MUSIC

The first collaboration between Japanese noise titan Masami Akita, aka Merzbow, iconic Brazilian drummer and producer Iggor Cavalera and forward-thinking Italian guitarist and sound designer Eraldo Bernocchi, 'Nocturnal Rainforest' terraforms a sonic landscape that's almost overpoweringly dense and disorienting, but never aggressive or chaotic. It's a fully immersive experience that re-contextualizes the trio's years of work in extreme experimental music by concentrating on texture, atmosphere and sensory overload. The noise itself is used to provoke a refined level of focus; 'Nocturnal Rainforest' is mediative in its own way, enveloping listeners with waves of distortion, phantasmic unmetered rhythms and perplexing processed field recordings, but it's not intended for passive listening. Made using a fusion of bespoke techniques the trio have been developing for decades, it exists in a raw and mystifying liminal zone between the organic realm and the digital world - a place that's too hauntingly familiar to be ignored. One of the world's most notorious and most prolific noise artists, Akita has release acclaimed genre-defining albums on labels as diverse as Relapse, Important Records, Tzadik, Cold Spring and Soleilmoon, and collaborated with a diverse spread of artists, from Keiji Haino and Mika Patton to Melt-Banana and Boris. Since 1979, he's released over 500 Merzbow records, including 1984's tape experiment 'Pornoise/1kg Vol.1', 1996's noise wall milestone 'Pulse Demon' and 2005's dubby 'Merzbuddha'. Meanwhile, Cavalera is best known for co-founding Brazilian metal act Sepultura, and since leaving the band in 2006, he's been constantly re-examining his relationship with underground experimental music, working alongside artists like Laima Leyton, Ninos Du Brasil, Raven Chacon, Linekraft, Petbrick, Pig Destroyer, Soulwax, Dwid Hellion, Shane Embury, amongst others. Bernocchi started his journey in the '70s playing in various punk bands, and came of age in the '80s when he co-founded post-industrial collective Sigillum S and making connections that stretched across the entire global underground. An active member of the influential illbient movement, he worked with some of the genre's crucial figures such as Spectre, Bill Laswell and DJ Olive, recording for WordSound as well as cult hip-hop imprint Rawkus. And Bernocchi has continued to innovate, working as SIMM with Grammy-winning grime MC Flowdan and recording with Harold Budd, Cocteau Twins' Robin Guthrie, Gaudi Nils Petter Molvaer, Hoshiko Yamane and many others. 'Nocturnal Rainforest' is a product of each artist's ongoing musical evolution, powered by extreme music but tempered by deep listening techniques that expect presence rather than dissociation. On 'Swietnenia Macrophylla', evocative humid soundscapes provide a precarious sense of security at first, blurred at the edges by purring oscillations that mimic the jungle's fauna. And that peace is quickly ruptured by percussive, foghorn-like distortions that mark out the scale of the trio's vision. Not just raw noise, the rougher elements are cut with subtle waves of billowing ambience and muggy low- end drones before the track launches into a symphony of computerized stutters. There's a constant push and pull between organic and artificial sounds - before there's been time to acclimatize to the DAW-corrupted noise, collaged tape saturations and slashed amplifier hum muddies the atmosphere, purposefully confusing the senses and obfuscating the sources. And the thought is continued on 'Ceiba Pentandra' when the trio follow the jungle's teeming sonics with growling, whirring electronics and dense interference. What starts as birdsong and an choir of insects mutates into a wall of deafening, transcendent full-spectrum texture that cracks open like a slow-moving storm over a shadowy wilderness.

An air of ancient ritualism cloaks Modern Love’s midnight meeting between UK producer MOBBS and French-Egyptian spellcaster Susu Laroche, carving out a channel between hexed trip hop and shoegaze that’s one part DJ Screw, one part MBV, operating within a long shadow of influence cast by Curve, Leila, Cocteau Twins, Nearly God.

Clasping chiral energies on their debut collab, MOBBS brings a history spanning shadowy production work for big name artists to the grimly stylised vein of performance art and musick explored by Susu Laroche, an Egyptian-French with strong binds to chthonic contemporary London. 

Their maiden sacrifice heightens the senses to blends of monotonic, sandalwood scented incantations and carpet-burned downbeats swept in slurred dub. Songs are subtly variegated in tone to spell out shifting plays of light evoking bedsit antechambers and warehouse innards lit by iPhone candle or extractor hood and emergency light bulbs on their last lumens. 

It's music that's as elaborately serrated and blemished as early MBV, but positioned in a vastly different cultural landscape, drawing from hip-hop, drone, psych and basement noise. The pair’s range of cultural obsessions maintains a precarious balance between shadowy histories and an asphyxiating present; all too often, when the past is projected it's thru a mollifying, nostalgic lens, so their critical, prudent hybrid sound is a vital, chilling corrective.

From the bell-ringing, chain-rattle jag of ‘Throne’ thru the sleepwalker drift of ‘Roam’, and concrete plangency of ‘Forest’, the marriage of MOBBS’ illusive textures with Laroche’s feel for analog image and film (as evinced in her art for the likes of Blackhaine and Mica Levi) imprints their sound in gauzy layers that leave fleeting impressions on the mind’s eye. At their heaviest, Laroche’s arcane declarations descend in impressive enactments, undressing the excesses of over-glossed trip hop to reveal and revel in the sound at its starkest, sexiest, for new waves of washed up souls.
 

