MUSIC

"The phenomenon of the sound and music created here is very mysterious. These pieces of music, created without any intention of being published, reached my ears without warning. Of course, this happened because I have lived a life devoted to a certain kind of music, but there is a chance I would never have listened to them in my life. But, they came to me. Now they play over and over in my listening space - blending into the air that surrounds me. Vibrating. It is as if they had always been there from a long time ago." Chee Shimizu (Organic Music, Japan)

Concocted in a share house in the South of Brisbane in the mid-80s, a small collective of well-acquainted musicians including Jon Anderson, Rainer Guth, Gary McFeat & Rod Owen gathered to compose film soundtracks, music for pictures, therefore ‘Picture Music’. To this end, a ‘spec’ tape of Picture Music recordings would be produced to give to potential clients and or sold to local stores. A distinct album comprising a collection of ambient, minimal-jazz and experimental music. If there is a red thread running through the Picture Music album, it is its "late night" ambience. The wrath of the sub-tropical summer heat of Brisbane is not kind on electronic equipment, which would crash regularly by day. So, all recording was done in the relative cool of the late evening, in a room only dimly lit by lamp and candle. The Picture Music collective would make music and party all through the night, departing around sunrise. They would sleep through the heat of the day, only to return in the evening for more of the same. This 2021 reissue of their self-titled 1987 cassette, was taken from the original master tapes and remains an evocative representation of the music that resulted from the late-night, dimly-lit, atmospheric-enabled environment, that sparked the creativity of a group of like-minded friends in a tiny corner of Brisbane. Dedicated to the memory Rainer Guth.

Properly transcendent deep-dream jazz fantasy from prolific trumpet virtuoso Arve Henriksen (Supersilent) and Norwegian pianist Kjetil Husebø, together shaping an album that’s much, much more than the not so inconsiderable sum of its parts. Like a fever-dream comedown, it takes us from insanely rich sounding 4th world topographies to fizzing, electric ambience and fluttering prepared piano, perfectly soundtracking the humid un-reality we’re living through. If you’re into Jon Hassell, Miles Davis, Don Cherry/Codona, David Sylvian - read on. We’ve been snagged on Henriksen’s work since his ‘Chiaroscuro' album appeared back in 2004 - it’s 'Opening Image’ often cited here as basically the last word in cinematic framing. But It's his work alongside Helge Sten (Deathprod) and Ståle Storløkken in Supersilent that’s perhaps thrown us furthest down the Henriksen rabit hole in the years since, his distinctive shakuhachi-style playing often accenting their finest recordings. 'Sequential Stream' is Henriksen’s first collaboration with pianist Kjetil Husebø, the pair assembling the album remotely from their respective studios in Gothenburg, Sweden and Oslo, Norway over the course of 2019 and 2020. Henriksen plays Trumpet alongside synths, various electronics and - on ‘Single Sentence’ - a striking vocal delivery that eschews his usual wordless/soprano in favour of a more dense Tenor. Husebø plays grand piano, synths and samplers, and veers from cascading to more abstracted styles as the album progresses. In one sense the album functions in a traditional mode of Jazz reflection, aided considerably by a beautifully pristine recording and subsequent mastering by Helge Sten. Every note skips and shimmers with abundant clarity and depth - like the most affecting Jazz, played on the most luxurious systems; it just sounds rich and impossibly clear on even the most modest setup. At the same time, the pair’s avant garde instincts gradually make an indelible mark - be it through the prepared piano backbone on the remarkable 'Slow Fragments’ or the percolating, Conjoint-esque electronics on 'Sonic Binoculars’, piping in atmospheric depth and disjointed detail like some seismic event rippling through the ocean. Not usually drawn to the Jazz orthodoxy, 'Sequential Stream' presents us with something of a paradox - it feels like Henriksen’s most approachable work in years, but also his most complex and multi-faceted. If you’re looking for a late night soundtrack to the most celluloid moments of your life - it works on that level. Dig a little deeper, and you’ll discover much more ambiguous, subterranean delights.

