversary in Berlin, the work unfolds as both sonic artifact and conceptual system: a study in what remains when sound is reduced, extracted, and reconstituted. Taking inspiration from Günther Anders’ notion of “negative music”—composition through absence—Brinkmann’s approach aligns with Heinrich Böll’s idea of “collected silence”: silence not as void, but as a material framed against the constant pressure of noise. In GETGETGET, pauses are not gaps but structural elements, cut from a continuum and reinserted as signals. The two side long tracks weave a dark abstract and ‘twisted’ presence where the ghosts of the machines and their operators fuse into a fantastical whole. One can hear traces of both Brinkmann and Rehberg logic which seems to fuse in a hallucinatory manner. Brinkmann’s work reflects a broader condition: the translation of material processes into informational ones. As images detach from bodies and code separates from matter, sound too loses its fixed resonance. What remains is circulation—of signals, of data, of meaning—within systems that increasingly define perception itself. GETGETGET is an album where absence is equal to presence, a metaphor with suggestive tones of the influence Rehberg had and continues to have in the world of the radical experimental electronic avant garde. The “zero” is not empty; it is what makes everything else work."

Faitiche presents Beispiel (German for example, also suggests playing together), a joint project by Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek. Muster is their first album. Free electronic music, the result of spontaneous improvisations. “Meaning” is a concept that is overused in connection with music. Muster does not call for the same kind of air quotes. With its title, German for patterns/exemplars, Beispiel’s album frees itself from the ballast of teleological semantics. There is no overarching theme, no preparation, no reading list, no reason for this music. Just two facts: Frank Bretschneider and Jan Jelinek have known each other a long time and appreciate each other’s work; and they share a love of modular synthesizers and of experimental set-ups designed to capture surprise. Bretschneider and Jelinek got together for their first joint session in 2016 and the years that followed brought more such meetings at Jelinek’s studio for open-ended musical dialog – at irregular intervals and with no clear objective. The improvisations were recorded in two stereo tracks: one track for Bretschneider’s audio, one for Jelinek’s. After each session, the recordings were processed separately, the options essentially limited to cutting and altering the frequency range. The nine pieces for Muster were selected from the resulting material. This approach reflects an ideal: music is when you play your first note without knowing what the third or fourth will sound like. When your 290th note still sees you leaving the beaten track, and when curiosity grows as the piece unfolds. Duping is part of Beispiel’s practice. Improvisation is about disagreement. It’s a matter of addressing the right issues. What’s happening here? What’s mine, what’s yours? Are “why” and “where next” legitimate questions? Muster is an exemplary work. Nine suggestions for what can be. Nine ideas for possibilities of listening. Arno Raffeiner

Electrifying heavy sessions recorded in 1997 featuring the classic Mainliner + Musica Transonic lineup of Nanjo Asahito (High Rise), Kawabata Makoto (Acid Mother) and Yoshida Tatsuya (Ruins) driving into new divergently fried terrain(s). Here, Nanjo and co. are on a quest to find new directions, and while the sessions were for an abandoned Mainliner album, a good portion of Solid Static hews more closely to the moment-to-moment deconstructions of Musica Transonic. The propulsive ten-minute opening title track is a lost gem in the canon of Japanese psychedelia and rock and roll -- beginning with one of Mainliner's bludgeoning motor-psycho riffs, it veers off into auratic space, Kawabata's snake-charming guitar weaving around Nanjo's buzz-fire bass and Yoshida's multi-limbed drumming. Musica Transonic's improvised and jazz-informed take on psychedelic rock is writ across the distended rhythms and arcing bass and guitar lines that scrawl across "Prosecutor" and "Topsy Turvy," or the slurry of distorted tone that rolls through "Rot Way." Available for the first time on LP or any physical form aside from a clutch of CDR's sold at a few live dates in the late '90s. Housed in a custom die-cut, "Uni-Pak" style gatefold with metallic ink, spot finishes and matching La Musica inner sleeve.