Sofia Jernberg was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Vietnam and Sweden, a background that feeds directly into a practice defined by flexibility, range and curiosity. Trained in jazz and composition, she has worked across jazz, free improvisation and contemporary art, collaborating with figures such as Stefan Schneider and Mats Gustafsson, and appearing in stage and screen projects including Matthew Barney, Erna Ómarsdóttir and Valdimar Jóhannsson’s ‘Union of the North’. Voice serves as a focused entry point to her work: a solo document that treats the human voice as a full-spectrum instrument. Across the album, Jernberg explores non-verbal vocalisation, split tones, distortion, toneless singing and multiphonics, all produced without electronic effects. The results range from clipped, percussive pops and rasping noise to dense, phased tones that feel closer to wind instruments or analogue synthesis than conventional singing. At its core are the multiphonic pieces, where Jernberg layers pitches into unstable, spiralling forms that blur the line between human and machine. Elsewhere, single-note studies, quivering drones and bubbling textures test the physical limits of sound production. Unsettling, precise and deeply absorbing, Voice presents a veteran improviser redefining what solo vocal music can be.

A bizarrely entrancing jewel from the depths of the Japanese underground, Doo Dah Nean was originally released in small run of hand assembled cassettes by the La Musica label in the late 90’s. The album is the sole release and evidence of Nean, an entirely under-the-radar trio that crossed the sensual, disassociated female vocals of Japanese iroke kayōkyoku music with off-balance shamanic rhythm and echoing electronic rumble. Nean were the trio of Yui on bass and electronics, Naoko on voice, and Non on drums. Both Yui and Non were also part of Holy Angels, and Yui played with Ohkami No Jikan and Mauduit Nuit. Vocalist Naoko, in her lone recorded appearance anywhere, elevates the proceedings to peak outsider strangeness. Her ultra-repetitive chants and sighs balance childlike innocence with sinister knowing. Alternately distracted and humming to herself or delivering breathy, near field whispers, the simple juxtaposition of her vocalizations with Non’s stumble-drunk drums, and the amorphous blobs and gloops of tone unleashed from Yui’s instruments lands like an avant garde, proto-ASMR incantation. A truly confounding release in a La Musica catalogue that’s not exactly thin on the ground for such form. From the original cassette release: “Cult Lolita psychedelic group who smile sardonically as they fuck with contemporary classical and free jazz. The world is coming down with all-girl groups, but there are none that can compare with Nean for innocence, ignorance and plain idiocy. Totally bizarre work - exotic rhythms and avant-garde improv collide with flying Lolita vocals. 100% Lolita essence, ultra-acid.” Available for the first time digitally, on LP or any physical form aside from La Musica cassette (LA-017). Housed in a custom die-cut, "Uni-Pak" style gatefold with metallic ink, spot finishes and matching La Musica inner sleeve.

Retrospection is rare for HTRK, the Melbourne-based duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, who marked their 21st year as a band in 2024 with a series of performances, installations, and long-overdue catalog represses. But back to the present, before more tour dates in 2026 and on the heels of their first new songs in several years (Summer 2025’s “Swimming Pool” b/w “Puddles On My Pillow”), HTRK close this chapter with String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK), the first full-length collection of HTRK covers and remixes from friends and contemporaries. Across two decades of music, HTRK have risen slowly to become your favorite artist’s favorite artist. The Guardian posits, “Few Australian bands have been as influential…with their idiosyncratic mix of atmospheric electronic and guitar-based squall for the past 21 years.”

Amidst the reissues, including the newly announced Psychic 9-5 Club, HTRK revisits their body of work and grapples with notions of legacy and lasting expression. They turn to some of their biggest fans for answers. String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK) invites new interpretations from Coby Sey, Double Virgo, Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley, Laura Jean, LEYA, Liars, Loraine James, NWAQ, Perila, Sharon Van Etten, and longtime collaborator, Zebrablood. The contours of HTRK’s singular, smoldering songcraft extend and distort in the hands of others, part peer tribute, part fun-house reflection; the effect is befitting of a band devoted to raw emotion, self-discovery, and unrestrained creative vision.

Maybe the most unexpected pairing, beloved songwriter Sharon Van Etten takes on “Poison” from Work (work, work) (2011) in her inimitable style. A cult favorite from the band’s darkest period, defined by sludgy 808 beats, eerie synth arpeggios, and vaporous guitar noise, “Poison” remains just as urgent and piercing here. “My little oxide joyride / Plastik pick me up / Where we gonna go / You decide…” Van Etten delivers with a pinch more clarity, underscoring the romance beneath Work’s bleakness.

Loraine James, HTRK's Ghostly labelmate in her Whatever The Weather alias and a past collaborator with Standish (James' 2019 Nothing EP), re-examines "Dream Symbol" from 2019 LP Venus In Leo. The original track found Standish revisiting her childhood home in a recurring dream, craving afternoons of innocence and the way the sun kissed her skin. James' glitchy treatment adds more dust and static to the scene, as well as her own voice, to Standish's verses, creating a doubling, duet-like feel.

The immensely talented duo of Kali Malone & Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))) encircle “Siren Song” from Rhinestones, the revelatory 2021 album that drew cues from the intimacy and brevity of Western folk, skewed through a narcotic, nocturnal lens. While the original was obscured in transition, a stark 49-second vignette of finger snaps and riffs, Malone and O’Malley stretch the moment to nearly six minutes suspended on organ drone and the trance-inducing mantra.

Double Virgo, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi of post-punk outfit bar italia, tackle Marry Me Tonight’s "Rent Boy." The 2009 track found HTRK at their heaviest. Double Virgo strips it all back to strings, chimes, and strums as the two voices riff on Standish's wordplay. Alexandra Zakharenko, aka Perila, smoothes out the industrial edges of "HA", another cut from Marry Me Tonight; the hushed and hazy rendering allows various lyrical layers to seep into the echoed mix. Experimental legends and fellow Aussies Liars reimagine MMT's "Waltz Real Slow" as an outsider ballad or a tender Western drift; alien-like vocals cross stately chords that unravel to feedback in the final march.