The renowned trio of Keiji Haino, Jim O’Rourke and Oren Ambarchi return to Black Truffle with their 11th release, “Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” Demonstrating once again their commitment to continual experimentation in instrumentation and approach, the record begins with a long-distance collaboration made in response to a commission from New York’s Issue Project Room in 2021 during widespread lockdowns and travel limitations. A unique piece in the trio’s extensive body of work, this side-long epic finds Haino performing on metal percussion, O’Rourke on electronics and Ambarchi on gongs and bells. Initially dominated by rapid patterns on resonant, high-pitched tuned percussion, the piece sets Haino’s dynamic and dramatic performance against a calm backdrop of cycling electronics, thrumming gong strikes and hanging bell tones. The performance develops a heightened, intensely concentrated atmosphere reminiscent of Haino’s classic Tenshi No Ginjinka or his Nijiumu project; when Haino moves to clashing hand cymbals in its second half, the piece’s ritualistic energy suggests aspects of the music of Tibetan Buddhism. The remainder of the double LP documents the trio live at Tokyo’s SuperDeluxe (the location of all but their very first recording) in a wide-ranging set recorded in December 2017. The concert opens, in another first for the trio, with Haino on drums, O’Rourke on Hammond organ and Ambarchi on his signature Leslie cabinet guitar tones. Haino’s explosively untutored approach to the drumkit will be familiar to some listeners from the radical duo iteration of Fushitsusha heard on Origin’s Hesitation. Setting flurries of rapid activity against moments of silence, his drumming here at times suggests Milford Graves in its tumbling toms and thudding kick-drum propulsion. Accompanied by O’Rourke’s organ and Ambarchi’s guitar, which in their shared use of long tones and shifting modulation speeds almost blend into a single voice, the opening sections of this performance are some of the most magical music the trio has committed to tape thus far. After an interlude of spoken vocals in both Japanese and English, Haino makes a dramatic entrance on guitar. Against O’Rourke and Ambarchi’s increasingly intense electronic backdrop, Haino unleashes a stunning passage of slowly moving chromatic melodies and sudden shrieking explosions bathed in distortion and reverb. By the time we reach the third side, the guitar/bass/drums power trio is established and lurches into a passage of massive, lumbering rock that threatens to fall apart at every beat, O’Rourke’s strummed chordal work on six string bass creating a harmonic density equivalent to a second guitar. An abrupt edit throws the listener in media res into a frantic locked groove grounded by fuzzed out bass patterns and caveman drums. As Haino moves through a variety of approaches, from massive edifices of stuttering fuzz to ominous swarms of feedback, the trio eventually stumble into a kind of Harmolodic military tattoo, Haino’s guitar weaving and slashing across the rhythm section’s irregular accents. Moving through an epic opening duet for O’Rourke on Hammond and Haino’s wailing guitar, the fourth side eventually ramps up into a frenetic finale of mad bass riffing, crackling snare hits and guitar squall.“Caught in the dilemma of being made to choose” This makes the modesty which should never been closed off itself Continue to ask itself: “Ready or not?” is a testament to the continuing power and invention of this trio, who continue to seek out new terrain after over a decade working together. 2LP set presented in a lavish gatefold sleeve on heavy stock along with inner sleeves containing live pics by Tsuyoshi Kamaike. Photography by Jim O’Rourke, design by Lasse Marhaug and translation by Alan Cummings.

Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. INFO is pleased to announce Night Run, the first collection of early sound works of Kristin Oppenheim. This 2LP release features eight pieces recorded between 1992 and 1995 in her Brooklyn studio. In each recording, Oppenheim’s voice is the sole medium, forming repetitious phrases half-sung and half-spoken to compose disciplined but haunting environments that drift back and forth, panning across the stereo field. Over the last three decades, Kristin Oppenheim has composed vocal works not as a musician, but as an artist working in gallery and museum contexts. These immersive sound installations saturate space, touching on fragmented memory that blurs the lines between reality and abstraction. Oppenheim uses the physicality of sound to underscore the emotional tension between the absence and presence of her voice. Kristin Oppenheim is an American artist who lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. She is best known for installation art based in writing, performance, film, and sound. She is represented by greengrassi in London and 303 Gallery in New York. Since the early 1990s, Oppenheim’s work has been exhibited internationally. Her work has been featured in numerous group exhibitions including the 45th and 46th Venice Biennale, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Among others, She has had solo exhibitions at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva; at Secession, Vienna; KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki; at FRAC Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; the Oboro, Montréal; the Jewish Museum, New York; and at the Villa Arson, Nice. Her work has also been seen in exhibitions including “X”, at FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou (2021); “Sound Museum” at D MUSEUM, Seoul (2020); “H(a)unting images. Anatomy of a shot” at Fundación la Caixa, Barcelona (2017); “Never Ending Stories” at MAMCO Musée d’Art Modern et Contemporain, Geneva (2014); “The International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Cartagena de Indias”, (2014); “Where Did You Sleep Last Night”, ‘Nuit Blanche’, in Paris (2013); “NYC 1993: Experimental, Jet, Set Trash and No Star” at New Museum, New York (2013); “Women Artists from the Centre Pompidou” at Seattle Art Museum, (2012); “Volume” at MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (2011); “Silence. Listen to the Show” at Sandretto Foundation, Turin (2007); “Don’t Call it Performance” at Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (2003); “Voices” at Witte de With, Rotterdam (1998); “Young and Restless” at Museum of Modern Art, New York (1997); “29’ – 0 / East” at New York Kunstahalle (1996); “Threshold” at Fundacao de Serralves, Porto (1995); “Murs du son” at Villa Arson, Nice (1995); and “Encounters with Diversity” at PS1 MOMA, New York (1992). Kristin Oppenheim’s work is included in public collections of the Art Foundation Mallorca Collection, CCA-Andratx in Mallorca; the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the FNAC Centre National des Arts Plastiques, Paris; the FRAC Des Pays de la Loire, Carquefou; MACBA Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona; MAMCO Museum d’art Moderne et Contemporain, Geneva; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, in New York. INFO is a label and interdisciplinary platform highlighting unique applications of sound in the field of contemporary art. Kristin Oppenheim artist page portrait courtesy of the artist, greengrassi, and 303 Gallery, 1985.

Carlos Niño & Friends, who are familiar with our store as a signboard act of , which is a major sacred place of the LA underground presided over by Matthewdavid. A compilation of sound sources from previously analog-released works, compiled into a cassette, to create a best-of cassette-like work. The title "Assortment for Susan's" is dedicated to their dear friend and collaborator Justin Hansin. A total of 4 tracks of ultra-high-quality new age and contemporary jazz, including sound sources with the participation of gorgeous people such as Laraaji and Ariel Karma! Limited to 200 copies.

‘América Invertida’ is a fascinating survey of Uruguay’s lesser-covered ‘80s endeavours in new wave pop, jazz-fusion, ambient folk and electronics, compiled by Spanish DJ and collector Javi Bayo

So, hands up who knows about music from South America’s 2nd smallest nation? Aye, just like us, Uruguay’s music scene is a bit of mystery to all but an ardent set of diggers who’ve been mining its fine seams of cult records, often produced by the same handful of artists out of the capital city, Montevideo, and pressed in tiny runs at the time. For anyone interested, ‘América Invertida’ rectifies the issue with 11 charmingly sweet examples that patently echo the styles of Uruguay’s bigger neighbours, Brazil and Argentina, but with their own sense of breezy flair that’s neatly distilled in this compilation.

To play favourites, we’re instantly struck by the shimmering FM synth blush and suave bossa-fusion shuffle of ‘Y El Tiempo Pasa’ and ‘Kabumba’ by Hugo Jasa, while the likes of Contraviento and Travesia supply seductive bits of bucolic, pastoral psych folk and we can almost primacy you won’t be shifting the ohrwurms of Eduardo Mateo’s burbling Candombe rhythms in ‘El Chi-Li-Ban-Dan’ any time soon once bitten.