YHWH Nailgun, a New York-based four-piece band that, despite being virtually unknown, left a strong impression on Japanese audiences with their performance at Fuji Rock Festival 2025, has released *Magazine*, their debut album on the prestigious 4AD label.

YHWH Nailgun formed in 2020 around Zach Bolzon (vocals) and Sam Picard (drums). Sagiv Rosenstock (guitar) and Jack Tobias (keyboards) later joined, completing the current four-piece lineup.

Their music is often described using terms like noise, punk, free jazz, industrial, and experimental. However, they do not fully belong to any of these genres. Their sound features violently clashing rhythms, searing guitars, synthesizers that exude an eerie presence, and Zack Bolzon’s vocals, which sound like both a beast’s roar and a prayer. Rather than being a genre-spanning band, YHWH Nailgun has garnered attention as an entity that rejects any attempt to define music itself.

Their debut album, *45 Pounds*, released in 2025, earned high praise from media outlets worldwide for its overwhelming tension and destructive power. It established them as one of the most important new acts in the New York underground scene. Now, with their signing to 4AD—the label home to Cocteau Twins, the Pixies, Bon Iver, and Big Thief—their career is entering a new phase.

*Magazine* is an unusual work: though it contains 10 tracks, its total running time is a mere 11 minutes. However, this 11-minute duration is not merely an experimental idea. The album begins with a fade-in on the opening track, “Ghost of Love,” creating the sensation of having accidentally captured a fragment of sound that seems to be playing continuously somewhere. The band views this work not as a conventional album with a beginning and an end, but rather as a part of an endless musical world.

Their sound is even more refined than on their previous work. Sam Picard’s stripped-down drumming, Sagiv Rosenstock’s raw production, and Jack Tobias’s synthesizers, reminiscent of air raid sirens. And most striking of all is that Zach Bolzon’s vocals—previously hidden behind layers of reverb and delay—are now pushed to the forefront with unprecedented clarity.

The lyrics, filled with religious and symbolic imagery—blood, snakes, gods, and demons—exude a more vivid presence than ever before. The band name YHWH itself derives from the proper name for God in Hebrew, and this mystical worldview is explored even more deeply in *Magazine*.

YHWH Nailgun does not view their music as a reaction against or a counter to anything. Neither pandering to nor rejecting trends, they simply pursue the fleeting flashes of inspiration born of intuition and improvisation. What they are building is not a genre, but an autonomous world in and of itself. *Magazine* is a work that further sharpens this unique creative world and is sure to leave a lasting impression on many listeners.

In their third collaboration, the shared project between Merzbow and Pedro Vian shifts towards less confrontational and more introspective terrain. Bardo Thödol, released as an LP, draws on The Tibetan Book of the Dead not so much as an explicit narrative framework but as a conceptual resonance: a passage, a suspension between states. Where Inside Richard Serra Sculptures and The Wheel of Mani foregrounded a relatively defined dialectic between Vian’s environmental restraint and Masami Akita’s impulsive, textural excess, that friction here appears to dissolve in favour of a more homogeneous mass. Noise, far from its most abrasive edge, is reconfigured as a continuous field — dense yet permeable. Within this flow, melodic structures emerge without assertion, surfacing almost incidentally as by-products of the accumulation of frequencies itself. The result is less a reconciliation of languages than a blurring of their boundaries: a space in which intensity is internalised and the radical gesture folds into a more sustained, contemplative mode of listening.