Zebrablood gives “Soul Sleep” (Psychic 9-5 Club) a shuffling and blurry breakbeat remix, and Dutch dub techno fan favorite NWAQ deepens the drone of rarity “Female Jealousy” (Lilac EP). Rhinestones’ "Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings" becomes otherworldly in LEYA’s harp-backed version, while “New Year’s Day”, another standout from Venus In Leo, is mainlined into a folk standard by fellow Melbourne native Laura Jean.

Coby Sey reinvents Leo’s “Mentions”, lending his airy, soulful cadence to lyrics that outline a lack of physical intimacy in the social media age. Regarding the track, the acclaimed British musician adds that he first came across HTRK during the Myspace era, “My love for HTRK's music has existed for a long time.” This may be the case for many. HTRK’s indelible impact on underground music spans far beyond its initial reception. The ripples permeate time in such a way that they have positioned the band as a perfect candidate for the present round of renewed appreciation.Retrospection is rare for HTRK, the Melbourne-based duo of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, who marked their 21st year as a band in 2024 with a series of performances, installations, and long-overdue catalog represses. But back to the present, before more tour dates in 2026 and on the heels of their first new songs in several years (Summer 2025’s “Swimming Pool” b/w “Puddles On My Pillow”), HTRK close this chapter with String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK), the first full-length collection of HTRK covers and remixes from friends and contemporaries. Across two decades of music, HTRK have risen slowly to become your favorite artist’s favorite artist. The Guardian posits, “Few Australian bands have been as influential…with their idiosyncratic mix of atmospheric electronic and guitar-based squall for the past 21 years.”

Amidst the reissues, including the newly announced Psychic 9-5 Club, HTRK revisits their body of work and grapples with notions of legacy and lasting expression. They turn to some of their biggest fans for answers. String of Hearts (Songs of HTRK) invites new interpretations from Coby Sey, Double Virgo, Kali Malone and Stephen O'Malley, Laura Jean, LEYA, Liars, Loraine James, NWAQ, Perila, Sharon Van Etten, and longtime collaborator, Zebrablood. The contours of HTRK’s singular, smoldering songcraft extend and distort in the hands of others, part peer tribute, part fun-house reflection; the effect is befitting of a band devoted to raw emotion, self-discovery, and unrestrained creative vision.

Maybe the most unexpected pairing, beloved songwriter Sharon Van Etten takes on “Poison” from Work (work, work) (2011) in her inimitable style. A cult favorite from the band’s darkest period, defined by sludgy 808 beats, eerie synth arpeggios, and vaporous guitar noise, “Poison” remains just as urgent and piercing here. “My little oxide joyride / Plastik pick me up / Where we gonna go / You decide…” Van Etten delivers with a pinch more clarity, underscoring the romance beneath Work’s bleakness.

Loraine James, HTRK's Ghostly labelmate in her Whatever The Weather alias and a past collaborator with Standish (James' 2019 Nothing EP), re-examines "Dream Symbol" from 2019 LP Venus In Leo. The original track found Standish revisiting her childhood home in a recurring dream, craving afternoons of innocence and the way the sun kissed her skin. James' glitchy treatment adds more dust and static to the scene, as well as her own voice, to Standish's verses, creating a doubling, duet-like feel.

The immensely talented duo of Kali Malone & Stephen O’Malley (Sunn O)))) encircle “Siren Song” from Rhinestones, the revelatory 2021 album that drew cues from the intimacy and brevity of Western folk, skewed through a narcotic, nocturnal lens. While the original was obscured in transition, a stark 49-second vignette of finger snaps and riffs, Malone and O’Malley stretch the moment to nearly six minutes suspended on organ drone and the trance-inducing mantra.

Double Virgo, Sam Fenton, and Jezmi Tarik Fehmi of post-punk outfit bar italia, tackle Marry Me Tonight’s "Rent Boy." The 2009 track found HTRK at their heaviest. Double Virgo strips it all back to strings, chimes, and strums as the two voices riff on Standish's wordplay. Alexandra Zakharenko, aka Perila, smoothes out the industrial edges of "HA", another cut from Marry Me Tonight; the hushed and hazy rendering allows various lyrical layers to seep into the echoed mix. Experimental legends and fellow Aussies Liars reimagine MMT's "Waltz Real Slow" as an outsider ballad or a tender Western drift; alien-like vocals cross stately chords that unravel to feedback in the final march.

Zebrablood gives “Soul Sleep” (Psychic 9-5 Club) a shuffling and blurry breakbeat remix, and Dutch dub techno fan favorite NWAQ deepens the drone of rarity “Female Jealousy” (Lilac EP). Rhinestones’ "Sunlight Feels Like Bee Stings" becomes otherworldly in LEYA’s harp-backed version, while “New Year’s Day”, another standout from Venus In Leo, is mainlined into a folk standard by fellow Melbourne native Laura Jean.

Coby Sey reinvents Leo’s “Mentions”, lending his airy, soulful cadence to lyrics that outline a lack of physical intimacy in the social media age. Regarding the track, the acclaimed British musician adds that he first came across HTRK during the Myspace era, “My love for HTRK's music has existed for a long time.” This may be the case for many. HTRK’s indelible impact on underground music spans far beyond its initial reception. The ripples permeate time in such a way that they have positioned the band as a perfect candidate for the present round of renewed appreciation.