"Feelings was written and produced by Ekin Fil amidst the months of anxious tension that 2020 laid upon us, taking around 1 year to manifest in its final form. Yet underneath the opaque veneer of swooning drones, timeworn chords and verbal lamentations, glimpses of sanguinity and optimism flicker through the fabric of the work, mirroring the perpetual state of uncertainty and isolation we collectively faced that year, suspended between months of dissolute ambivalence and minute, optimistic spurs."

Emerging from a live recording at St.Mary's Episcopal Cathedral in 2021, Alliyah Enyo’s ‘Echo’s Disintegration’ is a transformational project; a coded reflection on loss, metamorphosis and rebirth. It’s a work of two parts, each incarnation informed by the parameters of the recording environment. In the initial live performance, Alliyah harnesses the organic echo and reverb formed by the vast open space of the cathedral. Her luminous vocals break through a dense sea of layered noise, a reverberating wailing drenched in heartache. Her words are fractured and frayed, broken into segments, and enshrouded in mysticism. Yet through the ambiguity, there’s an innate spirituality to the work; iridescent melodies are heightened by the imposing presence of the surroundings. The five studio tracks, made in retrospect, carry the live performance within the DNA of their reinterpreted sounds and loops. Recorded in Glasgow’s renowned Green Door Studio, constructed reel-to-reel tape loops further fragment and transform compositions, evoking the intoxicating tape feedback of Eliane Raidgue and the harrowing loops of William Basinski. There’s a radiant clarity to the recordings, Alliyah’s voice implemented as the guiding instrument, the heady sensuality of her vocals layered and echoed in enchanting formation. Through the agony and longing, we reach reincarnation in the culminating euphoria of ‘the healer’. We’re left amongst the blissful reverberations of an awakened soul.

Here's a great one. This is from Death Is Not The End, a great place for digging up antique music from all over the world, from pre-war blues to immigrant music and South American folklore. It's also a great place to dig for antique music from all over the world. This Japanese project follows on the heels of Katsutaro Kouta, which was released in 2018 and was very popular in our store, and contains haunting and unique sounds that show how cultural fusion with the West was beginning to be reflected in popular songs before the influence of Western pop music during the post-war American occupation. This is a work that every Japanese should be exposed to at least once.

Here's a great one. This is from Death Is Not The End, a great place for digging up antique music from all over the world, from pre-war blues to immigrant music and South American folklore. It's also a great place to dig for antique music from all over the world. This Japanese project follows on the heels of Katsutaro Kouta, which was released in 2018 and was very popular in our store, and contains haunting and unique sounds that show how cultural fusion with the West was beginning to be reflected in popular songs before the influence of Western pop music during the post-war American occupation. This is a work that every Japanese should be exposed to at least once.

Gondwana Records and Portico Quartet announce a strictly limited edition collectors-item Featuring an expanded version of their long-form composition Terrain and re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble and recorded live in Studio One Terrain (Extended) features an expanded version of the composition re-arranged for the Portico Quartet Ensemble – a subtle re-configuration of the band that features a string quartet - and which allowed for the composition's deeper textures and resonances to be fully explored, along the way expanding the dialogue between tranquillity and a subtly unsettling melancholy, that makes Terrain such a beautiful, powerful piece. 9th November 2021 was a very special session. The band (who had first recorded at Abbey Road for their second album Isla back in 2009), brought long-term collaborator, recording and mix engineer, Greg Freeman over from Berlin to work with Abbey Road’s Chris Bolster and the resulting concert film Terrain (Extended) - Live in Studio One An Abbey Road 90th Session received it’s world premiere broadcast on the Gondwana Youtube channel on Thursday 20th October. Now Gondwana Records is super proud to announce the ultimate collector’s edition of this special recording. Limited to just 1500 individually numbered and stamped LPs and 1000 CDs. Recorded live at Abbey Road Studio One. Mixed in Berlin by the band’s longterm collaborator Greg Freeman. Audio mastered by John Davis at Metropolis Studios. Vinyl cut by John Davis at Metropolis Studios Available only on beautiful transparent clear two disc vinyl pressed at Optimal in Germany or on limited edition CD or digital download LP and CD are presented in an uncoated gatefold sleeve printed in Pantone Cool Gray 4 with release details sticker. In addition, the LP features a 12 page booklet with a half front page and translucent paper overlay, glued into a gatefold and the CD features 12-page booklet, glued into a gatefold. Designed by veil projects. Each LP and CD are hand stamped and the LP comes packed in reusable 'Japanese style’ polyprop sleeves - with sealable flap - for protection