Big Black was started by Steve Albini in 1982 while he was attending Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. Lungs, the first Big Black release was recorded by Steve on a borrowed 4-track. He played everything on the EP himself - except the sax bleating courtesy of pal John Bohnen and the drums courtesy of Roland. Soon after, Steve recruited Jeff Pezzati (Naked Raygun) on bass, and Santiago Durango (also Naked Raygun) joined them on guitar. In 1983, together with live drummer Pat Byrne, they recorded the Bulldozer EP. By 1984, the band had done some touring and recorded the Racer X EP and the start of the Il Duce 7". After that, Jeff returned to Naked Raygun and was replaced by Dave Riley. In 1985, Big Black recorded their first full-length, Atomizer, as well as finishing the Il Duce 7". Atomizer was released in 1986 along with the release of the Hammer Party compilation CD. In 1987, the Headache EP and Heartbeat 7" were released. That same year, the band recorded and released the 7" of The Model/He's A Whore as well as their second full-length album, Songs About Fucking. They toured extensively (for Big Black). And they broke up.

The Unwound album that ended all Unwound albums. Recorded in a moldering farmhouse basement at the crest of the new century, Leaves Turn Inside You is the no-wave response to Spector’s wall of noise call. Infinite layers of choppy guitar stabs and bridge scrapes, guttural bass thronk, thrift store synths, and monotone chanting wash over suffocating rhythms to deliver the world’s only choral grunge LP. Remastered from the original analog tapes and pressed on heavyweight vinyl for the discerning noise-nik.

First time on CD for this classic Merzbow duo album from 1983...
......Material Action is a favorite among early Merzbow free-music, junk-noise workouts. Psychedelic improvised instrumental energy abounds on this essential early recording that is PURE MERZ.

Masami Akita plays tapes, percussion, electro-acoustic noise, organ
Kiyoshi Mizutani overdubs tapes, synthesizer, violin, machine noise

Includes bonus track not available on vinyl reissue

25th anniversary reissue of MERZBOW's legendary Tauromachine, now remastered by James Plotkin and featuring unreleased bonus material!

in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music Recorded 2019-2024 'the gold metal must be wrung a bore is a well lit mine where everything belongs to me' Dagmar Zuniga makes music that feels both intimate and expansive: songs drift like disrupted signals, carried by harmony, tape hiss, and a strong sense of touch. Her debut solo album in filth your mystery is kingdom / far smile peasant in yellow music — written and recorded in New York, Norway, and Athens, Georgia over a period of five years on her longtime companion, the Tascam 424 — was uploaded to Bandcamp and YouTube in January 2025 through Dagmar’s friends People's Coalition of Tandy. The project quickly garnering over two hundred thousand views and the attention of artists such as Mount Eerie, who invited her to tour with them that summer. This year, what was once a jewel of tapped-in algorithms and message boards will meet the world at large, with in filth arriving digitally on March 4, and physically on April 10, via AD 93.

To celebrate 20 years of this incredible album by Masami Akita, we are doing a limited edition gatefold vinyl pressing on baby pink colored vinyl limited to 300 copies worldwide.

*199 copies limited edition* Aka Meme by Merzbow was first released on Music-Cassette in 1983 on Masami'a own label ZSF Produkt and on V2 Uitgave (a Sub-label of V2 Organisation). Tape was later re-released in other two editions but is long time sold-out and impossible to find. Finally OEC is going to re-release that special tape once more. This is Industrial-Noise from the very first era made by the master of Japanoise. Recordings are mixing many different sounds that range from: ritual-sounds / vocals / found-sounds / treated-guitar / many different rythms / noise.... and a wired and wide range of other bubbling & rumbling sounds! A total merzexperience!