In 2023, sound artist and composer Weston Olencki toured across the American South. Beginning in their hometown in South Carolina, they snaked a circuitous path from the mountains of West Virginia to the banks of the Mississippi River. As the miles accumulated, so did the initial seeds of new work. Instruments and artifacts they acquired hitched a ride in the backseat, while songs and sounds filled their portable recorder: water in its various states, the familiar insectoid buzz of those summer nights, trains cutting through the landscape, the traditional music that lived alongside the communities that kept it. Olencki took it all in, and over time, found ways that these experiences coalesced into a bramble-like perspective of time, where past, present, and future intersect in ways both barbed and beautiful. Broadsides, Olencki’s newest solo full-length is the multilayered result of this journey. The album follows their landmark release Old Time Music from 2022, which presented radical interpretations of traditional tunes from Appalachia and throughout the South alongside original compositions that drew significantly on archival recordings. On Broadsides, Olencki rejects delineations between the unmoored avant-garde and the rootedness of one’s cultural heritage, revealing their porous and intertwined nature. “My mother was a quilter. Her mother before that,” they write in the album’s liner notes. “Quilting, like music, is a practice of embedding knowledge and remembrance into the very core of the thing you are making. It’s not just about the materials, but how they’re reassembled, recontextualized, stitched, woven to form new patterns - the minutiae of craft holding significance to those looking to find it. Stories woven from stories, never told the same way twice.” Like all great road trips, Broadsides unfolds slowly and continuously, with moments of dramatic reverie punctuating the endless melt of highway in the rearview. We’re immediately confronted by the uncanniness of revisiting old haunts, as Southern storms break through the initial churn of the freight locomotives of Alabama. Olencki’s interpretation of the bluegrass standard “Foggy Mountain Breakdown” captures the euphoria of melancholy in motion. The permutational plucks of banjo are bounced around the frame by a computer, its pitches determined within algorithmic sequences and transcriptions of classic three-finger licks. The tonalities of old-time are smeared and stretched until all that’s audible is the insistence that Heaven might be real. In the album’s second half, “Omie Wise,” a murder ballad made famous by Doc Watson, follows an interlude recorded on the river in North Carolina in which the titular character’s body was laid. Ghostly echoes of a dozen other renditions float through the substrata as Tongue Depressor’s Henry Birdsey accompanies them on the pedal steel guitar. The album’s central composition, “all my father’s clocks,” is a profound meditation on entropy and impermanence. The sound of their father’s extensive clock collection ticks away as Olencki pulls a bow across the length of an autoharp sourced from a rural strip mall. The instrument was left as detuned as it was found, the resonance of its deep bass drone and clanging high-end the result of years of neglect and the warping effects of Southern humidity. Historically, broadsides were an early form of broadcasting, an often-musicalized telling of current news pasted in the public square. The name was later taken up by Sis Cunningham and Gordon Friesen in the 1960s, whose Broadside magazine published songs and social commentary when American folk music resurfaced as an urgent way of communicating the multifaceted politics of its time. Olencki borrows the phrase to recall both this old form of songmaking and that later prominent reexamination of traditional music’s role in modern life, but also to draw attention to the fragmented and machine-mediated way heritage is diffused in this very different, but no less pivotal, moment. As a sanitized past is used as justification for current violence and domination, we can turn to these artifacts to better understand the history of ourselves, but only if they are consciously pushed to evolve. Broadsides represents one personal, striking vision of what far-flung futurisms could be respun from these high, lonesome sounds: a reflection of the unbridled joy and deep sorrow inherent to living together through time, and a desire to push further into the untold and unknown.

In October 1987, four months after the release of their critically acclaimed Sister LP, Sonic Youth showcased their latest work in a blistering set at Cabaret Metro, Chicago. The concert was introduced by Big Black's Steve Albini (who at the time was banned from the venue) and subsequently released as a semi-official bootleg under the title Hold That Tiger on writer/provocateur Byron Coley's impishly Geffen-baiting label Goofin' (years later the band would use this nom de guerre for their own imprint). Hold That Tiger's sterling reputation among the Sonic Youth faithful is well deserved. In fact, it isn't a stretch to suggest that the album is to the first handful of SY releases what It's Alive is to the first three Ramones LPs – a feral and liberatory public snapshot of a band's blossoming imperial phase. Indeed, HTT is the sound of a group at the peak of their powers, presenting new songs alongside a handful of older ones with the kind of wild, cathartic enthusiasm common to rock 'n' roll's most revered live albums. Taking nothing away from Sister – inarguably one of indie rock's first true masterpieces – it is reasonable that many fans prefer the live versions heard on Hold That Tiger to their studio counterparts. On HTT, Sonic Youth is a spiky, pummeling and confident force, alternately mammoth and meditative. Sister and its predecessor EVOL notably added an airy, dreamlike reverie to the band's turbulent doom-lurch, a stylistic evolution that seems to crystallize on HTT. Throughout, Kim Gordon's sinewy, sumptuous bass and Steve Shelley's propulsive, tom-heavy percussion provide the bedrock groove for Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo's ferocious barrages of noise-guitar crunch. By 1987, the band was confidently articulating their dual lexicon of punk-noir dissonance and supernal, psychedelic sonic calligraphy – bending their jagged, streetwise gnarl into balloon animals of dazzling and beautiful songs. This collision of splendor and chaos would become a hallmark of the group's singular alchemy as well as provide a blueprint for the post-SST American underground they would help invent and ultimately nurture. Hold That Tiger's encore – four songs by the band's beloved Ramones, which Thurston would later astutely compare to "the perfect pudding after a hearty meal" – serves as a reminder that, like any true punks, Sonic Youth never could resist a good, rousing anthem to send the kids home with their ears ringing, their hearts hot-wired. This first-time reissue comes with gatefold jacket. Mastered by Bob Weston from the orginal tapes. Recorded by Aadam Jacobs. Audio repair/editing by Aaron Mullan.