In 2019, American conceptual artist John Duncan and Swedish noise/future techno duo Saturn and the Sun made a trip to Porto, Portugal for a concert weekend set up by the Materia Prima crew in town. During the gig at the Teatro Rivoli, the artists found that their music touched a lot of common ground. They spoke about recording together. Years later, that was done and the result is this futuristic, raw, rather primitive and psychedelic thing consisting of shortwave radio, no input mixing desk feedback, analogue synths and effects. Joachim Nordwall mixed it at the Gothenburg Sound Experiment and Philip Marshall gave it its iDEAL234 personality! Deep stuff, perfect for driving your car fast in a darkened tunnel with your lights off. JOHN DUNCAN has operated for decades at the cutting edge of performance, video, experimental music, installation, pirate radio and television. He has played a pivotal role in the development of performance art in Los Angeles, of experimental music as a member of LAFMS, of Japanese noise and pirate radio in Tokyo. SATURN AND THE SUN is Henrik Rylander and Joachim Nordwall and they have collaborated since 2005 creating ritual rock music as The Skull Defekts and circular electronic music and noise as Saturn and the Sun since 2015 and with their latest album, tastefully entitled ”The New Age Is Shit”, they have found their place as the link between Robert Hood, Pan Sonic and avant garde noise.

Based in the Brazilian capital of São Paulo, the TORMENTA collective has long offered an alternative vision of the city's rich and colorful musical heritage. Operating as an ongoing series of DIY parties, creative agency and record label, TORMENTA has welcomed challenging sounds into São Paulo and released music from a cross section of Brazilian artists, including Fkoff1963, 177th & Digestivo. Their musical output is unrestrained: pop edits and unhinged hard dance rubs against errated heavy metal and lifted ambient drone. Anything's possible, as long as there's a social conscience and a middle finger to expectation. In 2019, TORMENTA put together a short film for the online edition of Nyege Nyege Festival. Since the crew is made up of obsessive horror movie fans, the direction was clear. "O Som do Labirinto" (The Labyrinth's Sound), is a terrifying and psychedelic audiovisual experience that's centered around a journalist attempting to examine a series of mysterious gatherings. Casting a side-eye to VICE's notorious series of fish out of water documentaries, the film drags its protagonist to hell through a series of grueling mental trials, all accompanied by TORMENTA's bloody toolbox of tortuous sounds. This full-length soundtrack finds the collective exposing their deep horror movie knowledge and finally flexing their film score muscle. The crew's ragged club DNA is still present, but mainlined into a Frankenstein's monster of John Carpenter synths, haunted piano loops and gruesome Lustmord-esque dark ambient drones. Alada's 'Running' straps a familiar hoover bass to bloodcurdling low-end rumbles and sparse, propulsive kicks; MTMA's 'O Pesadelo' sounds like broken clocks and music boxes at the "Evil Dead" cabin; 177th's 'Together' is a nightmarish beatless rave anthem that's like Lorenzo Senni on a bad trip; and Bruxax's 'Scream' is a full-on sludge metal freak-out that could sit alongside a Rob Zombie movie. The "O Som Do Labirinto OST" is Brazilian experimental club music in corpse paint holding a jack-o-lantern and weilding a bloody knife. Be afraid.

Over the 23 years since Loren Connors’ Airs was first published, it has drawn a thick circle of fans. Gently recorded to cassette tape in 1999, (with wonderfully subtle multi-tracking), Airs is comprised of a series of brief electronic guitar poems. Intimately composed with the patience and purposeful hesitation we have reverently come to expect from Connors. Lyrical melodies recur in different forms throughout the LP, as shifting figures in a dream. Shadowy and sunken, the tone evokes an overcast seascape. The album feels singular; woven along as one flowing piece. 