Between 1999 and 2000, Merzbow entered a new artistic phase, embracing digital production and refining his sonic language. He moved away from the tape collages and improvised circuitry of his earlier years. In their place arose monumental sound structures, dense and meticulously sculpted. Harsh noise, tribal rhythms, and corrosive textures merged into a single, overwhelming sonic body.Yoshinotsune emerged during this especially fertile period and stands as one of Masami Akita’s most evocative works. The album weaves together historical, mythological, and personal references, drawing inspiration from the figure of Minamoto no Yoshitsune. From the outset, bird calls, radio interference, and electronic signals create an enigmatic atmosphere. The result is an unsettling soundscape suspended between nature and technology.Throughout the album, the sound continually transforms, alternating between ominous beats, unearthly moans, and ritualistic pulses. These elements evoke tribal rhythms filtered through circuitry and digital distortion. The music drives forward with relentless force while maintaining a constant tension between motion and stillness. Rather than simply overwhelming, it invites the listener to become immersed in its intricate details.What makes Yoshinotsune so compelling is its perfect balance between technical precision and creative instinct. Though meticulously constructed, its structures retain a raw and immediate vitality. Akita’s hand can always be felt, shaping the sound with intensity and sensitivity. This reissue fully restores the grandeur of one of Merzbow’s richest and most immersive recordings of mid 2000.

Etherworld is proud to announce a new Merzbow album, "Vapor Hoof" on CD. Our previous Merzbow album, "Electric Salad" came out on the Etherworld label in 1996. Now taking preorders for "Vapor Hoof" [Catalog No. EtW007]. This pulse-warping, mind-smashing new release by Masami Akita is coming to stores on Friday, July 17, 2026. Preorder your CD today. Find out what noise really sounds like after 30 years of silence.

Crucial listening if you're into Still House Plants, caroline, Tara Clerkin Trio, Moonshake or even This Heat, London-based duo Curbside Lambsear's debut upsets the foundations of post-rock, slowcore, noise and folky prog by adroitly integrating electronics and studio techniques; there's songs in there, but there's far more going on than that. Made up of caroline violinist Magdalena McLean and The Umlauts' Annabelle Mödlinger, both Austrians who found themselves in London, Curbside Lambsear arrive fully formed. Best friends, they met while studying in Vienna before properly connecting years later when they were moving in the same musical circles. They were both motivated by London's unstuffy experimental pop scene, particularly Mica Levi and their acolytes, but also obsessed with fringe post-rock like Tarwater and Duster, so they decided to develop something far enough away from their regular ensembles that they could work on a signature sound. Indeed, the EP emerges from a course of experimentation when McLean and Mödlinger decided to adapt on the go, fixing a sound while they learned new instruments, shared poems and voice notes and getting themselves comfortable with the process of working in a DAW. Where this might have lead to a sequence of demos, McLean and Mödlinger were confident enough and skilled enough to rustle up one of the best post-rock EPs we've heard in a while. The chugging, processed guitars and loping drums of opener 'No Ordinary Word' might lock into the capital's underground family tree at first, down the line that gave us Dome, Disco Inferno and Bark Psychosis, but McClean's effortlessly cool, insouciant vocal delivery puts it alongside gear from Tirzah or Raisa K. And on the keyboard mashed 'Jjochstubn', the duo spend a good four minutes pulling apart the traces of a song; "the winter takes it all," McClean hums, the voice timestretched across crooked, slowed-down drums and buzzing A/C on-the-fritz soundscapes. Even when the tempo picks up, the smoke doesn't fully clear - Curbside Lambsear thankfully don't seem particularly interested in clean sounds. Best of all is 'Avril', where McClean's casual words are dropped over euphoric noise, hyper-compressed drums and feedback forming what might as well be a pop song. Brilliant stuff, beginning to end.

Release 20/1/2023. Does Spring Hide Its Joy is an immersive piece by composer Kali Malone featuring Stephen O’Malley on electric guitar, Lucy Railton on cello, and Malone herself on tuned sine wave oscillators. The music is a study in harmonics and non-linear composition with a heightened focus on just intonation and beating interference patterns. Malone’s experience with pipe organ tuning, harmonic theory, and long durational composition provide prominent points of departure for this work. Her nuanced minimalism unfolds an astonishing depth of focus and opens up contemplative spaces in the listener’s attention. 