Luv, pain, the profound, the mundane: nyxy nyx is for the dreamers and true believers. Down the rabbit hole, caught in a snare, the project’s cyclical riffs and self-references blur the lines of time and reality, backing listeners into a deja vu box-trap of uncanny melodies and foggy-eyed double takes.

Known for their temporality, the Philly-based outfit have spent years manipulating their degenerative discography. Tracklistings shift, masters are swapped, and songs re-recorded. In many cases, a release is solely accessible by those with a download or physical copy. For the first time ever, nyxy nyx will commit to contract-backed perpetuity. Cult Classics Vol. 1 is out via Julia’s War records on September 12th, 2025.

Brian Reichert, Tim Jordan (Sun Organ), Benjamin Schurr (Luna Honey), and Alex Ha (ex-Knifeplay) are joined by Madeline Johnston (Midwife) and Josh Meakim (A Sunny Day in Glasgow) for nyxy nyx’s first full-band studio record. Recorded by Dan Angel, Cult Classics Vol. 1 represents the heaviest iteration of nyxy nyx, capturing their sludgy and transcendent live energy–the ideal (re)introduction for heads and new initiates alike.

nyxy nyx began in 2014 as a performance art project between Brian Riechert and Drew Saracco. The duo played noise and underground punk shows, collaborating with countless friends and guest musicians. Home recordings, tapes, and CDs of “nyxy nyx” music have been distributed by labels, but most are DIY: handmade, shared with friends, and found in little libraries. By 2020, nyxy nyx assembled a live band and played consistently, toured the east coast, and then recorded Cult Classics Vol. 1. Every song on this album was performed live, but none played the same twice.

Neo Gibson records, performs, and produces under the alias 7038634357. Their music is characterized by its formal precision, melodic structure, and an idiosyncratic emotional tenor. Up until this point, it has been primarily self-released on small-batch CD-R’s and performed in intimate settings. Synthesized and recorded entirely on their computer, Neo Seven is their first vinyl record, and perhaps their seventh release depending on where you begin amidst their prolific and fluid output. Within a runtime of just over thirty minutes, Neo Seven contains a spare, beautiful, and raw journey through the artist's emotive, psychologically-charged ambient songwriting. The album’s seven tracks bleed into and out of one another, continually forming and deforming between soundscape, song, and silence. The record opens slowly with Winded, as brief intervals of soft noise, nearly indistinguishable from dust breeding on the turntable, gradually become the ground upon which harmonic form is built. As tones subtly shift across regular lulls of sound, one gets the sense they’re traveling amidst a pulsar in deep space. Neo’s heavily-processed melodies, gated regularly by silence, form the heartbeat of the record, creating an expansive field in which an interior, subjective journey takes place. Square Heart utilizes this motif to rhythmic ends, in what surprisingly develops into an achingly tender pop song, albeit one in which Neo’s robotic, heavily vocoded voice is distant, sullen, and mixed low. As each track explores its own interior logic, complex forms emerge out of simple structures, and layers of oscillations commingle and build upon one another. Rhythmic cuts of compressive texture begin to feel like meteors burning up in the atmosphere or hail upon the windshield. The record begins and ends with Neo’s slowly built-up waves of ambient harmony being cut by grating digital noise. On the final track, Perfect Night, beneath the thrashing, a song-form appears nearly inaudibly. Hidden beneath the noise, Neo’s voice bears a clarity and a softness that is revealed only momentarily, when the noise flitters out cinematically toward the end of the track.

An alternative sound born in the gap between digital dancehall and the UK underground’s experimental currents. Active in the mid-to-late 1980s and based in Britain, Reducer narrowly missed signing to On-U Sound and left little behind, yet reportedly had Downwards’ Regis enthralled at the time. A legendary post-punk/industrial reggae band, their long-lost recordings finally surface: a powerful three-track single on Bristol’s leftfield institution Bokeh Versions. Included is the 1986 discomix version of the era-defining riddim “Sleng Teng,” radically reimagined. Built around the Casio MT-40 preset that sparked the digital dancehall revolution, these tracks vividly evoke the atmosphere of sound system culture. Repetitive rhythms and low-end sway merge with a contemporary sensibility, preserving the original innovation while extending it into a more elongated, psychedelic form of ecstasy. An essential update to a monument of the digital revolution—indispensable for all devotees of reggae, dub, and dancehall alike.