Airs is perhaps the most approachable and beautiful in all of Connors’ catalog, seducing strangers and familiars just the same. Forlorn wonderment; a human quality that makes this such an enchanting record. It is the humble simplicity and the directness of the guitar inflection that conveys such truth. The stark grace of Connors’ playing resonates here for all to embrace.

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

Available on vinyl for the very first time: “The Trance Of Seven Colors” by master Gnawa musician MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA and free jazz legend PHAROAH SANDERS. Produced by BILL LASWELL and according to The Attic “one of the most important albums of Gnawa trance music released in the ‘90s”. 

Originally released in 1994 on BILL LASWELL’s AXIOM imprint, “The Trance Of Seven Colors” is the meeting of two true musical masters: MALEEM MAHMOUD GHANIA (1951 – 2015), son of the master of Gnawa music MALEEM BOUBKER GHANIA and the famous clairvoyant and "moqaddema" A'ISHA QABRAL, and a master of the traditional Gnawa style in his own right. MAHMOUD learned this craft as a youth along with his brothers, walking from village to village, performing ceremonies with his father BOUBKER and was one of the few masters (Maleem) who continued to practice the Gnawa tradition strictly for healing (the central ritual of the Gnawa is the trance music ceremony – with the purpose of healing or purification of the participants). With 30 cassette releases of music from the Gnawa repertoire with his own ensemble and performances at every major festival in Morocco, including performing for the King in various contexts, MAHMOUD GHANIA was also one of Morocco's most prominent professional musicians. 
In 1994, BILL LASWELL and PHAROAH SANDERS went to Mocrocco, equipped with just some mobile recording devices, to record GHANIA and a large ensemble of musicians (to a good part family members) in a very intimate set up at a private house with the legendary free jazz musician contributing his distinctive tenor saxophone sounds that gained him highest praise as a truely spiritual soul right from the days of playing with JOHN COLTRANE and his wife ALICE and on seminal solo albums like „Karma“. 
The aptly titled „The Trance of Seven Colors“ ranks among the best Gnawa recordings ever released , made it onto the list of “10 incredible percussive albums from around the world” by Thevinylfactory.com and is 25 years after its original CD release on finally available on vinyl! 

Yokobue (transverse flute) player Michiko Akao's 1983 release "Yokobue: The World of Michiko Akao" is being reissued for the first time! Produced with Shigeaki Saegusa as composer and arranger, this is a new age work that goes far beyond the realm of pure Japanese music. This is a definite recommendation for listeners who are following the current new age/ambient music.

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

Marking the 20th release on Invisible, Inc. is this special limited edition double-vinyl gatefold compilation featuring tracks from some of the most highly respected musicians of the last five decades. The astonishingly diverse palette of styles comes courtesy of renowned ambient innnovator Laraaji, multi-Grammy Award-winning producer and ground-breaking synthesist and sound engineer Malcolm Cecil (in his Tonto's Expanding Head Band guise), Italian 'Cosmic Disco' pioneer and DJ Daniele Baldelli, avantgarde experimentalist K. Leimer, New York electro synth-pop legend Richard Bone (all five of whom have been active since the '70s or earlier) as well as dub techno locked groove aficionados log(m), West Coast psychedelic electronics maestro Secret Circuit, Berlin-based synthesist/composer Eva Geist plus a veritable "who's who" of some of the finest producers of ambient, dub, downtempo, leftfield and experimental electronica ever collected together on a single piece of wax (or two in this case): Baikonour, Sordid Sound System, Causa, Ulysses, Epsilove, Luv*Jam, Higamos Hogamos, Randweg, Bronze Savage, Komodo Kolektif, Bal5000 and Natural Sugars. Eliciting a distinct sense of musical other-worldlyness, the title is perhaps more than just a nod to Philip K Dick's "Blade Runner" and hints at the idea that if these transmissions 'from beyond' are 'lost' they may in essence be more rooted in our distant past than in some science fiction future. Putting needle to record, ancient rhythms and hypnotic mantras merge with synthesized soundscapes and deep basslines to propel us upward from the primeval forest floor into steady orbit before engaging the hyperspace drive on a trajectory deep into the Great Mystery.