Does Spring Hide Its Joy follows Malone’s critically acclaimed records The Sacrificial Code [Ideal Recordings, 2019] & Living Torch [Portraits GRM, 2022]. Her collaborative approach expands from her previous work to closely include the musicians Stephen O’Malley & Lucy Railton in the creation and development of the piece. While the music is distinctly Malone’s sonic palette, she composed specifically for the unique styles and techniques of O’Malley & Railton, presenting a framework for subjective interpretation and non-hierarchical movement throughout the music. 

Does Spring Hide Its Joy is a durational experience of variable length that follows slowly evolving harmony and timbre between cello, sine waves, and electric guitar. As a listener, the transition between these junctures can be difficult to pinpoint. There’s obscurity and unity in the instrumentation and identities of the players; the electric guitar's saturation timbre blends with the cello's rich periodicity, while shifting overtone feedback develops interference patterns against the precise sine waves. The gradual yet ever-occurring changes in harmony challenge the listener’s perception of stasis and movement. The moment you grasp the music, a slight shift in perspective guides your attention forward into a new and unfolding harmonic experience. 

Does Spring Hide Its Joy was created between March and May of 2020. During this unsettling period of the pandemic, Malone found herself in Berlin with a great deal of time and conceptual space to consider new compositional methods. With a few interns left on-site, Malone was invited to the Berlin Funkhaus & MONOM to develop and record new music within the empty concert halls. She took this opportunity to form a small ensemble with her close friends and collaborators Lucy Railton & Stephen O’Malley to explore these new structural ideas within those various acoustic spaces. Hence, the foundation was laid for Does Spring Hide Its Joy. 

In Kali’s own words: “Like most of the world, my perception of time went through a significant transformation during the pandemic confinements of spring 2020. Unmarked by the familiar milestones of life, the days and months dripped by, instinctively blending with no end in sight. Time stood still until subtle shifts in the environment suggested there had been a passing. Memories blurred non-sequentially, the fabric of reality deteriorated, unforeseen kinships formed and disappeared, and all the while, the seasons changed and moved on without the ones we lost. Playing this music for hours on end was a profound way to digest the countless life transitions and hold time together.” 

Does Spring Hide Its Joy has since been performed live on many European stages, in durations of sixty and ninety minutes. Including at the Schauspielhaus in Zürich, the Bozar in Brussels, Haus Der Kunst in Munich, and the Munch Museum in Oslo. Concerts are forthcoming at Unsound Festival in Krakow, Mira Festival in Barcelona, the Venice Biennale, and the Purcell Room at the Southbank Center in London. 

In addition to live concerts, the Funkhaus recordings of Does Spring Hide Its Joy have evolved in parallel as a site-specific sound installation. Malone has also invited the video artist Nika Milano to create a custom analog video work that interprets and accompanies the musical score as a fourth player, creating a visual atmosphere inspired by the sonic principles of the composition. Eight sequential video stills from Milano’s work are featured in the album artwork. 

Does Spring Hide Its Joy is packaged in a heavyweight laminated jacket with full-color printed inner sleeves with artwork by Nika Milano. Mastered by Stephan Mathieu and cut at Schnittstelle Mastering, the record is pressed in perfect sound quality by Optimal in Germany. 

On their debut self-titled album, Women embraced sonic brashness that deeper examination revealed to be tinted with sly pop melody. With their second album "Public Strain", the band has honed a sound truthful to that reverb drenched noise while allowing the pop sensibilities to surface into clearer focus.This exact balance of delicate and dense is a pervasive thread throughout the album, reflecting the contradiction of the band's environment buried in urban sprawl framed by prairie landscape. Whether twisting through the urgent krautrock of "Locust Valley", an exercise of harmony through simplicity, or climaxing with the bittersweet melody of "Eyesore", the album somehow builds luminous contrast out of a palette of grays.