2025 repress, gatefold sleeve, gold pantone print, incl. hot foil stamping. Edition of 500 ** After more than two decades, one of experimental noise music's most uncompromising statements returns to vinyl. Mego presents the long-awaited reissue of Kevin Drumm's Sheer Hellish Miasma, first released on CD in 2002 on the original Mego label. This 2LP edition marks the return of a landmark album that has remained a ferocious document of Drumm at his most inventive and unrelenting. The history of Sheer Hellish Miasma is one of resilience to the twists of underground trends that have come and gone since its initial release. Where lesser works have faded into obscurity or been absorbed by the zeitgeist, Drumm's vision has only grown more singular and essential with time. This is not music that seeks to comfort or accommodate - it is an artifact of eternal power that demands confrontation on its own uncompromising terms. Using guitar, tape manipulation, microphones, pedals, analog synthesizers, and subtle computer processing, Sheer Hellish Miasma constructs an overwhelming sonic architecture. This is an album that exists at the intersection of brutal physicality and meticulous composition - a careful orchestration of storming feedback, fractured textures, and unrelenting energy that reveals Drumm's mastery of extreme electronic sound. The album offers a singular vision positioned at the outermost edges of sound art, where conventional musical structures dissolve into pure sonic phenomenon. Each element - from the carefully manipulated guitar feedback to the processed analog textures - contributes to a cohesive statement that transcends the sum of its abrasive parts. For seasoned noise veterans, Sheer Hellish Miasma offers a bracing soundscape filled with exquisitely abrasive textures and hidden details that reward deep, repeated listening. In an increasingly homogenized world of abstract electronic noise, Drumm's work maintains a distinct voice that refuses easy categorization or imitation. For the uninitiated, Drumm's journey through the noisy underworld represents something more challenging - a confrontation with sound pushed to its absolute limits. This is music likely to inspire fear, or in the most optimistic case, a fearful admiration for the composer's uncompromising vision. Sheer Hellish Miasma stands as an abstract noise classic precisely because it refuses the comfortable compromises that allow underground music to be easily absorbed by mainstream culture. This 2LP reissue presents the work in its full, unmediated power - an artifact that has lost none of its capacity to challenge, disturb, and ultimately transform the listener's relationship to sound itself. In an era of endless digital reproduction, the return of Sheer Hellish Miasma to vinyl represents more than mere nostalgia. This is music that demands physical presence, that requires the listener to commit to its durational extremes, and that rewards those willing to submit to its particular form of sonic discipline.

Irrflug are:

Mark Kanak - Concept, sound design, electronics, noise, lyrics

Ian King - Voice

BoBo - Voice

Ella Sturmvogel - Voice

Also featuring:

Blixa Bargeld Voice on “Pulse” and “She lights the earth with her silver”

recorded March 2025 for the “Lügendetektor” sessions

at AndereBaustelle Tonstudio in Berlin by Boris Wilsdorf

Text on “Spirals” taken from WB Yeats “In Memory of Eva Gore-Booth and Con Markievicz”

Text on “She lights the earth with her silver”, Ovid (translation Mark Kanak)

Recorded at Die Höhle, Berlin-Niederschöneweide 2024-2025

Mastered by Ilari Larjasto

Cut by Stefan Mitterer at Manmade Mastering Berlin

Front sleeve painting by Arsi Keva

Painting disobeyed by Tanja Koljonen

Graphic design by Tommi Grönlund

Sähkö Recordings 2025

PUU-61

'noisembryo' definitively presented here on cd with bonus disc noise matrix including unreleased material from the same sessions as noisembryo and counterpart 'hole' and selected recording from the time period.

absolutely can’t be missed for fans of this period of noise deity merzbow. the bonus disc alone makes this essential for any merzbow fanatic as well as new listeners. When people ask where to start with merzbow? this is the answer!

the holy grail, not only of merzbow’s obsessive discography, but of the entire 90’s noise movement. you’ve heard the stories surrounding the infamy of this release, but beyond that stands the depth and wild energy over two decades later that ‘noisembryo’ encapsulates. velocity loops, roving automotive bass and cacophonic drum machine gel together with the surprising inclusion of a sound rarely heard within merzbow’s many years...masami akita’s own voice. akita’s surrealism of the past stands prominently relevant to this day. art images from unseen classic paintings and collages of masami from the original ‘noisembryo’ session.

The original 'noisembryo' on disc one as well as the following tracks included on the 'noise matrix' bonus disc:

1. Noisembryo Extra 01
2. Noise Matrix Extra 01
3. Noise Matrix Extra 02
4. Noise Matrix Extra 03
5. Noise Matrix Extra 04
6. The Amazing Maya H
7. 94526

Track 1: taken from original DAT tape which including ‘noisembryo’ recording on 1994.
Track 2-5: taken from original DAT tape which including ‘noise matrix’ (in ‘hole’) on 1994.
Track 6: a track recorded on 1995 for releasing eskimo compilation.
Track 7: taken from original cassette tape which recorded on 1994 and remixed on 2019.

all music by masami akita
all remastered on 2020 at munemihouse, Tokyo

portion of proceeds go to animal rescue. 

Rosacea sounds as strange and demented as all the previous albums by this Norwegian one-man project (on Feeding Tube and Ultra Eczema). But it sounds right. Just like he claimed in a recent interview about his untraditional approach to writing songs: "I just make stuff until it sounds right". It sounds absolutely right in fact.

As puzzling and lunatic as he may seem, yet a sense of order emanates from the idiosyncrasies featured on this album. Ghédalia Tazartès is a cursory reference. Especially on Carmelade. However, the spectrum of sound and compositions on Rosacea manage to actually transcend the late French eccentric composer and singer.

This is truly unique.