You will be swallowed by the beauty, depth, and sharpness of the "over there" side. Kali Malone, a female minimalist living in Stockholm, Sweden, who is familiar with our big and big bestseller "The Sacrificial Code" and produces extremely excellent drone / experimental works from the depths of the current underground such as and The extremely rare debut work left in 2017 is jointly reissued by and ! The original was privately pressed as a numbered record with only a limited number of 100 copies, and it is a very popular work that has also added over $300 in the marketplace, and it is a miracle reprint! Works composed, recorded and produced in Stockholm from 2015 to 2016. R1 Reaktorhallen (Sweden's first nuclear reactor), electroacoustic studio EMS, and a unique hardcore minimalist made with strings, gongs, lutes, electronics, tape, etc. at various locations such as the Royal College of Music in Stockholm. / Noise Drone Masterpiece! Limited to 1000 copies.

Bruno De Angelis and Giovanna Gulinello unwittingly met in London in the late 70’s, after being introduced by a mutual friend. Both Bruno and Giovanna arrived with varying ambitions. Giovanna wanted to learn English or be a painter, while Bruno found work at the Royal Post Office, which he found testing. It wasn’t until Bruno rescued Giovanna from an awkward date that the pair became a couple. At the time, music was just something they did for fun. Bruno already had an acoustic guitar and G bought a bass. Those were the days when you could start a new band, whether you could play or not, and new independent labels were springing up. Rough Trade Records was literally around the corner. In 1981 the pair moved back to Italy and found an apartment in Rome. It’s here that they began to focus on their music and where they started ‘recording’ their tracks. First, they would record the rhythm, maybe add the Gigster (the name of their “cheap drum machine”), the bass, and then, as they made a copy of the first cassette onto a second cassette they would add guitar, more synth, or both at the same time. After that, it was not unusual to copy from the second cassette back into the first cassette adding even more “stuff”. As with many artists during the early 80’s, the Influenza Prods’ sound was the direct result of the accessibility of emerging electronic instruments and the recording equipment available to them. The duo was resourceful and inventive, acquiring new equipment as resources allowed. They recorded dialogue from British Soap Operas on their TV set, which were later added to their tracks, while further making use of their family’s cutlery sets, which were used to fill in certain percussion sections The duo’s homespun recordings found a web of admirers in the unofficial distribution of tape trading and mail-art scenes. Despite the DIY ethos and the fact that most tapes were handmade, the Influenza Prods managed to ‘release’ three tapes which comprised of the Greatest Tits (1983), Cheek-A-Bomba (1984) and Quasi Solo (1985). Bruno and Giovanna were sadly subjected to serious family problems, including the loss of loved ones in their lives and eventually parted ways, concluding the Influenza Prods. However, to this day they remain close friends who keep in touch regularly.