The inimitable GYBE returns with another soundtrack for our times. As the heretical anarcho-punk spirit of the title implies, Godspeed harnesses some particularly raw power, spittle and grit across two riveting 20-minute side-length trajectories of noise-drenched widescreen post-rock: inexorable chug blossoms into blown-out twang, as some of the band’s most soaring, searing melodies ricochet and converge amidst violin and bassline counterpoint. Field recordings and roiling semi-improvised passages frame these fervent epics, and two shorter self-contained 6-minute pieces find the band at its most devastatingly beautiful, haunting and elegiac. Poignant atmospherics, noise-drenched orchestration, drone, hypnotic swingtime crescendos, inexorably-layered towers of distorted clarion sound: STATE’S END encapsulates every beloved facet of the band. Twenty-five years on, this new album is as vital, stirring, timely and implacable as any in Godspeed You! Black Emperor’s storied discography. Recorded and mixed by Jace Lasek, the veteran award-winning indie producer (and co-founder of The Besnard Lakes) who works with Godspeed for the first time on this recording.

This long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. Eyes up and filled with dreadful joy - we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward. We recorded it all in a burning motorboat. 1. UNDOING A LUCIFERIAN TOWERS - Look at that fucking skyline! Big lazy money writ in dull marble obelisks! Imagine all those buildings much later on, hollowed out and stripped bare of wires and glass, listen - the wind is whistling through all 3,000 of it's burning window-holes! 2. BOSSES HANG - Labor, alienated from the wealth it creates, so that holy cow, most of us live precariously! Kicking at it, but barely hanging on! Also - the proud illuminations of our shortened lives! Also - more of us than them! Also - what we need now is shovels, wells, and barricades! 3. FAM / FAMINE - How they kill us = absentee landlord, burning high-rise. The loud panics of child-policemen and their exploding trigger-hands. With the dull edge of an arbitrary meritocracy. Neglect, cancer maps, drone strike, famine. The forest is burning and soon they'll hunt us like wolves. 4. ANTHEM FOR NO STATE - Canada, emptied of it's minerals and dirty oil. Emptied of it's trees and water. A crippled thing, drowning in a puddle, covered in ants. The ocean doesn't give a shit because it knows it's dying too.

This long-playing record, a thing we made in the midst of communal mess, raising dogs and children. Eyes up and filled with dreadful joy - we aimed for wrong notes that explode, a quiet muttering amplified heavenward. We recorded it all in a burning motorboat. 1. UNDOING A LUCIFERIAN TOWERS - Look at that fucking skyline! Big lazy money writ in dull marble obelisks! Imagine all those buildings much later on, hollowed out and stripped bare of wires and glass, listen - the wind is whistling through all 3,000 of it's burning window-holes! 2. BOSSES HANG - Labor, alienated from the wealth it creates, so that holy cow, most of us live precariously! Kicking at it, but barely hanging on! Also - the proud illuminations of our shortened lives! Also - more of us than them! Also - what we need now is shovels, wells, and barricades! 3. FAM / FAMINE - How they kill us = absentee landlord, burning high-rise. The loud panics of child-policemen and their exploding trigger-hands. With the dull edge of an arbitrary meritocracy. Neglect, cancer maps, drone strike, famine. The forest is burning and soon they'll hunt us like wolves. 4. ANTHEM FOR NO STATE - Canada, emptied of it's minerals and dirty oil. Emptied of it's trees and water. A crippled thing, drowning in a puddle, covered in ants. The ocean doesn't give a shit because it knows it's dying too.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GYBE) returns with its first single LP-length release since the group's earliest days in 1997-99. 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' clocks in at a succinct 40:23 and is arguably the most focused and best-sounding recording of the band's career. Following Godspeed's return from a long hiatus at the end of 2010 to begin playing live shows again, and with the hugely acclaimed 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!' release in 2012 marking their first new release in a decade, the group slowly and steadily put the new album together through late 2013 and 2014. This mighty slab of superlative sonics is shot through with all the band's inimitable signposts and touchstones: huge unison riffage, savage noise/drone, oscillating overtones, guitar vs. string counterpoint, inexorable crescendos and scorched-earth transitions. 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' finds Godspeed in top form; a sterling celebration of the band's awesome dialectic, where composition, emotion and 'note-choice' is inextricable from an exacting focus on tone, timbre, resonance and the sheer materiality of sound.