Jessica EKOMANE « Manifolds » Entirely computer-generated, Manifolds is a work that explores the multiple possibilities of polyphonic writing, extending it to the “multiphonic” universe where sources and timbres diffract themselves in the listening space. The different voices of the composition no longer follow the traditional parallel trajectories of musical dialogue, but find themselves propelled as if into a particle accelerator, a “collider” freed from all formal rhetoric to reach a state of liberation of energies that is truly confounding. It is then that, in the multi-layered universe of sonic electrons, as if against its own will, a “chant” of overwhelming humanity is revealed. Laurel HALO « Octavia » (2022) Octavia, a piece for piano and electronics, explores the relationship between melodic motifs and textures in a singular way, intermittent moments of melody, harmony and sound materials connecting and disconnecting, to indicate a series of nets or webs, swaying in and out of one another. These sonic nets gently float, spin and merge, and the effect is one of gently floating over an abyss. The work is inspired by the “spiderweb city” of the same name in Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities: “Below there is nothing for hundreds of feet: a few clouds glide past; further down you can glimpse the chasm’s bed….Suspended over the abyss, the life of Octavia’s inhabitants is less uncertain than in other cities. They know the net will last only so long.” — François J. Bonnet, 2023

Musically, first of all, 1991's second album, "loveless," was more advanced and unexpected than anything else released at the time. Kevin Shields and band thoroughly pursued a sound based on pure sensuality, resulting in a work that overwhelmed the listener's senses. 1990's representative work was hailed as a perfect masterpiece that pushed the possibilities of studio recording to the limit, and has been featured on The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" and It has been hailed as a milestone on par with The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds," Miles Davis' "In A Silent Way," and Stevie Wonder's "Innervisions.

Japanese obi included.
Mastered from 1/2" analog tape using Studer A80 VU-PRE and Neumann VMS 80
180g vinyl weight
Standard gatefold outer sleeve
Six 300 x 300 mm art prints enclosed
Includes DL code (24-bit | 16-bit | mp3)

 

John Hubbard, who is also a book designer and based in Finland, had released the sole recordings of the legendary project “Vogelscheiß Und Seine Verrückten Kröten” in 1989 in a limited edition of just 50 copies on his Strength Through Joy label. Now these rare recordings are re-issued for the first time by Art Into Life. In 1988, upon meeting Steve Stapleton while on vacation in Europe, John then went to Aachen and visited Christoph Heemann & Andreas Martin, and the enigmatic sessions they recorded are revealed here.

45 Pounds is the debut studio album from the exciting noise rock newcomers YHWH Nailgun. Spearheaded by the minute-and-a-half frontal lobe blast of lead single ‘Sickle Walk’, it finds Rich Smith and Zack Borzone laying down dizzying assaults on the senses that sound like math rock being electrocuted. For fans of Death Grips or Black Midi.

Bag of Max Bag of Cass is a joint work from Zach Hill and Lucas Abela. Hill, while primarily known as a founding member of Death Grips, is a titan in music—a visionary drummer, master of velocity and compositional design. Abela’s practice stands alone in the world of free improvisation, forging entire universes literally from shards of amplified glass. These aren’t songs so much as vast, textured fields. Here, noise becomes a sonic environment of focus and intensity. For all its volatility, the music holds an unlikely stillness. Hill’s rhythms refract against Abela’s sustained, splintered overtones, forming a labyrinthine architecture ever ready to ensnare you.

Arriving two years after the first chapter, Absurd Matter 2 isn’t just a sequel, it’s an evolution, redrawing the boundaries established by its acclaimed predecessor. The Berlin-based Italian producer tempers his confrontational sonics with rare moments of introspection, shifting seamlessly between blown-out noise, warped hip-hop, mutant club experimentation, and weightless ambience. Textures disintegrate and reassemble, rhythms flex and crumble, and every detail balances on the edge of fantasy. It’s a poetic, layered response to Nino Pedone’s changing physical reality: the gradual hearing loss and perceptual renegotiation triggered by Ménière’s disease, which struck him in 2022. At first, the experience felt like betrayal, a brutal disconnection from the very sense that had shaped his life. But over time, the disorientation turned into a strange kind of focus. The silence between sounds became as expressive as the sounds themselves.

The first Absurd Matter was a visceral reaction to trauma; the second is more reflective – an ambiguous chronicle of sensory recalibration. Pedone doesn’t represent his altered inner reality through extremes, but through depth, zooming in on illusory distortions, tense rhythmic fluctuations, and fragmented sonics. Dense, immersive, and mystical, the album mirrors Pedone’s evolving relationship with perception itself.

Tinnitus-like feedback wails and noir-ish strings introduce “Repeater”, making it immediately clear that Pedone is painting a more delicately finessed image this time around. Fleshed out by raps from cult MCs billy woods and E L U C I D, the track is marked by subtle, sophisticated contrasts: the blurred, inverted rhythms that couch Armand Hammer’s haunted back-and-forth, and the glitchy interference that offsets the lavish orchestral phrases. Backwoodz associate Fatboi Sharif lends his Lynchian drawl to “Bandage Chipped Wings”, grounding Pedone’s lysergic rhythmic distortions with syrupy, horror-inspired couplets. Pedone also invites discomfort into “Crash Landing”, with droning, metallic tones that contradict South Central rapper ICECOLDBISHOP’s elastic flow. “Bitch, I don't give a fuck about anybody,” he squawks over Pedone’s incongruous rasping textures and time-warped beats, “cash out at any party.” Working alongside London’s Loraine James on production, Pedone reunites with Moor Mother on “I Saw The Light”, blending James’ soft-focus atmospherics with soundsystem-damaging, overdriven bass hits and rusted percussive snips. Moor Mother’s assertive words hover over the wreckage, tightening Pedone’s themes of overstimulation and altered awareness as they stutter and veer off course, vanishing into the backdrop.

Contrasting his more pensive experiments, Pedone’s dancefloor deviations are more concentrated on Absurd Matter 2 than ever before. He torches a stuttering dembow structure on “X”, obfuscating the rhythm’s familiar energy with disturbing audio hallucinations. On “Splintered”, he reunites with Kenyan prodigy Slikback, mangling neon-lit trance arpeggios with dissociated trap rhythms. He sharpens his skills to a fine point on “Oblivion Step”, observing 2-step through a lens of distortion and personal abstraction, shaking blipping synth leads over neck-snapping drums and counteracting the momentum with airless sci-fi soundscapes.