Sam Gendel and Antonia Cytrynowicz didn’t set out to make a record – it just happened. LIVE A LITTLE, a collection of songs resulting from one late summer afternoon in Gendel’s Los Angeles home, is less an album and more a moment. The ten tracks here were recorded mostly in one sitting, fully improvised, in the order in which they appear. It was the first and last time the songs have been played – a snapshot of an idea, an artifact of inspiration, at once both a beginning and an end. At the time of recording, Cytrynowicz was only eleven years old. The younger sister of Gendel’s significant other and creative partner Marcella, Cytrynowicz is an artist in her own way. She has no formal musical training, but is the product of a creative family and is someone who makes art the way many kids do – in the purest way, simply because they are moved to. On LIVE A LITTLE, she spontaneously crafted all the melodies and lyrics on the spot as Gendel played alongside her. Cytrynowicz’s musicality is sophisticated, strange, and other-worldly, and the resulting record is experimental jazz colliding with some sort of fantasy universe. Because of that, LIVE A LITTLE is a stand-out amidst Gendel’s extensive and varied catalog. Over the years, the multi-instrumentalist has been known for his prolific musical output as both a sought-after collaborator and as a solo artist. During 2021 alone he collaborated with Vampire Weekend, Maggie Rogers, Moses Sumney, Laurie Anderson, and Mach Hommy, as well as released Notes With Attachments with Blake Mills & legendary bassist Pino Palladino. In the same year he also released the 52-track Fresh Bread, as well as the follow-up to the acclaimed Music for Saxophone & Bass Guitar with Sam Wilkes. Then Mouthfeel / Serene, AE-30, Valley Fever Original Score, and singles “Isfahan” and “Neon Blue.” LIVE A LITTLE, though, exists on its own island. For one, the majority of Gendel’s work under his own name skews instrumental, but here the playfulness of his saxophone and nylon-string guitar work alongside the twinkle of Cytrynowicz’s voice. It’s the sound of unapologetic imagination running amok – and really, more than anything, the sound of having fun. Cytrynowicz is the ideal collaborator for Gendel, who throughout his career has remained largely unconcerned with the pageantry and presentation of the music business, instead focused solely on the music-making itself. Here, he found the purest sort of writing partner – he admires Cytrynowicz’ “supreme openness,” explaining: “Whatever is happening, she’s there with you. We really meet right where we are. She’s all ears, I’m all ears. I don’t even know how to explain what it is. It just works out somehow.” Gendel remembers first being impressed by her musicality one day while they were gathered in the backyard at her family’s home; she improvised a strange and fully-formed little composition. The melody struck Gendel - he pulled out his iPhone and had her sing into it, then later orchestrated an ornate, fully fleshed out world around the voice memo. It came easily and simply. The subsequent LIVE A LITTLE session unfolded naturally, too – no discussion, no plan, no ambition – just “let it rip.” They started when it felt right and ended when it felt finished, once the flow of ideas dissipated. Then they put it away without discussion and moved on to the next activity. For a week afterward, Gendel tinkered with the live recording, adding a part or three on top of the initial session, sculpting it into its final product; a moment of raw creativity condensed into a polished little stone. Then he brought it back to Cytrynowicz, who hadn’t heard it since that summer afternoon, and was floored by hearing what they had created. LIVE A LITTLE is a series of “what ifs” cascading into one another, off-kilter and experimental, a kaleidoscope of spontaneity and imagination. It’s a sweet distillation of the musical present, of daring to follow through on an impulse – what happens when a project is helmed by someone who doesn’t have time for second thoughts or self-doubt. “That’s why she and I can make music I think, because I don’t think I ever deviated from that approach - or at least, I hope I didn’t,” Gendel says. “I really think that’s the best way that works for me musically – that ‘no mind’ sort of thing.” And here they both decisively follow that intuition, chronicling the way an idea blossoms and moves through you. The moment is the thing, and LIVE A LITTLE just happens to capture it.

Discrepant introduces a new series of albums based on the concept of "aquapelago", with gooey compositions from Andrew Pekler, Sugai Ken, Mike Cooper, Yannick Dauby and others. What is it about water that makes it so inspiring for experimental musicians? Discrepant's new series of albums promises to expand on a concept that imagines a deep underwater world. So it makes perfect sense that Japanese composer Sugai Ken - who impressed with 2020's slippery "Tone River" - should start things off with the unsettling 'Boundary', a spoken word piece in English and Japanese leading into Andrew Pekler's predictably balmy 'Shima No Yume', that sounds like being underwater and marooned on a desert island simultaneously. Brussels-based Mexican sound artist Vica Pacheco takes a different approach, splicing together environmental recordings and juxtaposing them with half-speed, haunted brass that sounds as if it's been recorded in an empty swimming pool. Mike Cooper swerves any obvious signals completely, preferring to create a secluded paradise on 'Lamma Island' with gusty field recordings and beachy guitar harmonics. Italian duo Babau bolt together one of our favorite tracks, using idiophones to create a shimmering backdrop that harmonizes with Visible Cloaks' cult "Fairlights, Mallets And Bamboo" mixes.