Godspeed You! Black Emperor (GYBE) returns with its first single LP-length release since the group's earliest days in 1997-99. 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' clocks in at a succinct 40:23 and is arguably the most focused and best-sounding recording of the band's career. Following Godspeed's return from a long hiatus at the end of 2010 to begin playing live shows again, and with the hugely acclaimed 'Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend!' release in 2012 marking their first new release in a decade, the group slowly and steadily put the new album together through late 2013 and 2014. This mighty slab of superlative sonics is shot through with all the band's inimitable signposts and touchstones: huge unison riffage, savage noise/drone, oscillating overtones, guitar vs. string counterpoint, inexorable crescendos and scorched-earth transitions. 'Asunder, Sweet And Other Distress' finds Godspeed in top form; a sterling celebration of the band's awesome dialectic, where composition, emotion and 'note-choice' is inextricable from an exacting focus on tone, timbre, resonance and the sheer materiality of sound.

A full decade ago, Godspeed You! Black Emperor released Yanqui U.X.O. with no publicity or press availability, no marketing plans, no cross-promotions or brand synergies, driven by word-of-mouth from a passionate and committed fanbase galvanized by the group's sonic vision and its dedication to unmediated, unsullied musical communication.To suggest that such simple principles and goals have become harder to maintain and enact a decade later is an understatement, but Godspeed is looking to try all the same. The band wants people to care about this new album, without telling people they should, knowing full well that these days, anti-strategy risks being tagged as a strategy.The band has been blazing its own path again since 2010. We think they have made a new record that maintains if not exceeds the standards of their previous work. After almost two years of post-hiatus practicing, playing and touring, Allelujah! Don't Bend! Ascend! delivers two mighty sides of music that are definitively stunning, immersive and utterly true to the band’s legacy. The future looks dark indeed, but on the evidence of this new recording, Godspeed appears wholly committed to staring it down, channeling it, and fighting for some rays of sound (and flickers of light) that feel hopeful and true.

Avian Hydraulics was originally released by the German label Frei zum Abriss Kollektiv as a limited edition of 50 copies, pressed on a liquid-filled lathe-cut 10-inch. A liquid-filled record is a curious object: colored liquid or oil is sealed between two layers of transparent resin, so that when the record is moved, the fluid drifts and blooms into ever-shifting patterns. The concept first surfaced in 1978, when a prototype was developed for a Disney film — but the sealing technology of the era could not keep the liquid from leaking or evaporating, and the idea was abandoned before it ever reached the market. Since 2015, however, development has advanced toward resins that resist leakage and evaporation, bringing the format to where it stands today — though even now it remains an imperfect thing. The imperfections lie chiefly in the sound. By its very structure, room must be reserved inside the disc to hold the liquid, which means the grooves cannot be cut deeply, driving the playback volume to an extreme faintness — for the liquid itself absorbs the vibration of the stylus. In the case of lathe cutting, the grooves are even shallower because the cutting is performed directly onto a rigid resin—such as polycarbonate—rather than vinyl. The result is a double diminishment: the sound vibrations transmit poorly, and both the sonic pressure and the volume fall away. As an art object, the liquid-filled record is a singular and beautiful thing. But to hear the music as it was truly meant to be heard — at full volume, at full pressure, down to the finest detail — the digital version is the honest answer. Since Frei zum Abriss Kollektiv holds to a policy of no digital distribution, we have chosen to release it here, on Bandcamp. This work began, first of all, with the idea of the liquid-filled record itself. From that single image, the artwork and the titles of the songs were gradually drawn out and refined. Masami Akita