Perhaps the album’s most surprising moment arrives with “Viel”, which features vocals from Los Angeles-based composer Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith. Together, Pedone and Smith chance upon their notion of dub techno, fogging synth stabs and ghostly vocal traces into eerie harmonic distortions. On some level, it’s almost pop music, a far cry from the bleak dissonance of Absurd Matter and a hopeful way to reframe turbulence as transformation.

Absurd Matter 2 doesn’t simply document a process; it enacts one. It doesn’t offer clarity; it invites disorientation. It’s not a map of the labyrinth, but a foghorn piercing the darkness.

“Kachouzu” is a limited-edition lathe-cut release by Merzbow, also known as Masami Akita. It presents the pinnacle of harsh noise, with Merzbow’s signature metallic and extreme sound unfolding throughout. Unlike standard pressed records, the lathe-cut format delivers a uniquely raw sonic texture that further amplifies the intensity and impact of the work.

After years of exploring classical and popular music on the violoncello, as well as delving into contemporary composition and improvisation, Garcia presents IN / OUT, an album that pushes the boundaries of musical convention. Recorded in an underground reservoir in Geneva, this unique project transforms the site’s natural acoustics into an integral part of the compositions.

Through nine meticulously crafted pieces, Garcia blends minimalist contemporary music, dark ambient, and experimental noise. By using expanded cello techniques, microtonality, and alternative tunings, she creates sonic landscapes that evoke the depth and complexity of a multi-cello ensemble. The resonance and reverberation of the cavernous space infuse the album with a haunting, immersive quality, where each sound interacts organically with its environment.

Drawing inspiration from composers like La Monte Young, Eliane Radigue, Jürg Frey, and Arvo Pärt, Garcia integrates elements of sacral minimalism and acoustic experimentation into her work. The result is a project that bridges improvisation and composition, showcasing the cello’s versatility while challenging traditional notions of recording and performance.

Produced in collaboration with Bongo Joe, IN / OUT stands as a testament to Garcia’s innovative vision and her ability to transform unconventional ideas into deeply evocative musical experiences. This album invites listeners to step into an auditory world where instrument, space, and artistry converge in profound harmony. 

CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER charts a new period of exploration and discovery for Alexander Tucker both as musician and producer. After discarding a year’s worth of material, Tucker sought the advice of Downwards Records label boss Karl O’Connor aka Regis who advised him on production techniques and approach. Along with further support form Freddy Lomas of Kinn and Emptyset’s James Ginzburg, Tucker got to work on a new set of material with a heightened sense of clarity and density. Tucker explains “Making this album really tested me, it was the outcome of a long period of hard lessons and harsh realities, but I had some good friends to guide me along the way and pull me out of the mire.”

At the core of MICROCORPS is Tucker’s complex modular systems, knitted into the tracks are triggered samples of his own cello and bass guitar playing, which meld into the electronic fabric of each track. Tucker expands “I wanted the album to sit somewhere between machine technology with something primitive, where synthetic and acoustic sources become intertwined. I like the idea of different dimensions phasing in and out of one another, creating new areas where I can explore sound, structures and imaginary spaces”

These imaginary spaces play a key role in the construction of CLEAR VORTEX CHAMBER. Tucker’s background in fine art and his current work with experimental comics bleeds into the unspoken landscapes of his music. “I want to trigger parts of the brain that can dream up imagery whilst at the same time focus of the sonic structure of the music itself, I guess I’m still obsessed with trying to create some sort of psychoactive environment” The architecture of each track presents itself in the form of massive kicks, sonar clicks and kinetic percussive rhythms, supported by pulsing bass drones. Cello and bass guitar samples initially bowed, plucked and hit by mallets are triggered creating dense wooden timbres that punctuate the electronic field. Voices and vocals both treated and untreated weave throughout the album in the form of cryptic dialogues and unspooling wordless singing, adding to the cross pollination of something human, machine and a space in-between.

Collaboration is a key element to MICROCORPS. Justin K Broadrick’s heavy spidery guitar lines and processed screaming rip wormholes in ‘FEDBCK’, Regis lends his distinct vocal work to ‘ZONA’, Japanese artist Phew injects organ drones, vocals and fried electronics throughout ‘SANSU’. On penultimate track ‘FEBCK 2’, Karl D’Silva’s droning saxophone joins Broadrick’s feed backing guitar noise and improvising lyricist, producer and sound artist Elvin Brandhi spits out cut up diatribes across final track ‘MALLETS’. Throughout the album Tucker’s own processed voice sits alongside singer JJOWDY’s eerily gentle laments

Salty club dogs Beau Wanzer, Lukid & Tapes agitate each to stuttering 2-step, juke and rave noise extents on a frazzled session for TTT

The five trax of ‘Borez’ see all three flock around mutual poles of briny electronics and nervily restless rhythm programming within a framework of shattered but sharply effective club music. The gibber-jawed juke garage of ‘Point of Some Return’ pitches them into diciest wormholes of teeth-chatter 2-step, next to the dry-humped slam and almost Drexciyan lines of distorted, scudding, coruscating leads to ‘Rubber Eater’ on its 7’ arc to lusher resolution.

‘Darnell Can’t Polish a Turd’ pulls focus to sourest, piquant frequencies and bolshy bass blasts in a sorta bucking roll cage like Somatic Responses gone happy hardcore, and ‘Xylone Xylophone’ follows down that metallic wormhole like Evelyn Glennie on a mazza to the fizzy machine funk of ‘Lomp’.